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MOVING PICTURE The Menace Hysteria \ THE success of Passion and Deception, two German productions of genuine merit, seems to have frightened a number of persons in the moving picture industry of America, and a small group is now shouting the menace of German competition. A moderate amount of hysteria has developed and the Actor's Equity Association has made use of the situation to endeavor to pry its way into the studios and wish itself on the film business. With a flourish it is announced that Congress will be asked to place a high tariff on German film so that our poor suffering infant industry may not be destroyed. It makes interesting reading and it serves as a topic of conversation, but the alarm is positively false and predicated on a misunderstand- ing of the facts. In the first place there are not enough good German pictures in existence today to hurt any market, especially our own. In the next instance Germany cannot turn out masterpieces by factory methods week after week any more than can any other nation or group. If their pictures are good the American public will want to see them just as we welcome the extraordinary pictures of England, France, Italy and Scandinavia. We want no tariff barriers against entertainment or art in this country. We do not propose to protect any stupid productions of home manufacture from competition from America or Europe. The idea is preposterous. During the war America got the jump on the rest of the world in picture production. This lead is in no danger now. Our regular product is so far ahead of the regular product elsewhere that we need not worry about a few great productions that should and will serve to stimulate our own producers to better effort. Germany today is restricting importation of foreign films, but this restriction will not continue for long. The best German business sentiment is against it and her own publications are making war upon it. If any tariff is placed on pictures imported to this country, England will promptly retaliate. Lord Beaverbrook is already campaigning against American pictures and any action by the American Congress would provide the excuse that the extremists in England seem to be looking for. A tariff would not change the situation for the better because there is nothing to prevent German experts from coming here to make their big productions. They might even profit by it and increased costs would not stand in the way. Those who are shouting about the German menace possibly don't know that two thousand German films offered for sale here have been rejected because they have no appeal for the American public. We can take and readily absorb all the masterpieces that Germany or any other nation can produce. There won't be so many as some folk seem to fear. In the meantime let the hysteria stop because it makes us as an industry look rather silly before the world. There isn't any menace and none is in prospect.