Motion Picture News (Sept-Oct 1921)

Motion KctEre News The Movie Thing IN California they have achieved The Affiliated Picture Interests, Incorporated." It means just that: an incorporation of all the picture interests of the State. All means producers, distributors, exhibitors, directors, writers, actors, assistant directors, art directors, cinematographers, and " the various classes of artisans employed in every branch of the industry." j Sectional jealousies, commercial wrangles, labor troubles, personal ambitions — all these obstacles have been leveled flat to lead the way to a common end, namely " a central body that would insure united action in all matters of common interest and more especially one that would provide the machinery for marshalling the numerical strength and the financial pou-er of the industry in combating unjust and detrimental legislation or regulation." We quote from the organization's own statement. It is to the point. * * * ^^nr^HE numerical strength and the financial I power of the industry!" And to this we may add: the publicity power of the screen. We stand today, so far as resources are concerned .he fourth manufacturing industry, in size, in the :ountry, and so far as powder is concerned we possess m engine that admittedly transcends the greatest )ower previously known and that was the power of he press. We can, through the screen, tell the truth, in this me countrv alone, to fifteen million people overnight. Yet ' With these unequalled resources — no other indusry has them, even the press lacks them — we are as lelpless as a beggar on the street. Anyone can hurl a brickbat at us, and everyone iioes. We are sneered at, yelled at, lied about, insulted, ilified almost everv dav of our lives. We are pie for the politician, the fanatic, the no)riety seeker, the destructionist. The Governor of the State of New York just before |ie final hearing on a bill which takes from us the ^ht of trial by jury, which, in efTect, says that we are so dangerous to society as to be beyond the pale of the courts of the land, a piece of legislation hugely ominous and infamous, arose and with a sneer and a laugh said: "Let's have lunch and then we'll take up this movie thing!" This movie thing/" That's just about where we stand today in the public estimation. Not the fourth manufacturing industry of the United States, not the educator of the millions of the world. But — ''a movie thing/" And why? Simply because we can't talk back. We can't talk back and we can't talk forward. We can't make a whisper come out of our giant's mouth. We are dumb with disintegration. The man who makes the film, the man who distributes it, the man who exhibits it — each stands utterly apart today; and the consequence is that the screen cannot say one word today in defense of and for the sake of the one institution today that needs most the light of truth — and that's the motion picture. California achieves an affiliation, just the affiliation of all interests we appeal for; and this affiliation today has the respect of the State of California. We can do nationally the same thing. It means simply an affiliation of existing organizations through a joint committee, representative and authoritative. * * JUST as we write this editorial an exhibitor, one, too, whose judgment we highly respect, sends a letter which says, in brief: Your editorial on getting together is all right. I agree with you. But why ask Mr. Cohen to take the first step? And we gladly reply: Because some one must take the first step. Because Mr. Cohen leads the strongest organization the industry has thus far produced. Because this organization of exhibitors, however, representing as it does only one branch of this industry, can never, however it continues to grow, adequately represent and adequately protect the entire industry. And finally because we believe Mr. Cohen is big enough and broad enough to take just such a step. WM. A. JOHNSTON. OL XXIV OCTOBER 15, 1921 No. XVII