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)

MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. 69 knew them pretty well by this time. I unrlerstaml that Dr. Carter is going to present these standards to the committee, s<) 1 will not take the time to do so. Mr. Towner. I want to call your attention to a matter. This is the Government consular trade report for April 15, 1914. This re- port contains the-official reports regarding moving pictures in the countries of Europe, and this is what the consul at Sheffield says: The time was when 70 to SO per cent of the films shown in Sheffield were of American manufactnre, bnt that day is past, due partly to the successful efforts of film producers in other countries and partly to the decline in popularity of the erstwhile film hero—the American cowboy. Certainly no characters lend themselves better to stirring dramatic situations imt on in the open, with wide scope for scenic effect and rapid action, than do the cow-i)uncher and the In- dian fighter of western America. Despite it all, however, the public is getting overfed with them. Too often have they seen the same old cowboy ride madly down the same old trail. Too often has the selfsame settler defended to the last shell the same old cabin from the same old band of Indians, until the public is growing weary of him and would welcome with some relief a successful Indian massacre. I notice that in the report of the consul at Dundee. Sc(;tland, he says: A marked change is taking ])lnce in the style of film demanded. All classes of films are growing appreciably more restrained. Americr.n Wild W^est scenes, and the peculiarly continental dxnnestic scenes, which have heretofore been so popular, are gradually being superseded by films s^^ttiug forth the story of some well-known novel or play. I call your attention to those reports from our considar agents because they indicate that the films which come from America are now losing their popularity in Europe because of the fact that they are of the cow puncher and Indian fighter type. Is that still charac- teristic of the films that your board censors and approves? Dr. Howe. I will give you my opinion about that. Mr. Towner. Personally it seems to me that it is a reflection upon American films when they are abandoned because of the character of being too dramatic for the tastes of the European communities where they are exhibited. Dr. HoAVE. No matter Avhat objections might be raised against such films, I doubt very much whether any censoring committee or any censoring board would reject films on tlie ground that there had been too many of that particular kind. I do not think it would fall Avithin the jurisdiction of any censoring board to condemn a thing because there was too much of it. They would probably let the law of supply and demand take care of it; let the public take care of it. There are some people who object to Wild West films and say there are too many of them, and frequently on our board we hear the ex- pression that we have had enough of that; but the board always comes iDack to the fact that it does not think it is its business to de- cide as to Avhether we have had enough of that particular sort of thing or not. However. I think that Avill be taken care of in time; and almost all of what I should call secondary criticisms of the mo- tion-picture shows have been taken care of just as styles change, hats change, and everything else changes. Mr. ScHECHTER. May I answer in part that queestion—that is, the question as to the films being used in some of the foreign countries? Speaking for the Universal Film Co., I will say that in the past year