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MOTION PICTUKE COMMISSION. 199 Mr. ScHECiiTER. About 12.500. T fifrure nt least 225 new films are produced each week aud that would total about 12,500 new sub- jects each year. Mr. Platt. How large a proportion of films are actual occurrences and how large a proportion are faked up? I mean liow many are staged for the purpose? Mr. ScHECHTER. Would you call a moving picture having as a basis a drama, or-a book, or a magazine article, faked up? Mr. Platt. I mean how large a pro])ortion are pictures of real occurrences, actual bonafide pictures of real occurrences, and how many are made up? Mr. ScHECHTER. I am not certain as to the figure, but I should A-enture to say about 20 or 25 per cent of the pictures are subjects depicting current events, the remainder are the result of staging of dramas or such as are taken from books, magazines, articles, scenarios written by various scenario writers for the purpose, and the like. Mr. Plati'. Of course, high-class things that are not actual oc- currences, such as plays that ai'e staged and produced, would be on a little different line than something like a crime enacted for the pur- pose of being put into a film. Mr. ScHECHTER. There are a great many crimes depicted in Shakespeare's plays. Take for instance the play of King Richard III; surely there can be no objection to the staging of these plays; and if no objection can be raised to the plays there is no basis for an objection to the same if depicted in movinof pictures. Mr. Platt. When you put it in a play it is one thing, but when you stage, for instance, the raid of a man's gin mill, which I have seen frequently, that is staged al)sohitely, it does not come in as a part of the play. Mr. ScHECHTER. It is possible to see a raid in a gin mill, in fact, and a picture may be taken of it, wliich would place that picture in the category of current events and as you state, it would be entirely proper to exhibit such pictures. Notwithstanding that fact I do not think any up-to-date manufacturer will to-day produce a film simply to show the occurrence of crime. If any scenes of current events are depicted they usually are subjects of historical interest, or things similar. Mr. Towner. Let me call your attention to a film which they had trouble with in your own city of New York, in v/hich the i)rincipal ob- ject of the film was to depict Jack Rose. Sam Schepps, and Harry Vallon as the heroes of a company of thugs and gamblers connected with the Rosenthal murder. Is it not a fact that the only object for paying these men $500 for posing in that picture was because it would satisfy the morbid curiosity of certain people to see that class of pictures, and Avould not the effect of such an exhibition as that be wholly bad? Mr. Schrchter. I think the picture you refer to is that entitled " The Wages of Sin." Mr. Towner. Yes. Mr. ScHECHTER. Right here, if you will allow me to digress a moment, I want to say that there are only four films that have been mentioned before this committee as objectionable in the opinion of