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)

[84 MOTION PICTURE COMMISSION. As I said, this manager of tlie Southern Methodist Church told liie that there would be a great business among the churches pro- vided they could get the right kind of pictures, educational and re- ligious pictures, censored motion pictures, so that one night a week could be set aside for motion pictures in country places and other places for the recreation of those who belong to the churches. It is said that there are about 400 good films fit to be use for educational recreation, but the}' are handled in such a way by the companies iv'hich we call the Motion Picture Trust, that it is- very difficult to use them. I hear that each day an exhibitor gets four films, and everybody who is on the schedule has got to take those films and pay for them. if they do not want to accept all of them, they must pay for all just ihe same. Mr. ScHECHTER. I challenge that statement, gentlemen of the com- iiiittee. Dr. Crafts. But you will challenge it in your own time. Mr. Clancy. I want to say to Dr. Crafts that there has been an exchange established by the Pathe people affording the very service you speak of—that is, a service for churches and private families. Dr. Crafts. The trouble is that these things must be handled like a train of cars, and it is a very difficult thing to supply scattered places, here and there, with motion pictures. For instance, they are sent out from a central point like Albany to a circle of towns around there. Exhibitors may get films at 12 o'clock and keep them until midnight, and then they are sent back again to go out next day to another town. Therefore, the Avhole matter of handling educational films requires a great organization. Xow, gentlemen, as I hurry on to the consideration of the bill itself, my first point or suggestion is that there is a large desire for these motion pictures on the part of churches and Y. M. C. A. or- ganizations. They want them not alone as a matter of recrea- tion—they want something that will also be instructive, and I am here advocating this motion-picture censorship law in order that pictures may be available for such purposes. It will not do to expect that good people will take pictures to any great extent under present circumstances. I am in touch with the people all over this country. I have spoken 70 times in the last 45 days. I have been through Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Kansas, speaking to State conventions of Sunday schools, and they are the best workers in those States. I have been speaking also to the people of the leading churches—Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Christian—and everywhere when I have mentioned the fact that a Federal censorship for motion pictures is proposed the applause that has followed has invariably been of that intense, swift, and enthusiastic type that means " We need it and we t^'ant it.'' Everybody that I have tallced Avith on this subject believes that the present censorship of motion pictures is not adequate and feels that the pictures are not safe for children to see. In Hot S[)rings recently I saw out in front of a motion-picture theater a poster representing a group of nu\le savages about one savage woman. The film was entitled " Their last wife." It was as bad as if they had represented half a dozen negroes con- leiuplating rape. Now, that film, no doubt, is for some reason or