Motion Picture News (Sept-Oct 1916)

MOTION PICTURE NEWS Vol. 14. No. 10 1512 * • IhaS the gUALlTY CIRCULATION OF THE TRADe[ MOTION PICTURE NEWS EXHIBITORS' TIMES Published on Tuesday Every Week by 729 SEVENTH AVENUE, COR. 49TH STREET. NEW YORK. WILLIAM A. JOHNSTON President and Editor HENRY F. SEWALL Vice-President E. KENDALL GILLETT Secretary H. ASHTON WYCKOFF Treaeurer and Business Manager WENTWORTH TUCKER Asst. Treasurer R. M. VANDIVERT Advertising Manager THEODORE S. MEAD Chicago Manager J. C. TESSEN Los Angeles Manager LESLEY MASON Managing Editor WILLIAM RESSMAN ANDREWS News Editor The office of the company is the address of the officers. Entered as Second-Class matter at the New York Post-Office. Subscription $2 per year, postpaid, in the United Sutes, Mexico, Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands. Canada, $3; Foreign, ?4 per year. N. B. — No agent is authorized to take subscriptions for Motion PiCTUbb Nbws at less than these rates. Have the agent taking your subscription show his credentials and coupon book. VOL. XIV September 9, 1916 No. 10 What the Exhibitor Wants to Know {Continued from page 1511) W/HAT better service can the producer render the exhibitor than to define to him in advance the exact nature of each picture, the people to whom it will appeal, and why and how ? . What better way is there to give each picture its fullest possible circulation — than to let all the people who would like to see it know fully about it through the exhibitor? T F the producer and distributor do not see fit to perform this service, and if it is to be left to the trade papers alone, we will cheerfully and exclusively continue the work. The information must come from some source; that's certain. Correct advance information on his pictures is the most important factor to-day in any exhibitor's success. * * * We should like to see less variance between the manufacturers' announcements of pictures and our own reviews of them; we should like to see the manufacturer convinced that advertising exaggerations are wasteful, futile and bad business in the long run. We should like to see the same ability used in the exaggeration of announcements employed in the analysis of pictures, in indicating their appeal and in devising advertising helps for the exhibitor. William A. Johnston. Censorship and the Police Commissioner of Detroit ' < ENTLEAIEN, the problem of censorship is right up to you." With these words. Police Commissioner John B. Gillespie of Detroit closed his address to the exhibitors of that city on the evening of August t8. I N straightforward language, Commissioner Gillespie told the exhibitors assembled that he did not favor censorship, nor did he believe there was any need for censorship. Not because Detroit was a complacent city. Not because he had no complaints to deal with, no hysterical reformers to combat. The protest he received, he declared, amounted to at least two hundred a week. Nor was he opposed to censorship because he did not believe in the existence of the bad picture. But the fact that a bad film n'os shown, he said, did not necessarily mean that strict regulation governing ail motion pictures was necessary. /^ENSORING of motion pictures, declared the Commis^ sioner, is really the exhibitors' problem, and they should — he believed they could — handle the problem without any outside assistance or interference. "If you are big enough men, and I believe you are. judging from the amount of money invested," said he. " you ought to be able to take care of your business so that there will be no occasion for outside assistance from the police department to suppress bad pictures. We want your co-operation because we are both interested in the cultivation and development of our citizens and our children." * * * YY/HAT a refreshing contrast Commissioner Gillespie presents to the men who shout themselves hoarse over the vileness of the motion picture, and scream themselves purple in the face over the menace and contagion of the screen ! Here is a man who sees the motion picture in all its phases, who realizes fully the problems it brings, along with its blessings, who can accord the screen praise W'here it is merited and blame where it is deserved, and yet keep himself free of the censorship fever that has made fools and cowards of so many in the business and out of it. * * * T\ ECIDEDLY censorship is the exhibitors' business — and no one else's. It is to be hoped the Detroit exhibitors will make it their business forthwith. The exhibitors of Norfolk, Va., have already taken steps in that direction. In concert, they have just formally notified the officials of that city that no more objectionable pictures will be permitted to enter their theatres. * * * \TOTHING can kill the censorship movement quicker throughout the country than such action as this by exhibitors everywhere. It should have been done long ago. Motion Picture News has repeatedly advocated such a course. It if is followed now it will still be in time to save the day. Conditions In the South 17 RANK J. REMBUSCH, who has just made a tour of the Southern States and a serious study of conditions there, reports the murmurings of official censorship. His impressions are worthy of the producer's serious consideration. For one thing, there is the negro element to consider. The racial problem is a serious one and the South believes it has a firm grip upon the situation. The entire section will not look with favor upon pictures introducing the white woman in a fashion to disturb this grip. * * * AGAIN, the South is very jealous of its home life and traditions. Particularly in the inland South the church, preeminently the ^lethodist and Baptist creeds, is a controlling influence. The influence may be narrow and exacting in its standards of what constitutes literature and art, but the influence is there and will have to be reckoned with.