National Board of Review Magazine (Jan 1929 - Dec 1930)

FEB -2 1929 15660 National Board Dr. William B. Tower, Chairman Dr. Myron T. Sr udder. Treasurer EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Dr. Louis I. Harris Walter W. Pettit Mrs. Miriam Sutro Price Dr. Myron T. Scudoer Dr. Ai BERT T. Shiels Dr. William B. Tower George J. Zehrunc Wilton A. Barrett, Execnfiie Secretary MANAGING EDITOR Bettina Gunczy EDITORIAL STAFF Alfred B. Kuttner Frances C. Barrett / Volume IV, Number 1 January, 1929 20c a cop_v, $2.00 a year Our Twentieth Anniversary A TWENTY years have passed since the National Board of Review first sought to find a way, as a socially minded group striving to reflect public thought, to help guide the then new medium of motion pictures toward a healthy, natural development, while at the same time defending the principle that the screen is to remain free for its own expression, as other arts remain free for theirs — as thought and speech themselves are free. No thinking person today will seriously declare that the motion picture has not fully validated the Tightness of that principle — that it has not proved its potency for expressing truth and beauty while performing its intermediate function of providing entertainment, and that it has not won its place beside the other arts as a creative means of showing to mankind ]\Ian. But no person cognizant of events in screen history will seriously question that had it not been for certain guidances outside the industry, certain principles evolved and forces placed in action to combat stupidity, prejudice and the often misguided impulses of otherwise well-meaning people, all calculated to harass and stifle the young medium's development — the motion picture would never have so quickly attained the prestige it has today, and might never have attained it for a hundred years. The point is, that the screen today is as much a part of our unconscious acceptance of things as twenty years ago it was a stranger in our intellectual midst, regarded with suspicion, if not ridicule, and feared in some quarters as an ally of the devil. In those twenty years a number of things happened to change all this, and they happened because, in pace with the screen's own technical and intellectual advance, certain currents of public thought were stirred by leaders outside the industry even more than within it, resulting in clarification of thought and purpose as to how to regard and benefit the screen, due to insistence upon intelligent and liberal principles of action. Theories were found that would work in place of others that would not ; constructive plans were proposed and gradually put into effect by which that portion of the public disinterestedly interested in bettering the films themselves, partly through disentangling confused concepts regarding them, could unite in guidance and support of the motion picture as it struggled to fulfill its destiny. It is no arrogance on the part of the National Board of Review that impells it, after twenty years of severe effort in which it had to evolve, often through disappointing experience, its own philosophy and procedure, to state simply that its work in the field we have indicated was of a pioneer nature. For there it began a contribution to the growth of motion pictures, and in liberalizing public sentiment bearing upon them, that has found, as most fundamental gifts do, wide acceptance and usage by other groups and has been blended with other forces, so that under many names and through passing, not always with acknowledgment, into many hands, it has sometimes lost its identitv with the National Board. The 3