THE MOVIE DEVELOPS A CONSCIENCE
NOT long ago the good people of Stratford-on-Avon, England, arose in
their might, held a great mass meeting, and decreed that Shakespeare’s
birthplace should not be desecrated by the movies. Lacking sufficient
clairvoyance to realize that possibly the motion picture of the near
future, with its natural colors and its synchronization of movement with
the tones of the human voice, may be destined to give Shakespeare a new
lease of life and a larger public than he has hitherto possessed, the
Stratford-on-Avonites were not without justification for the protest
they registered against the more or less disreputable pictures that
threatened to invade a shrine hitherto dedicated to the loftiest
achievement the realm of the drama can boast. But Shakespeare’s
birthplace will see the day when its inhabitants will repent of the
narrow-mindedness they have shown as regards the movies.
It is not for us Americans, however, to jeer at Stratford-on-Avon for
its aggressive conservatism. Our immediate ancestors blocked the wheels
of progress in many mischievous, if not laughable, ways. The School
Board of Lancaster, Ohio, adopted in 1826 the following resolution:
“Such things as railroads are impossibilities and rank infidelity. If
God had designed that His intelligent creatures should travel at the
frightful speed of fifteen miles per hour by steam, He would clearly
have foretold it through His holy prophets.” The advent of the bath-tub,
destined to be one of the crowning glories of America, was denounced by
our medical men as a menace to the public health. Philadelphia, Pa., in
1843, endeavored by ordinance to prohibit all bathing between the months
of November and March. Boston, Mass., in 1845, made bathing, except when
prescribed by a physician, unlawful, and, at about the same time,
Virginia put a tax of thirty dollars a year upon every bath-tub in a
commonwealth that can claim to be the cradle of American liberty!
Whatsoever is new under the sun must fight for its place in the sun. For
centuries the printing-press had to struggle for freedom against
powerful restrictive influences that looked upon it as “an agent of the
Devil.” The telegraph, telephone, bicycle, automobile and wireless have
all had their bigoted opponents, who feared that the broadening of
humanity’s contacts would become an increasing menace to their own
narrow beliefs and habits. Is it strange, then, that the movie, a new
form of art qualified to make an instant appeal to both the good and the
bad in human nature, should have had, at the outset of its career, a
hard struggle to justify itself to the more conservative elements of the
community? Bad boy that he was in his earlier years, the movie made it
difficult for a public largely puritanical in its origins and tendencies
to believe that the youngster could be reformed, that he had in him
untried and unmeasurable powers for upward progress, that he was a
prodigal son of Art and Science fated to exercise a controlling
influence upon the destinies of the race.
However, there is an element in the make-up of the American people that
leads it, even at the eleventh hour, to institute reforms whenever an
institution seemingly worth saving must either be heroically treated or
permitted to go completely to the dogs. There came a time when negro
slavery must be destroyed if our Federal Constitution was to survive. At
an enormous cost of life and treasure, the blacks were freed and the
Union preserved. It became apparent recently to the American public that
there were destructive influences at work within our three most popular
forms of amusement, that our stage, our base-ball diamond and our movie
screen were in jeopardy from internal perils, as were our governmental
institutions in the early sixties.
What Judge Landis is endeavoring to do for our national game and
Augustus Thomas for our stage is, in a general way, what Will H. Hays
has been called upon to effect in the field of the motion picture. For a
quarter of a century the movies in America, if not going from bad to
worse had shown no marked signs of repentance for their early
indiscretions. Cut-throat competition had long exercised its evil
influence upon the industry and the law of the jungle had prevailed in
its financial affairs. How this new commercial activity, despite its
unbusinesslike methods, its apparent disregard of the economic laws that
are said to underlie all competitive industries, and its seemingly
happy-go-lucky indifference to the multiplication-table actually forged
its way upward until it placed itself high on the list of the business
enterprises of this country is a marvel and a mystery that only
financial wizards could explain.
When Will H. Hays resigned as Postmaster General of the United States to
enter, in a position of commanding influence, the motion-picture field
he became an important factor in an industry whose growth has been one
of the marvels of the world’s commercial history. It was no longer a
peripatetic gambler, out-at-heels one day and affluent the next, but a
vast business enterprise sufficiently prosperous to afford the luxury of
a general house-cleaning. It is easier for the well-to-do to be
respectable than for the down-and-outs, and the movies had reached a
point financially when, without disastrous monetary sacrifice, they
could essay the task of shortening their list of sins of omission and
commission.
Going to the root recently of the new influences at work in the motion
picture realm, and of his official connection with them, Hays said:
There has been some query as to just what this effort which the
industry is making at this time is all about. It is simply that
those men who make and distribute pictures have associated
themselves to do jointly those things in which they are mutually
but non-competitively interested, having as the chief purposes
of such association two great objectives—and I quote verbatim
from the formal articles of association, which have been filed
in the office of the Secretary of State at Albany, N.Y.:
“Establishing and maintaining the highest possible moral and
artistic standards in motion picture production and developing
the educational as well as the entertainment value of the motion
picture.”
Later on in this book, we shall have occasion to refer in detail to what
Hays and his colleagues have accomplished in their efforts to improve
the tone of the movies. But just here it is well to direct the course of
our narrative into the two channels referred to in the clause of the
producers’ agreement above quoted, following the flood of movies devoted
to mere amusement for awhile with searching eyes, and later on making a
survey of the rapidly broadening stream of pictures designed for
educational purposes. From the latter, perhaps, it may be expedient for
us to go forward with some confidence toward a more minute consideration
of the dynamics lurking in the screen for the furtherance of a method of
world-wide enlightenment that may eventually save civilization from the
disintegrating forces by which, both externally and internally, it is
menaced.
“The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world” is a sweeping
generalization intended by the poet to be a compliment to motherhood.
Whether it is a compliment or a condemnation depends wholly upon one’s
point of view regarding the world. If the world is worth saving, the
hand that rocks the cradle is worthy of all honor; if it isn’t, then
motherhood has been unjustifiably glorified. Believing, personally, that
the human race is not without many reasonable claims to salvation, we
turn curiously to the movies in their capacity as a public amusement to
see whether, leaving their educational function for further
consideration, they display as a pastime anything that looks like a
gleam of hope for the regeneration of the race.
Have we, in fact, cause for optimism regarding the future of the
amusement screen? We find to-day the press, the pulpit and the
playwrights denouncing the shortcomings of the movies, chastising their
secret faults and their open transgressions; editors, preachers,
dramatists posing as Savonarolas at a spiritual crisis in the career of
a young but alarmingly potent world power. These are portents in the sky
that promise well for the future of the screen. If our leading thinkers,
writers and publicists, yes, and picture producers, were indifferent to
the sins of omission and commission attributable for a quarter of a
century to the movie its case would be hopeless. But it is worth saving,
as the best minds in our country well know, and the criticism that it is
always undergoing is a most encouraging phenomenon.
The regeneration of the movies must be both through external and
internal sources. A producer who recently relieved his over-burdened
soul in _Collier’s Weekly_ puts the whole matter in a nut-shell when he
says:
We must have better pictures. And to get them we need these two
things: inside the industry, the higher standards and leadership
that can only come in with intelligent capital; and outside the
industry, the support and encouragement of such good pictures as
are already made. We of the motion-picture industry who stand
for more intelligent pictures can only provide them if you on
the outside, in addition to criticising in no uncertain terms
the stupid films that offend you, will take the trouble to hunt
up, and go to see, and boost, the photoplays that are good
enough to merit your interest. When you do that we can have
better movies.
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