Motion Picture Reviews (1934)

Motion Picture Reviews Three MOTION • PICTURE • REVIEWS Published monthly by THE WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY CLUB LOS ANGELES BRANCH AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN Mrs. Palmer Cook, General Co-Chairman Mrs. John Vruwink, General Co-Chairman Mrs. Chester A. Ommanney, Preview Chairman Mrs. Charles Booth Assistant Preview Chairmen Mrs. Thomas B. Williamson EDITORS Mrs. Palmer Cook Mrs. J. Allen Davis Mrs. George Ryall Mrs. Walter Van Dyke Mrs. John Vruwink Address all communications to The Women1! University Club, 9+3 South Hoover St., Los Angeles, Calif. Advance Supplement is published and mailed approximately the 15th of each month. lOe Per Copy $1.00 Per Year Vol. VI OCTOBER, 1934 No. 4 Leisure Time Activities for Children The nine published volumes of the result of the Payne Fund investigation have been accepted quite generally as proof that the output of motion picture studios is unsuitable entertainment for children; that films present an unbalanced picture of American life; that they condition children in an unwholesome way, create suspicions and fear, and at best take from them the justifiable belief that society is on the whole cooperative, and “fundamentally happy and wholesome.” The findings of the Motion Picture Research Council have undoubtedly stimulated the activity of the Legion of Decency and the recently announced three years’ program of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, in which among other policies, they wish to extend the authority of school boards oveS leisure time opportunities of children. We are in sympathy with the Catholic move so long as it presents lists of suggested films for its supporters — particularly in the interests of children. Also it is undoubtedly true that the public school has ignored the leisure hours of the child and has been unwilling to appreciate their important influence in behavior patterns. It is only comparatively recently that home and school have realized that outside influences of tremendous power have been undoing much of the good of each environment, and it is now an accepted fact that the motion picture is one of these forces. Analysis of children’s attendance, and the biased, inaccurate subject matter of the films they have been seeing, have so aroused public opinion that one appreciates the feeling which actuates any group attempting to legislate the problems, even if one does not agree with the method. I have always believed that the approach to the problem is through smaller children. It is unthinkable to subject children to conditions and environments which they are not oriented to meet. I lived in a mining camp once among thousands of Mexicans among whom my husband practiced as a physician. We learned then that no race is more fondly devoted to its children. During a strike when food was limited to bare essentials the babies thrived; when the strike was over and pay checks were available there was a veritable epidemic of upset infant stomachs from an overindulgence in watermelons and the other forbidden luxuries with which the parents ignorantly surfeited their children. It is much the same with our generation with the movies. We have liked movies and have wanted our children