Motion Picture Reviews (1934)

Four Motion Picture Reviews at because we have kept to a plan of action which we believed right, although no progress seemed apparent, are at last justly feeling a glow of pride that a small step forward has been achieved. Ten years ago, and even less, exhibitors told us our recommendation to the public “killed a picture.” Today thefr banners carry another tale. The Industry has claimed, and still claims, that it makes only what the public wants, that the box office gives the answer. Today the exhibitors who are closer to the public pulse than the producers can ever be, ask for cleaner pictures which they can sell to this public. The objective of Better Films Committees is still far from attainment. The majority object to national censorship or legal prohibition of children’s attendance at motion pictures, but the fact remains that the public is still apathetic and curiously criminal in its attitude toward the attendance of children and particularly adolescents at motion pictures. Men and women who are prominently identified with social problems in their respective communities still take their families to pictures they think they personally may enjoy, and allow their young people to go alone and without regard to what they are to see or the emotional reactions they may receive from the experience. It is a shocking indictment of American parents. This move of the National Council of Catholic Women is therefore extremely significant. One of the suggestions emanating from the results of the Payne Fund studies carried out by the Motion Picture Research Council, is to train young people in high schools to be discriminating in selection. Hundreds of schools are inserting appreciation courses into the curricula because parents and educators have approved the plan. And it is particularly disturbing to have Nelson L. Greene in an editorial in his publication “The Educational Screen,” decry the move as theoretical, dangerous, unintelligent. He is especially alarmed because Mr. Will Hays offers cooperation in the work and he says, “It is certainly time for the educators to pause and reflect a bit on what has been started and in the significance of industry-approval of one work.” We think it is quite irrational to be suspicious of all moves for cooperation which come from the Industry. Let us analyze this one. Children are not stimulated to “promiscuous moving-going,” nor are children recommended to attend outside the group “to study the picture for class,” as Mr. Greene suggests. The outline of study has been made out by a faculty member. The plan of criticism of each film has been discussed in class, the group attends en masse and returns to the class room for discussion. In Los Angeles cooperation has been given schools, by allowing the class to attend certain specified films gratis — a real necessity in neighborhoods where the admittance price might keep many students away. The outlines of study, for the finer productions were made after weeks of preparation on the part of teachers and in some instances through cooperation again with the studios who permitted the teachers to read the script and later see the film as completed before it was released to the public. Why is this necessary? Not necessary perhaps, but certainly an advantage because of the time element. It is wise to keep the young people interested in new films because they are new in subject matter, new in technique and vital in interest. To have the working outline ready when the film reaches the neighborhood theatre is thus especially advantageous. The way is prepared for the application of critical judgment. You will say that this is not possible in all communities. No, but the National Council of Teachers of English have accepted outlines furnished here at the coast for some of the finer productions. They do not tell <what to say about a film. They only suggest a means of approach to known subject matter. In other communities cooperation may come from the exchange which has the film ready for release or perhaps from the theatre owners who permit teachers to see a film before the use of it in class work. This kind of cooperation cannot hold a social danger, in our estimation. Mr. Greene seems to feel that such study can only stimulate greater attendance on the part of children and adolescents. He feels that it is impossible to raise the standajrd of public appreciation because the human race chooses its entertainment on emotional grounds, rather than on intellectual. And yet he goes on to say “Indeed, thorough knowledge of technique of drama means good-bye to the old thrill of theatre-going. Intellectual analysis replaces emotional surrender.” There, it seems, is the crux of the whole problem. We want our children to cease to give themselves up completely to the emotional reaction of the picture — to apply a little intellectual discernment so that the falsities will be apparent. “The superiority of the cinema is based on the law of least resistance. It takes us away from reality — interest lies in the story and in the subject of the film, not in certain technical details.” (The Cinema and Child Psychology, Dr. Victor de Ruette, International Review of Educational Cinematography, January, 1934). But, if we can arouse interest in technique