Motion Picture Herald (Jul-Aug 1936)

MOTION PICTURE HERALD Vol. 124, No. 6 QP August 8, 1936 HELL BENT for CULTURE MOTION PICTURE promotion is these days running hot on the trail of box office attention through cultural status. "Photoplay studies" are issuing at a great rate and the educational institutions of the land are being invited to discover and appreciate the large injections of ready-made erudition that can be had by the young on observing the projection of this and that imposing drama. So far the results have been considerable and important for the box office, although not exactly colossal. What the results have been or are going to be educationally we shall perhaps have to wait a generation to discover. Meanwhile this is not to be taken as any lack of appreciation of the potentialities of the motion picture as a medium in education, at such time as the motion picture may be utilized by educators. That is another activity, apparently still remote and as far from the theatrical business as Miss Sally Rand is from Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler. T is safe to assume that the musty, dusty halls of education have not suffered any loss of institutional values through the breezes of the cinema, and not a few educators have felt and evidenced a certain enlivenment by their contact with this most vividly active business of the great world outside their cloistered walls — the motion picture of the millions. Meanwhile it would appear that a certain caution about this merry new publicity chase might well be exercised. After all, this is the show business, purveying entertainment above all else and mostly regardless of all else. History, fact and research are used where they help to produce the end result of the customer satisfied with his emotional pabulum. But the most faithful of novels, plays and pictures have about as much bearing on fact and human forces as the operatic version of "Wilhelm Tell" has upon the history of Austria. Repeated and continued emphasis on the great educational values of the screen's amusement offerings are in peril of becoming in time invitations to unhappy, unhelpful check-ups on the fact. When the educators get over the fun and thrill of their new contact there may be a period of analytical consideration, an audit of the screen alongside the dry texts, the records. That is not a day to invite. The situation is not one of special concern to the producer, but it is likely to mean a deal to the sellers and purveyors. And the condition presented is not peculiar to motion picture selling, either. Just for instance there is one cigarette campaign which promises second wind, better digestion and relief from everything but falling hair to the smoker. That will not justify the motion picture in heading toward a box office promise of a degree of M.A. cum laude with every loge seat, ~T~ HE motion picture got itself into a considerable mess of moral issues not so long ago by following the patterns and colors of box office pabulum made for the sophisticated metropolitan minority audiences of the stage. It was basically an error of being misled in the name of kudos and precedent. The educational alley has as many perils. The motion picture's job is to be first class entertainment — not more, not less. When the motion picture does that job its position is perfect. When the artists get to playing with history it is ever twisted and warped by what may well be called the propaganda of heart's desire. The, story always gets better than the facts. We get Parson Weems' silly fiction of Washington and the cherry tree. We get General Pershing telling "Lafayette, we come." We get Christopher Columbus doing parlour tricks with a soft boiled egg. Also we have such a traditional ridiculousness as making Niccolo Machiavelli, who was in truth a mere yes man and clerk to a Duke of Florence, into a symbol of world intrigue. Niccolo wrote much, but did nothing. The same technique gives us as a great figure of history one Samuel Pepys, who in truth rated in the reign of Charles II in about the ratio of a script holder on a DeMille set. History is a science. The motion picture is the amusement business. V V V CONNECTICUT NOTES: Silvermine frogs, we find after years of observation, will and do pursue and eat goldfish, fantails preferred.— Mr. Martin Quigley's water-rimmed Islandhearth again produced the first Golden Bantam corn. — Mr. Colvin Brown of Mulberry Ledge is breeding White Leghorns. — Mr. Maurice McKenzie of Long Ridge has gone in seriously for Sutton's hybrid Gaillardias this year. Every year it is something. — Mr. and Mrs. Burton Davis, alias Lawrence Saunders, have a serious attack of Leontopodium, alias edelweiss, in their rock garden. It will be in Burton's next script. — The George Byes have quit trying to make two blades of grass grow where none grew before and are substituting Vinca Minor. — Mr. Jack Pegler is moving all the stones on his New Canaan real estate again. MOTION PICTURE HERALD MARTIN QUIGLEY, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Incorporating Exhibitor's Herald, founded 1915; Motion Picture News, founded 1913; Moving Picture World, founded 1907; Motography, founded 1909; The Film Index, founded 1906. Published every Thursday by Quigiey Publishing Company, Rockefeller Center, New York City. Telephone Circle 7-3 1 00. Cable address "Quigpubco, New York." Martin Quigley, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher; Colvin Brown, Vice-President and General Manager; Terry Ramsaye, Editor; Ernest A. Rovelstad, Managing Editor; Chicago Bureau, 624 South Michigan Avenue, C. B. O'Neill, manager; Hollywood Bureau, Postal Union Life Building, Boone Mancall, manager; London Bureau, 4, Golden Square, London W I, Bruce Allan, cable Quigpubco London; Berlin Bureau, Berlin-Tempelhof, Kaiserin-Augustastrasse 28, Joachim K. Rutenberg, representative; Paris Bureau, 29, Rue Marsoulan, Pans 12, France, Pierre Autre, representative, cable Autre-Lacifral-12 Paris; Rome Bureau, Viale Gorizia, Rome, Italy, Vittorio Malpassuti, representative, Italcable, Malpassuti, Rome; Melbourne Bureau, Regent Theatre, 191 Collins St., Melbourne, Australia, Cliff Holt, representative; Mexico City Bureau, Apartado 269, Mexico City, James Lockhart, representative; Prague Bureau, Uhelny trh 2, Prague I, Czechoslovakia, Harry Knopf, representative; Budapest Bureau, 3, Kaplar-u, Budapest, Hungary, Endre Hevesi, representative; Buenos Aires Bureau, Corrienfes 2495, Dep. 8, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Natalio Bruski, representative; Shanghai Bureau. 142 Museum Road, Shanghai, China, J. P. Koehler, representative; Tokyo Bureau, 880 Sasazuka, Ichikawa-shi, Chiba-Ken, Japan, H. Tominaga, representative; Rio de Janeiro Bureau, Caixa Postal 3358, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, A. Weissmann, representative; Barcelona Bureau, Harry Chapin Plummer, Hotel Ritz, Plaza de las Cortes, Barcelona, Spain. India Bureau; K. G. Gidwaney, Post Box 147, Bunder Road, Karachi, India; Uruguay, P.O. Box 664, Montevideo, Uruguay, Paul Bodo, representative, cable Argus Montevideo; Amsterdam Bureau, Zuider Amstellaan 5, Amsterdam, Holland, Ph. de Schaap, representative. Member Audit Bureau of Circula ions. All contents copyright 1936 by Quigley Publishing Company. Address all correspondence to the New York Office. Better Theatres, devoted to the construction, equipment and operation of theatres, is published every fourth week as section 2 of Motion Picture Herald. Other Quigley Publications: Motion Picture Daily, Teatro al Dia, Spanish language quarterly in the theatre and equipment field, and International Motion Picture Almanac ,and the Box Office Check-up, both published annually.