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MOVIES AND CONDUCT wishing that he could live the same kind of life. This kind of reaction would appear to be far more common than is supposed by people who believe that children live mainly on the plane of action rather than of imagination. Out of 1,200 papers from Chicago children of elementary school age, over 50 per cent stated that their daydreams were influenced by what they saw in the cinema.
In the higher age groups the tendency is even more conspicuous, and the fantasy is generally unaccompanied by any overt activity, and enjoyed for its own sake. Thus one girl writes: 'Day-dreaming was my chief pastime and I can trace it back to being aroused and stimulated by motion pictures. I'd picture myself the wife of a star, living in Hollywood and all my friends envying me my handsome husband. But no one ever took him away from me; he was always faithful to me'.
Another girl states: 'The pictures I saw became the chief source of subject matter for day-dreams. I would lie awake for hours after going to bed day-dreaming. After seeing an especially good show I have gone off to bed especially early to get those dreams started'.
A high proportion of the fantasies described are concerned with wealth, luxury, social ambition and success of various kinds. Among the daydreams indulged in by the girls from whom Professor Blumer drew his material a big part is played by glamorous stars like Rudolf Valentino, and there is a perpetual recurrence of the desert background and the sheik who carries off the beautiful white heroine.
It is important to remember in this connection that from 1934 onwards the whole tone of motion pictures has been considerably modified by the requirements of the Hays' Code, much of whose force derives from an influential American body known as the National Legion of Decency. The Hays' Code is actually a set of principles 'to govern the making of talking, synchronised and silent motion pictures'. It covers a wide range of subjects, from surgical operations to the display of the American Flag, and the vetoes which it imposes are of a severe and far-reaching kind. In general it can be regarded as having a function similar to that of the British Board of Film Censors. As may be expected, the Code is stringent in its treatment of the sex element in film, and it is probable that some of the pictures which excited Professor Blumer's students could not have been issued in their original form after 1934, when the Hays' office really got under way. The following extracts from the Code are relevant to this aspect;
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