Motion Picture Herald (Jul-Aug 1943)

MOTION PICTURE HERALD COLVIN BROWN, Publisher Vol. 152, No. MARTIN QUIGLEY President and Editor-in-Chief OP TERRY RAMSAYE. Editor July 3, 1943 IMPACT" MR. ELMER DAVIS is quoted as testifying before the House Appropriations Committee that: "Our experience with the industry {motion picture) has been that it knows how to make motion pictures, but it does not always understand the impact of those pictures." It may be observed to Mr. Davis, and to whomever else is concerned, that the motion picture industry learned how to make motion pictures by reason of its continuing experience with impact. Impact is what the motion picture amusement industry is about. That is what it makes and sells. "Impact" is audience reaction, and that is what the industry is all about. The motion picture industry knows about impact. It is not to be guided, with any service of any purpose, by the crystal gazers of the Washington bureaus. If Mr. Davis has been correctly represented, he has been asking that the motion picture and its theatre screen be an instrument of manipulation of the public mind, a tool of studied design. The appointment of Mr. Davis to the high post of chieftainship of the Office of War Information was greeted in this land of ours as a signal recognition of the rights of the American people in the facts. He bore high repute as an objectively minded and uncommonly competent purveyor of the facts, on printed page and by radio. "Impact" is another matter, and another job. Information is one thing, impact and propaganda is something else again. Information laden with message is not always information. If the motion picture industry is supplied with adequate information, it can take care of "impact". AAA FRIENDLY PRESS THE newspapers of the land continue in a generally friendly attitude toward the motion picture, made more and more apparent in these war days. Much of this improvement in status with the press grows out of the many war activities which find their expression or focus in the motion picture theatres. The immediate result, regardless of the facts of ownership, is to give the theatre the atmosphere of a local institution. Rather at random in a flow of newspaper expressions about the pictures one finds, typically, the Sheboygan (Michigan) Tribune, discussing "Film Folk Morals" and remarking: "But in the Tribune's opinion Hollywood is not as bad as it is painted. Folks prominent in the screen world are targets for people of low morals who try to convince that film heroes and heroines are as bad as they are . . . but there is no reason for blanket condemnation. ..." Also, here comes The Beacon-N ewburgh (New York) News valiantly contending, in behalf of both the theatre and its customers, that the motion picture is an essential of the national life, even in wartime. It says: "After all that motion pictures have done and are doing in the war, they little deserve the hard indirect rebuff they have sustained from the government under its ban on all except the most essential driving. "In our smaller cities up to 35 per cent of the patronage of theatres comes from suburban, village and rural areas. Under prohibition of use of private cars for 'pleasure' and entertainment, literally thousands of persons who formerly regularly attended movies are unable to get to town for the purpose. . . . "That motion pictures contribute to public morale is unquestioned. These come as near being essential as anything in the line of information, entertainment and relaxation possibly could be. "In the course of a week the average theatre contributes a vast amount of screen time to war and government projects. But apparently the more it does in the war, the less consideration it is accorded by Federal authorities. ..." AAA SHOW and BATTLE AN inkling of the importance of the motion picture to the American soldier on the war fronts is conveyed ^ in a letter from Private Herman Addison, Jr., formerly with the Schine circuit in Glens Falls, New York, and now somewhere in North Africa. "Saw a picture the other evening for the first time in several months. It was presented on a portable outfit out here in a field. "For a background we had a raid on a town not far away, and the sky was full of tracers, flares and flashes. Yet the men paid far more attention to the screen than they did to the lifeand-death show in the sky. And it was just that, too, because the tally the next morning showed five German planes knocked down. "Can you guess what the picture was? It was 'The Devil and Miss Jones' — not exactly a new release and one that most of the men I talked to had seen before." Private Addison says he and his outfit would like to see some new pictures — and, he says, many more of them. AAA HORTICULTURAL REPORT . . . Right across Rockefeller Gulch from here, and on top of the Center Theatre, is the Garden of All Nations. The Japanese department has been dismantled and, neglected, runs to weeds. It is out of sight and out of mind, for all save such high-seated observers as your editor. Within the OP offices window gardening proceeds apace, as it were. Mr. Lou Chapman, advertising production, has a citrus orchard of one tree. Time will tell if it's grapefruit, lime, lemon or orange. Miss Rose Wilder, secretary to Mr. Colvin Brown, is encouraging a dubious Dendrobium. Miss Marietta V. Barrett, secretary to Mr. Martin Quigley, is reviving a neglected Sanseveria. Miss Gertrude Merriam, associate editor of the Round Table, has a three-foot speciman of Avacado, raised from seed. It has been potted since Christmas when somebody poured a highball on it. — Terry Ramsaye