MPAA

-Photo courtesy Parade
The panel (1 to r) : Francis Harmon, Joseph Breen, Eric Johnston, Spyros Skouras,
Ned Depinet, Barney Balaban, as they discussed industry problems for Parade.
What's Right With Movies?
Eric Johnston, the presidents of the three major distributors and two
key MPAA officials answer the critics in a panel discussion to be
publishedjn the Sunday masazine supplement. Parade.
J'/ie first joint effort of presidents of important film producing and distributing companies
to combat the assumption that there are a variety of things basically wrong
with the motion picture industry is to be presented in the Sunday (29) issue of
Parade a Sunday magazine supplement which has a weekly readership of 15,000,000.
The three-page article, which is presented as a panel discussion of important
industry problems, publishes the views of Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture
Ass'n of America, who acts as moderator; Barney Balaban, president of Paramount
Pictures; Ned E. Depinet, president of RKO; Spyros Skouras, president of
20th Century-Fox; Francis Harmon, vice-president of MPAA, and Joseph I. Breen,
head of the Production Code Administration.
Tom Waller, director of information in the New York office of MPAA, went to
work on the idea last January and spent many weeks developing the material and
inducing company heads to attend a conference at which Parade editors would ask
their questions.
Parade had presented a series of articles on all phases of the film industry, giving
views of the man-in-the-street, critics, technicians, producers, etc. This roundtable discussi07i
is being presented "to give Hollywood a chance to answer," Parade editors said.
Johnston, who asked the questions, began the discussion by saying he was "proud
of the motion picture industry, because it means so much to so many people, because
it gives people a7i opportunity to get away from themselves, and because of the great
variety of motion pictures which are made." Questions and answers follow:
What is the industry doing to preserve
and maintain its position as the nation's foremost
mass entertainment medium?
Balaban: "By making better pictures, continually
improving the quality of pictures.
That is a day-to-day job."
What about television? Will movies and
television be complementary, or competitive?
Will television mean fewer movies?
Skouras: "In my opinion, television will
be a boon to the motion picture industry.
It will never reach great success in the public
entertainment field except as a part of
the motion picture industry."
Then he added: "The radio, movies and
television will, within a few years, let us say
seven to ten years, be one of the foremost
means of entertainment. The present entertainment
which the public receives on television
today is not being accepted.
"First, the public is just talking about the
new medium right now, and they have just
started to listen to it and to watch it.
"It will succeed only when it has the right
facilities, and that is why we are going to
utUize it on the screen. Bing Crosby, Bob
Hope, Toscanini with a large orchestra, Rubinstein,
all of them can be shown to thousands
at one time. Or a great opera Uke
'Carmen' can be taken and shown by television
in the movie theatres.
"A play like 'South Pacific' can be taken
tomorrow and presented as entertainment by
television in the movie theatres. Without
motion pictures, television cannot succeed."
There are larg^e groups of the adult population
who do not attend motion pictures
regularly. Why? What is the industry doing
about it?
Balaban: "That's not a new question. I've
heard it for more than a quarter of a century."
He pointed out further that a great, untapped
potential always has existed for movie
attendance—so much that the theatre capacity
of the nation would need to be multiplied
three to five times to hold all the people
who do not attend pictures.
Other forms of entertainment compete, to
say nothing of ordinary social obligations.
Moreover, every picture, like every book and
every play, must make its way in the struggle
for pubUc favor.
Depinet added further comment by pointing
out that fewer people in the 35 to 55 age
see pictures than young people because:
"When you were young you had time to see
pictures. As you grew older and had to go
out and eai-n a living, you had less time. I
think it is no more than natural that as
people grow older they have less time to go
to the movies than youngsters do."
At this point Balaban answered the assertion
that film attendance is falling off
by saying that in the first 14 weeks of 1949
Paramount's business was about equal to that
of 1946, the peak year.
Does the star system of American movies
lead to emphasis on personalities rather than
plots, story, setting, or other essential qualities?
Depinet entered an emphatic "No." He
said the public chooses its stars and started
the star system by first identifying Mary
Pickford as "Miss Jones" in an early fourreeler.
"I don't think our industry can get away
from the star system—I don't think the public
will permit us to—any more than baseball
teams can get away from the star system.
You have nine players on a field and
eventually you have certain stars, and you
can't stop it. The public takes a fancy to
them; they go to see them. That is healthy,
that is good."
Balaban added: "Hasn't it been our recent
experience that a star will insure the kind
of a story the pubUc likes to see, and bring
in substantially higher grosses, while a star
will not protect a story that the public does
not care for?"
Do you believe that the present output of
films is adequate to meet the entertainment
needs of the American children?
Harmon answered this question. He said
an independent study of the output of family
films showed that the ratio of family films
to total output during the first nine months
of 1948 was sUghtly higher than the average
for the preceding eight years.
"The motion picture theatre," he continued,
"is one of the few places left in America
where the family as a whole can go and
parents and children alike can find entertainment.
The industry has never made films
solely for children. The British tried it in
recent years and have got their fingers burned
very badly as a result."
Does the production code of the MPAA
lead to forfeiture of the rights of free expression?
Is the industry censoring itself
out of business?
Breen replied: "Some people have the idea
that there is a mysterious something or
somebody in Hollywood which seeks to deny
to the motion picture screen the right of
discussion of problems which are valid. Let
me say right here that I know of no such
group. I know of no such movement. I
know of no such authority.
"If you will read the code, you will find
that it permits the widest possible freedom
16 BOXOFFICE :: May 28, 1949