Motion Picture Commission : hearings before the Committee on Education, House of Representatives, Sixty-third Congress, second session, on bills to establish a Federal Motion Picture Commission (1978)

32 MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. the board of censorship. Now, such a law as that may be open to the charge which Mayor Gaynor brought against it. But in this bill you leave out one of the things that protects against that. The Senate bill is all right, but in this bill you have left out the little thing which guards against that. The bill, as I would advocate it, does not prevent the exhibition here in the District of Columbia or in the Territories of uncensored motion pictures, except in licensed places. If you want to take a motion picture of your family, and you want to take it out and show it to your friends, and do not want to come to Washington and get it censored or do not want to go to your State board of censorship, there is nothing in this bill that would prevent that. That would be an infringement upon the freedom of the press. This simply says that if, after you have made yom- motion picture in your own home and you want to show it in a licensed place of amusement for pay. then you must get the approval of the board of censorship. That point is made clear in this bill. There is a pro- vision in this bill that a picture shall not be carried from State to State unless it is censored, which comes under the power to regulate interstate commerce. But if you are a motion-picture manufacturer and want to manufacture in the State of New York and show your pictures all over that State, according to this bill you would not have to come to this bureau at all. But if you want to carry it over into New Jersey, then it must be licensed. But it does say that in the District of Columbia and in the Territories, if it is shown in places Mr. RuPLEY (interposing). I have just been wondering about this proposition: The matter of conflict between the national board and State boards relative to a film. A State board may pass a film wliich will be shown all over, we will say, New York State, and then wlien they desire to place it in interstate commei'ce the national board may turn it down, although the State board has i)assed upon it and decided that it was entirely ]n-opci'. Under such circumstances there would be a censorship of lliat paiticular film and a conflict between the State board and the national board. Then, again, that same Him might pass the board of censoi-ship in another State, and that would add to the conflict. Ml'. CirASK. "1 On mean to say that New .fersey and New York might a[)prove of a lilm? Mr. IvuPLEY. Yes. Mr. Chase. And the national board object to it? Mr. TiuPLEV. Yes. Mr. CiiASK. Well, it could not go over tiie luie: the United States would go after them if it Avent over the line. However, if it was inanufactiii'ed in New York it could be shown all o\er New York, and if somel)(»(ly went to New Jersey and maiuifactured something of the same soi-t it could be shown in New Jersey. But the Him could not be cai-ried from one State to the other. Mr. IJri'i.KA'. It is vour opinion that it could not be carried into another State? Ml-. C^iiASE. No; that is what this act would be forbidding. Mr. (^{.\i"rs. Mr. Uringle suggests this with I'eference to i)ri/e liirlils. thai one State niav ha\e a difl'erent standard from another,