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. 91 about the same number of reels of fibii. The General Film Co., I am informed, purchases from the manufacturers under contract with it upwards of 1,500 reels of film each week. P^ach reel of film being approximately 1,000 feet in length and the price being at least 10 cents per foot, and figuring that all out in dollars and cents, it will be found that the amount of business done by those three groups or factors alone is upwards of $15,000,000 yearly, that is by the manu- facturers. I think that figure is very conservative. The amount of business done by the exchanges or distributors I should say would be about twice as much as that done by the manufacturers; and the exhibitors would naturally have to do at least twice as much as the exchanges in order to reap a return from their investments. In addition, the other manufacturers and exchanges distributing and exhibiting film throughout the United States do a great deal of business. Under the circumstances the representatives of the manufacturers who are vitally interested in this proposed bill think the hurried action on the ])art of this committee in regard to this legislation is rather inadvisable, and we bespeak the committee's careful con- sideration of the nuitter. Our information is to the effect that on March 19 a bill was introduced; on March 20 a hearing was held on such bill; on March 21 an amendment to the bill was introduced. At no time were the manufacturers or any of the moving-picture in- terests informed of this proposed legislation or of the hearings that were had until sometime subsequent. However, it was pleasing to re- ceive the assurance from this honorable committee to-day that the real people in interest—-the manufacturers and other dealers in moving-picture films—will be given time so they may present the proposition carefully and adequately to this committee. The Chairman. I will say to you that one thing this committee will always try to do and tha\ is to be fair to those who are interested in measures pending before it. Mr. Fess. I would like to ask the gentleman what he fears from censorship ? Mr. ScHECHTER. If you will excuse me I prefer not to touch npv.n that subject at this moment; I will come to it presently. XoAv, gentlemen of the conmiittee, who are the principal movers of this bill and what are they endeavoring to accomplish? They make claim that the pictures produced to-day are highly im- moral.' Out of nearly 5,000,000 feet of film which is produced in the United States each week throughout the year, the proponents of the bill can only point to two or three isolated instances of film which in their own judgment might be considered immoral or in- decent, or such that could not be pi'esented to every child and every adult in the nation. And there are differing opinions as to those isolated instances. As to all the rest of the film—hundreds of mil- lions of feet of film—produced each year, no question is raised, so that it may be admitted that they are < f a character proper to be pre- sented. Let us for a moment consider the kind of film that is being pro- duced to-day for the benefit of the American jieople. There are cer- tain weekly publications which are put out by the manufacturers. The I'niversal Co. put out the Universal < r Animated AVeekly: the Mutual Co. produces a Mutual Weekly: there is also a Pathe Weekly,