Motion Picture News (March 1917)

1366 MOTION PICTURE NEWS Vol. 15. Xo. 9 Sp e aki ng Ed it o ri ally : Public Standards 4 { T AM sure we all approve of real censorship from I within, as advocated by Mr. D. \Y. Griffith. ** But here is my question. This movement for censorship from within is to meet the demand from the public for censorship. " How can we help — we. the intelligent women of the country? How can we get around public censorship, which we don't want, and yet meet the public demand for clean pictures ? " This is the question put to us by a woman, whose letter is made the subject of the editorial on the preceding page. Her question deserves an answer from the industry. Mr. Griffith's committee, we take it, doesn't expect to relv upon standards made by itself or by the producers. This is impossible — quite as impossible as for the producers to censor their own pictures. These standards must come jointly from the public — from constant contact with the public, its tastes and desires. The National Board of Review, in our conception of its work, is actually furnishing the public contact now. Firstly, it provides for a review of all pictures by a section of the public. Secondly, it is increasing its contact with the public everywhere through its constructive affiliations with local organizations. Our answer to Mrs. Shull's letter is to have her local organizations work directly with the National Board of Review and thereby assist Mr. Griffith's committee in its very important work — by giving it public standards to work from. The "yens" and the Newspaper THE Milwaukee Journal, in its photoplay section, stamps many of its news stories with " Motion Picture News says." One feature article of considerable length and much interest is made up from the biographies in " Motion Picture News Studio Director}*/' In the same week other clippings from the editorial columns of Motion Picture News have reached us from the Atlanta Constitution. Boston Traveler, Seattle Times, and Omaha World-Herald. Oh, Those Stars! THE amazing news has percolated out to the public from a lawyer's office that a star is running away from a S2.50O-a-week salary in quest of a golden grail of even greater dimensions. The star cannot be held to blame. Any man wants all the money he can get. But the men who will insist on jeopardizing their businesses bv ladling out salaries several times as great as that of the President of the United States, deserve all that the nervous future has in store for them. The Contest Quickens ANOTHER candidate clamors for entry into our censorship assininity contest The Ohio Board, after due reflection and contemplation, sharpened their shears and snipped out the following title from a " Ham and Bud " comedy : " Now you've chased the chicken away." Taking Our Own Medicine IN an article appearing in the February issue of The W orld Court, President John R. Freuler, of the Mutual Corporation, makes a thought-compelling brief for the motion picture as a destroyer of international boundaries. That the motion picture, through telling how *" the other half " lives, will play an incalculable part in the movement for permanent peace that is to follow the present war. is a point well stated by Mr. Freuler. The screen as an educator will serve its purpose well ; as pupils we must feel that film men are slow to learn the very lesson they are teaching. Would not a little study of " the other half " go a long way towards smoothing the road for a solution of the internal problems that abound in the film world? The attitude of distrust and fear created by an international boundary has its duplicate in the relations between manufacturers, distributors and producers, between the man in New York and the man in Broken Bow. The task of setting our house in order will assuredly be facilitated when the doors are opened that bar an appreciation of what "the other fellow " is thinking and doing. The Tax Committee WHAT appeared to be. at the time of its initiation, a primary school for the absorption of knowledge relating to the film industry, has become a sedate, serious investigation, more thorough, probably, than any previous affair of its kind. Whe Wheeler Committeemen have gone to the roots of the industry with tireless persistency. Thev have been enlightened to such an extent that they can dispense real knowledge on an abstruse subject to their less fortunate associates in Albany. Thev have made one vitally important decision : that the small exhibitor will fail if he is taxed. What they decide to do about the overpaid star will be awaited with interest. The Alert Exhibitor WE congratulate those progressive and wide awake exhibitors, who, in many parts of the country have heeded the appeal for longer runs. Elsewhere in this issue their successful experiences in discarding the dailv program change in favor of two, three and four day runs are recounted. They have proved that the long run is a money saver and a monev earner. Thev realize that the inevitable result of the longer run will be a more constant and a growing intelligent public interest. The House Is Wrong THE Motion Picture industry, at times, suggests to us a large house filled with many people and built upon a wobblv foundation. There is constant discord and discomfort' Everybody thinks the other person is at fault : everybody believes the other person is getting the best of it ; everybody is suspicious and warlike to the point of anarch}-. . Wherea's the true situation is that the house itself is built wrong and the distress is about equally divided and is neither the gain nor the fault of any one individual at all.