Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1947)

LUCE COMMISSION PROFESSORS REPORT ON PRESS AND SCREEN by TERRY RAMSAYE THE INDUSTRY of the motion picture for the second time has come into mildly alarming distinction of attention by Mr. Henry R. Luce's Commission on Freedom of the Press in a "general report" released Thursday, subsequent to a press conference function at Sherry's classic caravanserai in Park Avenue in Manhattan the afternoon before. On the plus side the report says for the screen: "We recommend that the constitutional guarantees of the freedom of the press be recognized as including the radio and motion pictures." That is about all the commission has to give, directly. The atmosphere is as cool as a lecture hall during Easter vacation. It records some down-the-nose considerations of some aspects of the films in politely detached language unlikely to arrest the attention of the motion picture audience. The report is as dignified as the impressive list of the personnel of the Commission, all appointed by Dr. Robert M. Hutchins, Chancellor of the University of Chicago, and Commission chairman. The membership includes: Zechariah Chafee, Jr., Professor of Law, Harvard University. John M. Clark, Professor of Economics, Columbia University. John Dickenson, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania, and General Counsel, Perm. R.R. William E. Hocking, Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Harvard University. Harold D. Lasswell, Professor of Law, Yale University. Archibald MacLeish, Formerly Assistant Secretary of State. Charles E. Merriam, Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, The University of Chicago. Reinhold Niebuhr, Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion. Union Theological Seminary. Robert Redfield, Professor of Anthropology, The University of Chicago. Beardsley Ruml, Chairman, Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Professor of History, Harvard University. George N. Shuster, President, Hunter College. jJJ That scores five universities, one theo■ logical seminary, one college, one bank, one department store, one railroad — no journalist, no radio or motion picture authority. It is interesting to note as a detail of publicity practice that Dr. Hutchins' list credits Mr. Dickinson primarily to the University of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Ruml to the Federal Reserve Bank, while the Commission's New York office invitations to the Sherry audience gave Mr. Dickinson to the Pennsylvania Railroad and Mr. Ruml to R. H. Macy & Co. That is a slight matter, but these are days of deep significances. Dr. Hutchins' foreword recorded: "The Commission did not conduct elaborate 're search.' " That is quite as apparent in the report as it was in that volume entitled "Freedom of the Movies'' by Ruth A. Inglis, published by the Commission about a month ago. (Motion Picture Herald editorial page February 22.) #1 The event of this week and the impos^ ing staging thereof is only to be understood in the long perspective of originals and releated considerations. The release of the report and the press audience function have been in the hands of the editors of Fortune, Mr. Luce's ornate and typographically impressive journal of business and industry. The manifestation is part of a program which pertains either to the career of Mr. Luce or the publications under his administration, or both, as they may variously coincide. It is of a piece with his astutely planned Cleveland Council on World Affairs, sponsored by Time, Inc., and held at the Public Auditorium in Cleveland, out in Ohio where the big midwest begins, January 9, 10 and 11. You will be remembering that the Council's attendance included figures of international distinction from Wellington Koo to Senator Arthur Yandenberg. The total activity is to be regarded with a studious interest by the motion picture industry, somewhat incidentally because of what may be said about it, but more importantly as a demonstration in devices for creating foci of attention, including rubbing the bowl with the kudos of names of distinction in statecraft and academic connections. It is just now to be remembered that for popular publicity purposes the genus professor is valuable, recently vastly improved in public consciousness by the bangup professorial successes in uranium enterprises. jjl In general the Commission considers * that the press is considerably important and ought to be better, mostly in a sense of social responsibility and performance. It seems to feel that way about pictures, too. "Private enterprise in the field of communications has great achievements to its credit." But, also, however, the report reads on to quote William Allen White: "Too often the publisher ... is a rich man seeking power. . . . He has the country club complex. . . . And they all get the unconscious arrogance of conscious wealth." A quotation comes, too, from Mr. Virginius Dabney of Richmond : "Today newspapers are Big Business and they are run in that tradition. . . ." At this point, speaking of big business, it is to be noted from Dr. Hutchins' foreword that Mr. Luce "suggested an inquiry" in December, 1942, and that "The Inquiry was financed by grants of $200,000 from Time, Inc., and $15,000 from Encyclopedia Britannica. The money was disbursed through the University of Chicago." The ratio of 200 to 15 someway reminds of that story about the rabbit sausage made on a fifty-fifty basis, one horse to one rabbit. While Mr. White and Mr. Dabney are quoted, there is a general aroma in the general report which suggests that the author or authors, while not, as they say, conducting "elaborate 'research' " possibly have been reading not only Miss Inglis, the sociologist, but also Mr. Morris L. Ernst, possibly Mr. Robert Sherwood and maybe Mr. Archibald MacLeish. There is a special subdivision entitled "Motion picture concentration," naming the eight majors and with a careful footnote on "satellite" companies. You know where that term came from. But, and however, again, also on the other hand, as it were, one reads much farther along: "We accept the fact that some concentration must exist in the communications industry if the country is to have the service "it needs. . . . People . . . need a quality and quantity of information and discussion which can often be supplied only by large units." Some of the Commission's observations anent the motion picture follow: "The motion picture industry offers the most elaborate example of accommodation to the pressure of the audience. . . . But pressure groups, because they have or are thought to have influence on attendance, have shaped the motion picture to their desires. Hollywood's efforts to develop the documentary film may be thwarted by its habit of yielding to this kind of intimidation. . . . "It would be a mistake to assume that pressure is always bad just because it is pressure. . . . "The most elaborate scheme of self-regulation among the agencies of mass communication is found in the motion picture industry. The Motion Picture Association of America has a code which is obeyed and enforced. "The Association was formed and the code adopted to meet the threat of censorship. The points covered by the code and by the administration of it show that the "aim is to control the content of films so that they will pass the state boards of censorship and foreign censors and will not antagonize pressure groups. . . . "This self-regulating agency has limited purposes. It calculates the minimal prohibitions necessary to permit films to circulate without censorship and without boycott. The results indicate that the calculation is fairly exact. . . . "By 1934 the Association, under the pressure of active criticism, became a regulatory body which could regulate. It put a stop to the salacious and crudely sensational pictures which had been the target of consumers' boycotts and gave the industry for the first time some public standing. . . . Fortune, dated March 27th, carries the report, and an editorial on it, which says : "Final answers to the problems of freedom, responsibility, and effectiveness will come perhaps when every philosopher is a journalist and every journalist a philosopher." MOTION PICTURE HERALD, MARCH 29, 1947 21