Moving Picture Age (Jan-Dec 1922)

December, 1922 MOVING PICTURE AGE 11 Correspondence MR. HAYS, ON GENERAL PROGRESS October 30, 1922 Mr. Milton Ford Baldwin Editor, Motion Picture Age 418 So. Market St. Chicago, 111. My dear Mr. Baldwin: I can never cease to appreciate the dinner which the publishers of the country gave for me last April. I have thought it was the most generous and pleasing thing that has ever or can ever come to me. At that time I made an earnest and rather definite commitment as to what I hoped to do in this new work, and as earnestly as possible sought the advice and sympathetic help of the publishers ; I came to the Press in this work as to a sort of elder brother. This help has been generously given, and I am very grateful and want to express that gratitude in this manner. Frankly, 1 have always regarded the purposes I outlined that night as a promise to the publishers, and thought that this enterprise of "establishing and maintaining the highest possible moral and artistic standards of motion-picture production, and developing the educational as well as the entertainment value and general usefulness of the industry" was quite certainly their affair, as it is more or less the business of every well-wisher for better things everywhere. With this in mind 1 have wished that there might be some means of getting to the publishers in a personal way what has been done, and definitely the progress that has been made. At the end of about six months since our organization it has been of some interest to the members themselves to review the activities, and I want to call your attention to the accounting, that you yourself may know. The very elements which make the motion picture a most potent power for entertainment, education, moral influence, and general usefulness carry to those who control it an exactly measurable responsibility. There are three great groups that have certain definite rights in the employment and the enjoyment of motion pictures. There are those who in any way have to do with the creation of the pictures and their distribution ; and there are those who exhibit them ; but first, and with rights far above those of the other groups, is the public. The people of the country have the complete right to require that motion pictures shall be clean, of course, and that they shall be of the highest standards of art and entertainment. No solution of what has been called the motion-picture problem is possible and no great plan for the future can be successful without the recognition of this fundamental matter, and this fact is accepted by the industry. It was the sensing of this duty that brought about the organization of the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, Inc., and it is for the complete discharge of that duty that the planning and execution have been moving forward. The development of a new spirit of confidence and co-operation within the industry was the first essential, because only from such a relationship can come the united action necessary for effective execution. That spirit obtains, and it includes producers, distributors, exhibitors, authors, directors, actors, cameramen, mechanics, and all the rest. The development of the right relation between exhibitor and distributor is a continuing problem, of course, with its solution based primarily on a continuing mutual fair dealing. To better ascertain and more certainly discharge its duty to the public, the industry sought and obtained the co-operation of some eighty nationally organized welfare movements. A General Committee made up of representatives of these groups, with an Executive Committee of twenty and an Executive Secretary, have all been brought into an active association of mutual helpfulness. This involves the consultation with them by the producers, and the careful consideration of all suggestions and arrangements for the actual preview of the pictures. This plan will, of course, go far toward bringing that understanding of both the public duty and the practical problems involved from which the very best results possible will ensue. The pertinency of the effort to endeavor in entertainment pictures always to portray correctly historical incidents, habits, customs, costumes, etc., has been obvious, and this effort is being PRINCE SASCHA, member of the house of Thurn and Taxis, of Czecho-Slovakia, has arrived in this country with the intention of stpdying the motion-picture industry. He is now en route to Universal City, California, where all facilities have been put at his disposal for a complete understanding of American production methods ; and following this period of preparation he will return to Czecho-Slovakia to organize his own producing and distributing unit. Both Czecho-Slovakian and American actors and actresses will appear in the films produced by this company. It is enlightening to note from Prince Sascha's conversation that, while he is decidedly interested in recreational films, he gives first importance to motion pictures with an educational trend, for use in his country. Czecho-Slovakia's people are held down by the oppressive hand of ignorance, says the Prince ; and he recognizes the opportunity of relieving this situation by the dissemination of accurate and essential information through the medium of films. This work is already being carried on to a limited extent by the Czecho-Slovakian government, through its edict that every recreational film program shall carry at least 1,000 feet of educational material ; but Prince Sascha plans more advanced steps in the same direction. made with renewed earnestness. In addition, the value of the motion picture as a new pedagogic instrument has been given serious consideration. To the National Education Association the offer was made, and accepted, that the plants of the members of our Association be used for experimentation and that the educators of the country and the producers join in the movement to make certain the production of pictures for classroom work which will be pedagogically, scientifically, and psychologically sound. A committee of great educators appointed by the National Education Association, together with the Federal Commissioner of Education and others, is meeting with the members of the Association, and plans will be perfected, all to the end that such need as now obtains shall be met, together with the certain almost limitless demand of the future, and met with pedagogic pictures which measure up to the standards fixed by the educators themselves. This will no doubt result in an invaluable contribution to the pedagogic forces of the country. Along with the development of the classroom film are proceeding the plans for the intelligent, equitable, and complete development of the whole non-theatrical field. Further, the producers have taken definite steps to make the fullest possible use of the motion picture as an instrument of international amity. They are making certain that all films which are sent abroad, wherever they may go, shall correctly portray American life, ideals, and opportunities. We will sell America to the world with motion pictures. American producers furnish the majority of all pictures shown in the world, and this correct depicting of the life and habits of our own and foreign people, each to the