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■ SUNDAY. JANUARY 13, 1924.
Real Sufferer in a Film Scandal.
The only person deserving of sympathy in one of these so-called "Hollywood scandals" is the produce:-. If there ever was an innocent bystander shot by a stray bullet it is the man who. having put up his money and expended his energies in the making of a picture, finds it »H thrown into the scrap heap because the conduct of some man or woman has incurred the disfavor of that noisy element of our community which has takeu upou itself the safeguarding of our morals.
The situation is a harsh one and the punishment inflicted upon an innocent party unjust, but there seems no way of remedying it. A producer plans a picture, lays out his money, has his casting department and director select the players, with the object of giving the plot the best delineation possible. The work has progressed sometime to completion. There is every prospect of adequate financial return when suddenly on some night something is done or something is made known that shows a violation of the moral law by one of the players in the company. If the individual be of sufficient consequence very promptly the censorious packs gather and begin their yapping. And the peculiar part of it is that they do not ask that the person concerned be punished directly; they do not press for imprisonment or exile, but their sole cry is "bar the film." Thereupon there arises all over the country individual exhibitors who evince a desire for publicity t/O announce that never shall any picture in which the offending person appears be presented at his theatre. Of course, they do not mean it, but they have got their names in the l toper, and that is what was wanted.
No one is saying that persons who openly and notoriously live evil lives should I escape censure and punishment. It does not matter whether they are of the Stage or screen or law or medicine or the church, for that matter, the offender should be made to pay. But why hit the producer, who innocently and honestly engaged in a legitimate enterprise? Why fine him so heavily for something he I was dragged into by mischance?
That is one phase of the hullabaloo method of reform which should be con j sidered.