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. 129 but into this class would naturally ccme such pictures as the com- mission miffht fool could not go into the first class, and yet which they would not be authorized to refuse to license. Unless I am mistaken, the so-called National Board of Cen- sorship has found it necessary to do what amounts to what I am recommending. Pictures which come up to the standards fixed by them they allow to show the sign of approved or passed by the National Board of Censorship. Other pictures which fall below those standards, yet are not bad enough to be rejected, they permit to be shown but without any mark of approval by the board. If the Federal comnnssion should divide the licensed pictures into these two classes, no State, city, or village would be legally compelled to pay any attention to the differences between the films, and some cities and States would be able to enact into law the requirement that on holidays and in the afternoons after school hours, only such films could be shown as were approved by the Federal commission as being morallv fit for children and adults. Where there was no law certain managers would probably decide to rent and exhibit only pictures of this first class. The tendency in the trade would be that move and more pictures of the first class would be manufactured, because of the increasing demand for them. In the second })lace. if my first suggestion is not adopted, I de- sire to emphasize tliis point, that if the motion ])ictnres of the coun- try are made morally clean for adults the children will be tremen- dously benefited and the amusement features will be improved. I know that what is moral for the adult might in some cases be immoral for the children. But that would rarely be true. But what is inunoral for adults is generally mu.ch more injurious for children. So that what the Federal commission v.ould do would be to try to eliminate only Avhat was inunoral for the adult. I)Ut in so doing they would protect the children. If the Federal conuuission should become careless arid license many films which were injurious to chil- dren, local censorships would undoubtedly spring u}) all over the country, as they are doing now, because of the failure of the so-called National Board of Censorslup to j^rotect the children morally. My prediction is that the Federal conuuission will do such broad, sane, thorough, and effective work in eliminating all immorality that the various local censors will gradually disappear, and that the patronage of motion pictures will iuuuensely incroaso. when parents feel that the}" are safe for the children. I will attempt to answer Judge Towner's question more fully later. But the reason why each local- ity can not do such censoring as is necessary ^vithout assistance from the Nation is that 310 >niall locality can supply either the funds or the talented and experienced men and women needed. If they could, it would be much more expensive, both for the people and for the moti(;n-]')icture trade. Its best work would be less effective than that of the Federal commissioners. Even at its best a locality could be successful only in keeping bad pictures froiu the children. It could do little to elevate the general tone of the pictures or bring contin- uously the best pictures to the locality. One reason why the States which have enacted censorship laws are not content at the present time Avith the work of the national board is that they do not believe it is a censorship.