Motion Picture Herald (Mar-Apr 1947)

MOTION PICTURE HERALD MARTIN QUIGLEY, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Vol. 167, No. 4 DRINKING SCENES JUST now again there is slight boiling up in the long simmering concern about liquor and the screen. The whole subject of alcohol and its problems is getting a shade more attention than usual. Perhaps the flow of psychopathic literature and such pictorial attentions as "The Lost Weekend" have to do with the*manifestation. Anyway, the ardent drys are writing letters to the papers and complaining about the movies. The manifestations on all sides indicate a typical confusion. Once again the problem, if it must be a problem, is the application to motion picture practice of a decent and proper intent. With all of the feeling that exists about liquor, it would seem reasonable to restrict its presentation on the screen to the requirements of narration when it is a real part of the story, and that resort to strong drink should not be made a part of the incidental conduct of heroes or heroines, or other characters who may inspire imitative behavior. The wine glasses of the incidental decor of a banquet scene, or even a family party, have no such suggestion and intimation as the pretty lady sitting slightly and gayly potted on a stool at a cocktail bar, waiting for the story to develop. Example of the difference is to be had in two current hit pictures. In one a young woman is shown in a welter of drink and in a series of sequences which deliver her to ruin and death. That is not likely to inspire emulation, or criticism from the drys. In the other picture a militant and liberal minded young banking executive is shown dipping deep into the bottle at table and then standing unsteadily on his feet making a speech which is the ideological hit of the piece. There is invitation to trouble. THE problem of what to do about liquor on the screen is different from the problem of what to do about sex on the screen only in detail. Both pertain to the conduct of the race and have ever since there has been a race. The same order of self-regulation, which means organized judgment, conscious morality and purposeful good taste which has met one problem can meet the other. America's standards of propriety and decency are not patented, not copyrighted. Mostly the persons who produce, write, direct and enact motion pictures are metropolitan sophisticates. They are not representative of the whole audience which they serve. It is their obligation to exercise all of their skill and the whole of their understanding, all of the time. They know about liquor and what to do about it on the screen — when they have to. It begins to look as though that would be soon. ■ B ■ FOR DIVERSITY THERE is a hint of encouragement for a return to more diversity in the theatre program in the announcement this week from Mr. Oscar A. Morgan, in charge of short subjects for Paramount Pictures Corporation, that their output of cartoons is to be increased by a third and that the schedule for the year runs to sixty-four shorts in addition to the newsreei. A distribution expert talking in this office the other day commented: "What we need," he observed, "is a vice-presi TERRY RAMSAYE, Editor April 26, 1947 dent in charge of taking twenty-five minutes out of the pictures. There seems to be an erroneous impression in high places that a picture cannot be big without being long." It can be remarked that no other popular entertainment tries to keep the customers in their seats with their attention focused on one idea for so long as the super-features demand, a ■ ■ ■ HONOURING ED FAY FIFTY YEARS is a long time in showmanship and a very long time, indeed, for a career still continued in interest and vigour. There are few such occasions as that golden anniversary dinner to Mr. Edward M. Fay up in Providence this week, with hundreds of his friends and contemporaries of the amusement world gathered to make speeches and lift toasts in his honour. His beginning was back there just before the turn of the century when the footlights still burned gas and the spots were limelights. The motion picture had been on the screen but one year when Ed Fay started in the show world, and it was only a turn in variety then. His career began with distinguished performance as a musician, and in time he became an impresario, presenting many famous stars. He came to picture operations in 1925 and, beginning in 1926 with the dawn of sound, set notable precedents in the exploitation of the reborn art. He is still going strong. ■ ■ ■ WE are indebted to Mr. Earle M. Holden of Hickory, and North Carolina Theatres, for report on a situation in his town in which a traveling carnival, strongly condemned by press and pulpit, got into town by the device of arranging sponsorship by a patriotic organization. Says the Hickory Daily Record: "It is time for the membership of all fraternal, civic and patriotic organizations to become thoroughly aware of the fact that for years they have permitted themselves to be used as dupes by carnival companies that could not otherwise get permits to show in most progressive and self-respecting cities. "Nobody in the local community ever profits from the sponsorship of carnivals. . . . On the moral side of the ledger, the entries are all in red ink." u u u TOPMOST in the Monday mail this week is a discussion from Mr. J. R. Cooney of Waldoboro, up in Maine, who finds: "The marquee values of stars are becoming of less importance all the time. With the increasing access which the public has to all sorts of qualified criticism of the new pictures, they can rarely be sold any more just because Gable or Garson are in them. "In our small town and theatre we find that the picture stands or falls more and more on its own merit as entertainment. If it is a good picture, they come; if not, they know about it and stay away." In view of the extensive efforts involved, it is pleasant to have from this showman a word, too, about the Product Digest section of The Herald. "Aside from its more obvious uses, the advance reviews give us practically our only unbiased opinions regarding the new pictures." — Terry Ramsaye