Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1921 - Feb 1922)

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The Survival 0 f the Fittest They say that forty thousand persons connected with motion pictures are out of work in Los Angeles. In New York City, only a few studios are open. So slack is production that the theater managers are beginning to wonder where they will get their picturfes next fall. Certainly we are going to have fewer pictures. Whether they will be better remains to be seen. Salaries are slumping, and some of the minor-league stars are glad to work as mere leading men and women at five hundred dollars a week or less. It is a case of survival of the fittest, and our guess is that next winter there will be a resumption of the star system by most of the companies that have been depending a great deal upon a good story, a good director, and a good allaround starless cast. The really big pictures — the sort like "The Miracle Man," "Way Down East," "Over the Hill," and "Humoresque" — will be starless or genuinely all star like Cecil De Mille's ten-star edition of "Anatol." But the pictures that keep us going to the theater week after week will be the star pictures. The star will mean more to us, for the slump of 192 1 has wiped out the folks who didn't have the goods. Gone, for the most part, is the young lady or young man who was a star only because some producer said so. Instead, a list of real stars has been established, selected by the public. It has been a stormy summer for the producers, and in the storm the weak ones are being tossed overboard. It's tough on those who can't swim, but we've seen a good many so-called "stars" that we'd rather drown than feed. Haven't you? Folks Who Are Sensible' ' Censorship of motion pictures is a fact in New York and Massachusetts now, and doubtless all crime in Boston and New York City will cease instantly. Governor Miller has announced that he will appoint for New York a censorship board of "sensible" folk, which he seems to believe, makes everything all right. Sensible people are not difficult to find. You are one, for instance, and The Observer is another. So is every soul in this world who agrees with us in whatever opinions we may advance. But when they stop agreeing with us, they are sensible no longer. The man who sees labor's side of the problem, for instance, is sensible according to the judgments of labor. To capital he is anything but sane. The Pennsylvania Censorship Board is made up of sensible people according to the judgment of certain classes. But we doubt if they are sensible under the standards set by Samuel Gompers. If a censorship board cuts out of motion pictures the principles with which you do not agree, you hang a medal on the board and say censorship is a great thing. If it cuts out the things you want left in, you brand the board as tyrannical. Doubtless the men and women comprising the Pennsylvania board would poll a heavy vote if they were running for a place in the Congress of sensible people. But would they be elected, after the following evidence of eliminations from Bill Hart's picture,' "The Whistle," were submitted as evidence of a fair and unbiased mind : Eliminate: Foreword: "Since the day of Plato and Socrates there have been many men of wisdom, but none sage enough to solve the struggle eternal between capital and labor." Substitute : Foreword : "Since the day of Plato and Socrates there have been many men of wisdom, but none sage enough to solve one of the eternal struggles of life." . This, remember, is the story of a working man, presenting his side more forcibly than the side of capitat.~ In Pennsylvania, don't admit that there is any struggle between capital and labor. Here's another elimination and a title substituted that shows how the board's sympathies lie : Eliminate subtitle : "The Chappie Home, a realm which does not jump at the imperious call of the whistle." Substitute : "The Chappie Home, the domicile of a manufacturer not typical of those of to-day; a man not bad of heart, yet who does not realize his interest lies in seeing that the interests of his employees are equally as well protected as his own." And note this one : Eliminate : "Conner's widow came to you, and you sent her away with a few filthy dollars when you killed her husband." Substitute : "When Conner's widow came to you, why didn't you act like the decent bosses of to-day?" Another along the same line : Eliminate : "The thing you took from her your rotten money won't bring back." Substitute : "Men like you belong to the past." There are other eliminations, some of which we would call "sensible" for we agreed with the board that Bill Hart has rather oversupplied "The Whistle" with cuss words. We are not arguing here, either for labor or for capital. And we must admit that there were several thin.ojs in "The Whistle" that we did not care for particularly. But that's no reason why the right of free speech should be denied in Pennsylvania, when that speech is thrown upon a screen instead of being spoken from a platform or printed in a newspaper. We should be just as het up about the thing if the Pennsylvania board had altered a picture so as to give capital more the better of it than the author intended. What we object to is the altering of ideas to make them jibe with those of che censor board's. If a censor board can alter pictures to make them