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THE NATIONAL FILM WEEKLY
publish:d in nine sectional editions
BEN SHLYEN
Editor-in-Chief and Publisher
JAMES M. JERAULD Editor
NATHAN COHEN Associate Editor
JESSE SHLYEN Managing Editor
IVAN SPEAR Western Editor
FLOYD M. MIX Equipment Editor
RAYMOND LEVY General Manager
Published Every Saturday by
ASSOCIATED PUBLICATIONS
OXOFFICE
FREEDOM OF THE
SCREEN
(I
Editorial Ollicss: 9 Rockefeller Plaza, New York 20,
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lerauld. Editor; Chester Friedman, Editor Showmondiser
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r St., N. W. Lee L. Garling, Manager. Telephone
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Telephone Gerrard 3934-5-6.
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1, Mo. Nathan Cohen, Associate Editor; Jesse Shlyen,
Managing Editor; Morris Schlozman, Business Manager.
J Herbert Roush, Manager Advertising
and Service. Telephone CHestnut 7777-78.
Sales
Other Publications: BOXOFFICE BAROMETER,
published in November as a section of BOXOFFICE:
THE MODERN THEATRE, published monthly as a
section ol BOXOFFICE.
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DETROIT— 1009 Fox Theatre Bldg., H. F. Reves.
Telephones: RA 1100; Night, UN-4-0219.
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PORTLAND, ORE.—David C. Kahn, BR, 1181, ext. 156
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IN CANADA
CALGARY-The Albertan, Wm. Campbell.
MONTREAL— 4330 Wilson Ave., N. D. G., Roy Carmichael,
Wahiut 5519.
ST. JOHN- 116 Prince Edward St., Wm. J. McNulty.
TORONTO— 242 Milwood, Milton Galbraith.
VANCOUVER—411 Lyric Theatre Bldg., Jack Droy.
VICTORIA— 938 Island Highway, Alec Merriman.
WINNIPEG—The Tribune, Ben Lepkin.
Member Audit Bureau op Circulations
V->/nE part of the Supreme Court's decision
in the antitrust case with which everyone in this business
will agree is this single sentence:
"We have no doubt that moving pictures, like newspapers
and radio, are included in the press whose freedom
is guarcmteed by the First Amendment."
This statement might be said to have been gratuitously'
made, for it was not issued in coimection with a direct involvment
of the screen's freedom. Yet it serves to answer a question,
or rather a claim, which frequently has been made.
This Supreme Court judgment may preclude the raising of
such a question before it at some future date, when, as has
so often been felt, such an opinion would need to be sought
where the screen's freedom is challenged. That dates back
to the initial incursions of censorship and the various involvments
therewith which the motion picture has encountered.
Now that the "proof" of the motion picture's rights under
the Constitution are upheld by the highest court in the land,
it should at least serve to relieve it of some of the nuisance
charges which have plagued it. But it will not reHeve the
industry of its responsibility for a clean screen.
Incidentally, the privilege of free speech can be abused,
as, unfortunately, the motion picture industry, which often has
been made the target, full well knows. Now that the kinship
between the screen, the press and the radio has been so authoritatively
established, it is to be hoped that the latter two
will no longer treat it
as a step-relation.
A Need, Indeed!
1
In comment on the industry's public relations campaign fl'i
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and connecting with it the Supreme Court's antitrust decision, fl»
Alan L. Otten, Washington correspondent for the Wall Street -Wk
Journal, made the following observations:
"The movie industry still hasn't gotten around to considering
one key aspect of its public relations drive—how to curb
internal rows, especially those pereimial disputes between
big film distributors and independent theatre ovmers . . . This
situation threcrtens to be of prime importance in the near future,
now that the Supreme Court has acted to break up theatre
holdings of producer-distributors and do owcry with certain
allegedly monopolistic trade practices.
" 'Some internal machinery must be worked out to handle
this intraindustry dissension,' says a key industry official.
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Entered ii^ Second Class matter at Post Office, Kansas City, Mo.
Sectional Edition, $3.00 per year; National Edition, ^7.50
Vol. 53
MAY 1
5,
No. 2
19 4 8