Motion Picture Reviews (1935)

Four Motion Picture Reviews State Superintendent Kersey, and the summary is made by Mrs. Gladys L. Potter, Assistant Chief, Division of Elementary Education and Rural Schools. Although there was no attempt to make the study a highly scientific one, it was done to get informally the reactions, likes and dislikes, of children to specific movies in order to stimulate parents and teachers alike to the tremendous importance of motion pictures in their out of school influence on children’s development. The attitude of these California children is probably not very different from children elsewhere, so that their opinions may at least stimulate others to question what movies they are allowing their young children to see. One point, well brought out by the writer, is that this study, as well as others made in other sections of the country, proves that “lack of other types of entertainment in the home is evidenced by the attendance and interest of children in motion pictures.” Such a report could be invaluable as a suggestion also to producers who now claim that they wish to cater to the tastes of children in family films. As a rule they seem to be woefully ignorant of child psychology and apparently think that it exists only in the minds of professors, and has no relation to a child’s development outside the covers of a text book. The outward appearance of children pouring out of a junior matinee, for example, offers little significance to a casual onlooker or to a theatre manager who probably only hopes that the noise and hilarity have been concentrated for the week at that one performance. Mothers and teachers do, or should, understand the deeper meaning of the behavior problems presented. In my opinion one of the most important reactions learned from the fifth grade pupils, specifically from the boys, was that they like “adventure and excitement” best but that there is a tendency to dislike pictures that are terrorizing. In their own words they object to “spooky” suggestions as much as they do to “too much love.” In last month’s bulletin are two reviews of films which are generally heralded because of their suitability for children. “Babes in Toyland” was a frank gesture to attract children and the other, “Sequoia,” should have had the appeal for these young audiences which it undoubtedly will have for older ones. Both films in my opinion, have dangerously terrorizing suggestions. Fantasy and fairy tales should take one into a lovely world of unreality where everyday human problems fade away and where a child is safe from anything which even resembles his acquaintance with the world as he sees it. If the producers of “Babes in Toyland” had appreciated this they would never have had drocodiles snapping at lovely little Bo-Peep or have had the boogy men so closely resemble grinning apes with their horrid, hairy arms and tusk-like teeth viciously implying physical danger. These creatures chase the loved characters through underground caverns, they crash the gates of Toyland, carry away screaming children who live in the Shoe and create fear and havoc everywhere. It would have taken more imagination and skill to create boogy men who were too fantastic to be real, who caused laughter by their absurdities and who made the figures of toyland shake in terror but at whom children could laugh a little as too outrageous to frighten anyone but Mickey Mouse, the Three Little Pigs and Mother Goose characters. It can be done. Walt Disney can do it now, but apparently no one else. “Sequoia” has some of the loveliest scenes of wild animal life ever screened. The idea of friendship between natural enemies is intriguing, and children would profit by the experience of seeing these graceful, beautiful animals apparently so unconscious that their actions are being photographed for other’s pleasure. But to satisfy the producer’s idea of “drama and conflict,” human villainy is exaggerated, danger to these loved animals becomes almost unbearable and the climax — a fight between a man and a puma — is prolonged until it is too emotional an experience for any younger child, the very audience for whom so much of the picture is ideal. Producers are releasing more pictures which are definitely made for family trade and which can be recommended for their moral qualities and frequently for their artistic and intellectual attributes as well. Better films committees are increasingly alert to list these pictures for the audiences which wish to patronize them. But where are the pictures to which we may safely take children? Certainly “Babes in Toyland” was an attempt to reach them. Producers say that pictures made for children fail. Why not, when the very basis of their likes and dislikes is ignored? When adventure in pictures must mean bloodshed and death to animals or men; when fairy tales must hold menace in the form of human terror; and when love appears only as passion, and luxury and social gffaces connote the ideal of success in life. There is little magic in pictures for children except in these out of the Disney Studio, and younger children are denied them because they are lost to them on the double bills in adult theatres. The article published in the California Journal of Elementary Education goes on to state that the question was asked the children, “What have you learned from the movies?” The answer repeated most frequently was, “What I would like to be.” How many heros or