Moving Picture World (Aug 1916)

August 19, 1916 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 1219 Get the Public Confidence I5v W. Stephen Bush. NO BETTER motto has been devised than that of the Cleveland exhibitors: "Get the public confidence." No business and no industry needs more than we do the confidence of the plain people of the land. The motion picture belongs to the plain people. It is, we are happy to say, capable of marvelous artistic development, but nothing made by one man is too good for another man to see. The men who make or distribute or show motion pictures to the public must get close to the public and must be willing to take the public into their confidence. The impression still prevails in many quarters that the motion picture men are just a lot of "nickle-grabbers." as President Sawyer of Ohio is in the habit of saying. It is all right and it is indeed necessary to get the nickels and the dimes and the more elusive denominations. I am bound to say, however, that the business of the exhibitor does not end with the counting of the receipts. He must make an adequate return. He is just now much handicapped by circumstances I gladly admit ; between the Seylla of the Program and the Charybdis of the Feature he has his task cut out to save his bark from going on the rocks. Nevertheless the responsibility is largely his. The public holds him responsible; the lawgivers hold him responsible ; 90 per cent, of the criticisms launched at the motion picture is aimed at the exhibitor. It was and it is the public which has helped the exhibitor to realize both his power and his responsibility. He knows better than any other factor in the industry how absolutely dependent he is on the confidence of his public. I never go into a motion picture theater and watch the manager without feeling that consciously or unconsciously he is doing his level besi to gain that confidence. Now, it is all right to be courteous, for no success is possible without it: it is all right to have the place well ventilated, to have a fine lobby, to have attractive schemes of decoration, to have good music, to insist on good projection. All these things are needed in the plan to win public confidence, but the best and final place to win public confidence is on the screen. Exhibitors know that the) win or lost with their pictures I am firmly persuaded that hereafter the exhibitors will have something to say aboul the pictures on which their livelihood depends. The convention at Chicago furnish) rl some proof of that. I am verj certain right now that if it depended on the vote of the exhibitors, the silly so-calied vampire pictures would be voted out of existence. Pro dttO i in this business, I am sorry to say, are often d< ceived by surface indication-. A heavil) advertised vam pire picture comes along and brings a temporary but ulti manly fatal increase in the box office receipts of one oi two exhibitors. \ "vampire wave" follows; sometimes it's a little wave and sometimes a big otic. but it SUbsidi quickl) in either event after doing a lot of harm to the reputation of the motion picture. No solid, permanent benefit oi success is ever achieved with pictun vampire or oth< i objectionable type Let us thoroughlj understand this one fact: We can not gain the confidence ol the plain people with su h pictures, but we . an ver) quickly earn their disgust. This storj was told to a member of the staff of the Moving Pictur] World b) an exhibitor of experience and repu tation \ regulai patron of a suburban motion picture theater was seen walking up to his theater and suddenly coming to a stop \< lie viewed the lobb) displaj he was approached l>\ the .ts,i-.i.int manager, who hailed him familiarly and invited him to come in and see the show. The man shook his head "I didn't think I would ever see one of these vampire pictures in your theater," he said. "Why, I have seen a couple of these pictures down-town and if I see another I might begin to suspect my own wife." W e cannot gain the confidence of the public without pictures which will deserve such confidence. The exhibitor must have the co-operation of the producer. The most successful producer for the next five years will be the one who keeps his finger on the exhibitor's pulse, which generally repeats the beats of the public pulse. Does Censorship "Protect" Us? By \Y. Stepjikx Bush. WL I. Will-; the attention of the advocates of censorship, Federal or otherwise, to the curious state of affairs that is developing in the interesting town of Seattle. A prominent film man in that section bought a picture which had been approved by the National Hoard of Review. Now they happen to have a little board of their own in Seattle, consisting of nine members. Two-thirds of this local board took a look at the picture and found it to be morally O. K. and artistically commendable. Now it seems to the humble intellect grinding out this piece of copy that if ever censorship was going to act as a "protection" this was its goldenest opportunity. Alack and alas! — on top of all this double-barreled commendation and this copper-fastened approbation there comes along a delegation of three women, overruling everything and everybody and declaring that the picture was perfectly horrid and ought to he stopped forthwith, vi et armis. as they say in an indictment. Sure enough, the distinguished Mayor of the city, coldly ami firmly ignoring all previous decisions, sends forth' the minion's of the law and has the exhibitor who showed the picture apprehended, simultaneously threatening the aforesaid exhibitor with the municipal dungeon unless defendant consents to an immediate forfeiture of the tidv little sum of one hundred dollars. The legal machinery in Seattle works on principles that have made New Jersey famous tor its justice. The judge before whom this matter is to he tried and decided is said to he none too favorable to the defendant. This, of course, is mere hearsay, for all we know to the contrary the judge may be an ornament of his rank. However this ma) he. it seems to us that the exhibitor who has hen arrested and threatened and who has now demanded a jury trial, ought to find himself surrounded by willing helpers from every part of the industry. He bravel) and honorably has decided to fight tile i finish, and he is entitled to the assistance, both moral an. I Otherwise, of all the film men in that section, whether the) are organized or not. We hope that every exhibitor and ever) exchange will rally around him in the pn Of this fight. [| is gratifying to learn that the entire press 0f the Cit) ot Seattle is in hearty accord with the arrested exhibitor What we want to point out in this ease is the fact that censorship is not a "protection" against the <v the police power. Censorship does not am where, and. is tar as u ,■ ean see, it never will anywhere supersede the police powers of the state The police power i inherent in even Mate ami iii ever) subdivision of the state and censorship cannot confine or circumscribe it in am wa\ whatever It is quite true that tl power is subject to judicial review, but we all ki an aw fid lot of damage can b< d( read) to h I l >f all the sill) arguments in motion pictures there is none wot iim that censorship "protects" the exhibit) from othet official quartei