Motography (Jan-Jun 1917)

March 17. 1917 MOTOGRAPHY 557 New Picture Bills Hit Illinois AMENDMENT PERMITS PROSECUTION OF EXHIBITORS UNDER CRIMINAL LAW A JAIL sentence of not to exceed one year, or a fine of not less than twenty-five dollars nor more than two hundred dollars, or both fine and imprisonment, constitute the possible penalty which a court might impose upon an exhibitor or amusement manager convicted under the terms of a bill now in a committee of the Illinois legislature, designed to bring immoral and indecent motion pictures, dramatic productions and other forms of amusements within the scope of criminal law. The ambiguity of every law purporting to arbitrate the moral fitness of plays, books, pictures, advertisements, art and theatrical entertainments, is pointed out again in the proposed amendment by the attorneys and exhibitors who are opposing the passage of the bill. Under its terms, David W. Griffith and a hundred other directors would be subject to prosecution by those who choose to -;ee obscenity where none exists. The exhibitors who display the films are declared subject to attack and criminal prosecution, fines and imprisonment. Closing Theaters as Public Nuisances Another measure well-meant in its conception, but so wide in its application that it might readily become an instrument in the hands of persons with a desire to totally suppress the theater, rests with the senate committee on judiciary. The law only classifies, and cannot define, what classes of motion pictures and other amusements are to be regarded as tending to corrupt morals. The interpretation placed upon a motion picture by those attacking it would, if they succeeded, become the test by which to define the moral or immoral aspects of the play, the law being only a weapon and an abortive means of action toward ends that public opinion rightly should serve. The Chicago Theatrical Managers' Association is cooperating with exhibitors in defending the theaters against the legislative attacks which affect both motion pictures and the stage. Among the half dozen or more measures now on the legislative docket at Springfield, pertaining to censorship and motion pictures, only one has received any large degree of favor among the film men. This is the Guernsey bill, a measure providing for an official state censor, which is so framed that it offers not only the supervision of films by an official censor as sought by women's clubs and others, but offers relief to exhibitors and exchangemen from some of the ills now existing in the unregulated, haphazard methods employed by various local censorship boards. Some exchange managers say that the Guernsey bill is an acceptable remedy for a situation resulting from the fact that co-operation between various local censor boards is an impossibility, whereas a state censor would be created by the Guernsey bill, thus displacing the unsatisfactory and expensive proposition of local hit-and-miss censorship. Makes Theater Owners Liable Following is the text of the proposed amendment to the criminal code which, if it became a law, would make exhibitors, theater owners and their agents liable to prosecution in the criminal courts : That any person who, as owner, manager, director, or agent or in any other capacity, prepares, advertises, gives, presents, or participates in, any obscene, immoral or indecent drama, play, exhibition, motion picture, show or entertainment, and every person aiding or abetting such act, and every owner or lessee or manager of any theater, motion picture house, garden, building, room, place or structure, who leases or lets the same or permits the same to be used for the purposes of such drama, play, exhibition, show or entertainment, or who assents to the use of the same for any such purpose, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall, for the first violation of this act, be subject to a fine of not less than $25 nor more than $200, or imprisonment in the county jail or house of correction for not to exceed one year, or both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court; and for each subsequent offense, the defendant shall be subject to a fine of not less than $50 nor more than $500, or imprisonment in the county jail or house of correction for not to exceed one year, or both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court. Detroit Women Support Bill W. H. Sheets, secretary of the Detroit branch of the Motion Picture Exhibitors' League, who recently presented the argument of Detroit theater owners before the committee of the Michigan legislature which has charge of the Eaton censorship bill, declared that the Detroit women who are seeking the passage of the law have not kept their word to the exhibitors. The measure is opposed by the theater owners. Mr. Sheets stated in reply to a speech by Mrs. Albert L. Finn that when the women and exhibitors discussed picture reforms in Detroit last year, the women promised to bring any complaints they might have to the attention of the League, in an effort to obtain co-operation. No complaints have been made, and instead the women have furthered the agitation for state censorship, he said. Theodore Mitchell, representing David W. Griffith, appeared before the committee. Wants Only Women's Censorship The New York Theater Club, Inc., made motion pictures a topic of discussion for the first time at a meeting held March 6, at the Hotel Astor. Previously the club staged a theater party at the Lyric Theater, New York, and entertained fifteen hundred women. The affair was the first step of a carefully planned campaign against government censorship. The guests of honor were the presidents of all the allied clubs of the Women's Federation. The importance of motion pictures in the sphere of dramatic art has obtained recognition by the Theater Club, which now proposes to fight legal censorship. It was urged that the women of the country are the only censors needed. The meeting of March 6was devoted to a discussion of the screen play shown at the Lyric Theater entertainment. The production was the William Fox feature, "The Honor Svstem." Names Tacoma Censor Board A new censor board has taken up the work of inspecting films for the city of Tacoma, Washington, where formerly a committee of the social welfare board performed the censors' duties. The personnel of the new board is as follows : Meyer Jacob, Federated Jewish Societies ; Mrs. James Garvin, Parent-Teacher Association ; E. J. Walsh, Federated Catholic Societies ; the Rev. Robert Lamont Hay, Ministerial Alliance ; Mrs. Leonard Crassweller, Presidents' Council ; Mrs. H. Roy Harri —