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)

156 MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. pictures to be submitted to that board?" "No." "Is there any- thing that will compel the manufacturers to obey the decision of that board?" "No." Then I said: "I do not care to be used as a cats- paw to give respectability to the productions of the motion-picture trade at this time," and I declined to go on the board. Other people did accept; they thought that it was an opportunity; that the motion-picture trade was in a position to accept modifications and to take advice, and these people consented to be the advisers of the motion-picture manufacturers of the country. And that is all they are to-day; they are the advisers of that trade. I think my opponent rather gave away the case when he said that the motion- picture manufacturers were net opposed to the National Board of Censorship as lon^ as they could control it. So long as they can stop its work by withdrawing the contribution of $15,000 a year and so long as they can manipulate the volunteer censors as to get through what pictures they want they are likely to approve of the board. This is why they are satisfied with the so-called national board, but they are unnecessarily afraid of a real Federal board of censorship. They are just as afraid of it as the railroads were of freight rates being placed under the control of a Federalcommission and as people generally were of the Interstate Commerce Commission and of the United States regulating any of the great commercial questions, which now people generally regard to be absolutely necessary to have under their care. Mr. Powers. There is just one other question. What percentage of the 96 per cent of the films passed upon by this National Board of Censorship ought not to have been favorably acted upon, from what you know about them ? Dr. Chase. Well, I could not say from my own personal knowl- edge, because it would take a man's time absolutely if he endeavored to answer such a question from his own experience. All I can say is this: That the Chicago censors in the last year rejected 3 per cent of the films that were exhibited before them; the censor in Cleveland examined 914 films when he first went into business and he rejected 9 per cent of those that were shown to him. I received a personal letter from him a few weeks ago, perhaps months ago, saying that since that decision he had cut out 15 per cent of the pictures that were being exhibited to him, and that means those passed by the National Board of Censorship. It is to be remembered also that the worst films do not go to Chicago or Cleveland for fear of the censors there. Now, of course, the judgment of these censors might be narrow and it might be wrong. But my contention is that all of these increasing demands for censorship, together with the fact that Ohio, Pennsyl- vania, and Kansas have passed censorship laws, show dissatisfaction with the result of the work of the National Board of Censorship. I think California has done the sanie thing. I do not understand the statements of my opponents saying that California has not. San Francisco has a law, and I am sure I read in one of the motion- picture magazines a statement that the law had passed the legisla- ture of California: but I stand subject to correction, because I may have made some mistake. Mr. Towner (to Mr. Schechter). Will you tell the committee what proportion of the films of the country are manufactured in New York City or in the State of New York ?