The Moving picture world (November 1921)

524 MOVING PICTURE WORLD December 3, 1921 Attempt of Quebec Board to Censor Is "Like Elephant Painting a Miniature, " Says Newspaper After Absurd Mistake A REAL sensation has developed in the Province of Quebec over the action of the Quebec Board of Moving Picture Censors, Montreal, in condemning a new print of "The Birth of a Nation" when the feature had previously been officially approved by the Quebec board. The decision of the censors at Montreal in banning the fresh print resulted in the interesting situation of having both an officially approved print and a condemned print of the same picture in the city at the one time. Exchange officials declare that the prints are identical. The new print was offered for censorship in the formal manner because the D. W. Griffith production is still going strong in the Province and a new film was needed. The reason given by the Quebec censors in condemning the second print of "The Birth of a Nation" was that the story was "immoral," the official decision of the board being: "Immoral, and race prejudice." This is the same censor board which first condemned "Way Down East" and then passed it recently. "Bedlam in all its glory never achieved anything so triumphantly crazy as this condemnation," declared the Montreal Daily Star, in taking up the issue. "It is time for another clean sweep to be made: The public are simply being fooled by a tyrannical body of nincompoops, whose fitness for their job is on parallel with that of an elephant to paint a miniature. Let us have a change. Nothing could be possibly worse" The funny part of the situation is that the exchange company could have made use of the new print if it had not been sent to the censors, as the old print is still in Montreal and is said to be identical with the new film. The original print used still has the approval of Quebec censors attached. This badge consists of a strip of film showing a board certificate which is inserted in the picture immediately after the introductory titles. The Quebec board consists of a former French Count, who was in Canada only a short time before he secured his appointment to the board chairmanship, a former coal dealer, it is said, and a woman. of Los Angeles and Hollywood and I firmly state that there is as high an average of intelligence and wholesome living and commendable conditions to produce good artistic work as in any other section of artistic life. One bad case goes into court and a cry goes up that the whole industry and art are tainted, but that is not said wben some alarming and degrading event occurs in social life. An individual case must not be taken as the estimate of the whole, or how long would the world last? If as the author of the article asserts, "the fourteen-year -old intelligence" in a state of arrested development with its "sinister burden of prejudices, taboos, neuroses, and superstitions" is responsible among other things for "the laws for the minorities and specifies the sort of education the succeeding generation shall have," then I think it is not so bad a fourteen-year-old intelligence, for there are good laws and there is a very good system of education in this country. If there are good laws and a good system of education I refuse to believe that in a country which has these things the film industry is on the downward path. Films Help To Educate Who frequent the films? The best average minds of the country. Who at tend the films shown in schools and Sunday Schools? The best religious minds of the country, not debased or degraded intelligences. Who are ministering in motion pictures to all these people ? The film producers who are giving the public increasingly good films. Pessimism is a disease, optimism is a virtue, and I am on the side of virtue where the films are concerned. The state and the public are those who decide what films may be produced, and no glowing articles in magazines can make the public believe that the film world is either short-lived or is on the way to doom. It cannot and will not destroy a taste for the speaking stage, but it develops a dramatic sense and motion pictures have given education to the masses. It is not through the plays done on the film stage. They make up about one-third of the whole evening's entertainment ; there are shown also interesting pictures in animal and scientific life, in geography and in the costumes and customs of countries. I am a fairly well educated man, but I have learned much from the films. It is too easy learning, is it? Well, is it better to learn easily or not at all? Let us have faith. The film industry and art has come to stay. Believe in it and help it, encourage it and improve it, but in improving it do not impulsively and ungraciously belittle it. Suppose a film costs a million dollars — that goes out in work and eyes and goods, and if it makes five million dollars that reaches the public again in due time. The film producers are not fools. They will give the public what it demands, and in the end the public is always right. They find out the truth and they live up to it. The film world is a world in the making; give it a fair chance and it will justify itself. Men like Charlie Chaplin, a genius, are getting away from slapstick comedy and farce, as "The Kid" plainly shows; and Charlie Chaplin is proving he is a master-actor in comedy which includes pathos and wit and humor. Douglas Fairbanks also is moving steadily upward. Both are producers as well as actors — give them and give the whole film world a living opportunity. This immense business is a part of the people's life; help it by fair criticism, uphold it with faith and hope. It has come to stav. Exchange Managers to Break Up Network of Michigan Date Thefts and Bicycling A SPECIAL session of the Detroit Board of Motion Picture Exchange Managers was called this week to take immediate and drastic action to curb what is described as a "veritable net-work of date thefts and film bicycling in Michigan," particularly in the western part of the state, with Grand Rapids as the principal offender. The exchange managers in preparing for active warfare on this practice, which has only partially subsided after various attempts to break it up within the past five years, announce that a permanent department of scouts, whose business alone will be to keep in close touch with film shipments and their destinations, will be established at once. It is estimated that the theft of days and the bicycling of film in Michigan is costing the exchanges approximately $100,000 annually in revenue, and it is figured, therefore, that the expense of a department solely to put a stop to the violations will be an economical measure. It has not yet been determined just how the department will function, a committee now being at work to determine minor points in the plan. Leniency which has characterized the action of the exchange managers in the past, when absolute cases against offenders were brought in, together with sworn affidavits, will no longer be the rule, according to Jess Fishman, president of the exchange managers. Mr. Fishman says that every case hereafter will be prosecuted to the limit.