Motion Picture Reviews (1933)

Motion Picture Reviews Three MOTION • PICTURE • REVIEWS Published monthly by THE WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY CLUB LOS ANGELES BRANCH AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN Mrs. Chester Ommaney, Preview Chairman Mrs. Madison J. Keeney, Bus. Manager Mrs. Thomas B. Williamson Mrs. Bruce A. Findlay, Asst. Business Manager Mrs. John Vruwink Co-Chairmen Mrs. Palmer Cook EDITORS Mrs. Margaret Argo Mrs. Palmer Cook Mrs. J. Allen Davis Mrs. Arthur Jones Mrs. George Ryall Mrs. Walter Van Dyke Mrs. John Vruwink Address all communications to The Women’s University Club, 943 South Hoover St., Los Angeles, Calif. 1 Oe Per Copy $1.00 Per Year Vol IV JULY, 1933 No. 7 EDITORIAL ♦ Four years ago at the instigation of the Motion Picture Research Council, the Payne Fund undertook to make a scientific study of the effects of motion pictures upon children. The study has now been completed and during the summer will be published by MacMillan in nine volumes. There will also be a popular one volume summary by Henry James Forman entitled “Our Movie Made Children.” According to an article in “Parents’ Magazine” for July entitled “New Facts About Movies and Children,” in which some astonishing statistics are quoted, the significance of this work cannot be over-estimated. The facts set forth should make all intelligent parents aware of the tremendous necessity for informing themselves on the subject. What hitherto has been merely conjecture or surmise has now been scientifically proven. Do children remember and understand what they see? What effect have pictures upon their sleep? What sort of ideas and ideals are the children acquiring? What is the effect upon their conduct, upon their character? These and many other questions are answered in the results of scientific and painstaking tests conducted by an imposing list of sociologists, psychologists and educators. We suggest that our readers watch for the publication of this valuable work. It is worthy of their most careful consideration. FEATURE FILMS ♦ BED OF ROSES » » Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea. Direction by Gregory La Cava. RKO. Constance Bennett is once more starred in a heavily luxurious sex drama. This time her degree of Circean powers is symbolized by a bed of regal proportions hung with white satin. As Lorry the heroine she emerges from a reform school determined to find her place in the sun by exploiting rich men, but having achieved the satin bed, she renounces opulence with a noble if somewhat improbable gesture and retreats to the arms of a poor man on a cotton barge. A good cast and excellent handling of scenic and dramatic material do not compensate for the meretricious theme but only make it more insidious for impressionable minds. Adolescents, 12 to 16 Children, 8 to 12 No Impossible