The American Scene; Today's Candid Movies

I don't know what to say, but I don't know what to say, but I don't know what to say, but I don't know what to say, but I don't know what to say, but I don't know what to say, but I don't know what to say. Good morning. Throughout its history, the motion picture has been a point of great interest in the American scene. Movies have aroused in the public the extremes of acceptance from a fanatic need to a fanatic denial. And with each new step the movies have taken in their growth and development, controversy has arisen as to the worth and value of that step.

And today the theme of the movie seems to be important, and it might be said that the motion picture industry has now entered the era of the candid movie. And this is what we would like to discuss this morning. And to do so, we are pleased to welcome two expert and candid guests, Mr. Sal Horwitz, assistant to the president of Allied theaters of Illinois, and Pastor Clyde Armacormick, campus pastor for the Metropolitan Chicago area for the National Lutheran Council. Gentlemen, before we delve into the area of themes, perhaps we should try and establish what the purpose of movies is, what the primary purpose of movies is. Pastor Macormick, what would you say? Well, as far as I personally am concerned, the primary purpose of movies is entertainment. If it has a purpose beyond this, then I would imagine that it would be in the area of education or documentary depictions of themes. But for myself

it's entertainment. Mr. Horwitz? Well, I believe the movies go beyond entertainment as in any other form, literature, drama, architecture, music. Movies can be entertainment or they can become an art form. Just as in the printed word, newspaper publishes information. But the printed word upon a paper can be an art form also. And so can the movies. The movies don't constantly strive for this, but there are some who do. And at its best, the movies are an art form, pure and simple. Usually, those movies are considered as a mass communication. Doesn't this sort of take it out of the fine art field when the primary consideration is a mass audience? Well, no, I wouldn't say so because as it's a means of getting to the masses, just as the theater was a means of getting to a smaller masses for many years back, going back to the

Greeks. When Euripides, Aristophanes wrote, they wrote for as many people as they could reach. Today we reach a much greater amount. But this does not take their work out of the field of classics or an art form. I'm not sure. Because I came down this morning from my home, I was snicking about the situation. And I had happened to read just last evening a review of the Blue Angel, one of our national magazines. And the reviewer there was contrasting the present production of Blue Angel with the original with Martin Dietrich. And I had the impression that this particular reviewer felt that the original production made in Germany, as I believe it was, was much closer to an art form in the proper sense. And for that reason, perhaps a better movie than the present production is. The fact that movies are in the world of art,

I wouldn't disagree with this, but I am not sure that except in the ideal situation that movies are an art form as such. Although the point was that the earlier movie, which was closer to art, was a better movie. This was the impression I had in the reviewer, and from what he said, I would be inclined to agree with him. Would you say that artistic considerations are important in making a movie or is it purely a commercial venture? Depending upon the producer, it's an individual thing. It's like a publisher of a magazine, some try for art, some try for communication, some try for mass appeal. And there are certain producers who are directors, anybody in charge of a movie, who try for their own field, the one that they're expert at, anybody who hires them, knows what they're going to make. There are some that try to combine both mass entertainment and this fine emotion picture as they can. This happens occasionally, I mean it doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen sometimes. Sometimes you get a darn fine picture without actually being an artistic

triumph, that is a big commercial success. Would you say that it would be better for the movie industry if your temp was made to make it an art form more so than it is now? Well, I would say that commercially it's not feasible. You can and do have, and this is in every field of endeavor since man has begun. You can and do have people who will experiment, revolutionize and try and consequently rise that field above itself eventually. Until that time though, you have to have people content with what they are seeing until they are able to go to a little higher level, which will eventually happen. The fact that you say that it is commercially unfeasible at the present time to strive for more idealistic standards artistically seems to indicate to me one of the Achilles heels in the present situation. I would wonder seriously if the mass, if I can use this word, would ever rise to a peak of understanding and maturity

in which a good artistic production would appeal to them and therefore would be commercially feasible. In other words, is there a conflict between that which is commercially feasible and good art? They always do, they have in the whole history of mankind, they have risen and kept on rising above themselves. You have progressed and you keep introducing new things. Let's take modern music for instance when you have some of the modern composers, Debussy, Schoenberg, Stravinsky when they were first introduced. People did not react when they threw oranges and apples, I think it's Stravinsky the first time. Nevertheless, his music has become a certain standard today and is acceptable, is perfectly acceptable by a majority of people anyhow. And is no longer as revolutionary or as different as it seemed then. There are pictures being made today on the adult level and about adult themes that would have been impossible 25 years ago because they couldn't have been presented. Audiences would not have accepted them. You take a little picture like Marty a few years ago,

which was a naturalistic, very naturalistic depiction of life of a small segment of people in New York, just a vignette almost. Nevertheless, it represents a great amount of progress over what was being made about 25, 30 years ago. This was never done on the screen before this type of thing. You keep rising, I think, all the time. But I would still wonder whether the mass of people, if there's a difference between mass and majority, I'm not sure, but I would still wonder if the mass of people, to use your own analogy, would understand and or appreciate Stravinsky, let alone Leonard Bernstein. I seriously doubt it. This may be the mass don't, but more due today than did at that particular time and more appreciate in any of these forms. As time passes, this is the process of evolution, I guess, as time passes, they will accept more than they have at any previous time. The point being that by trying to improve the movies on an artistic level, more people will

accept it, whether it's completely accepted at any time or not, is really beside the point it's the fact that more people will accept it. Is that the direction? Well, I wouldn't disagree with this, but I'm wondering if this would still make it commercially feasible in a mass audience. When you mentioned earlier the use of more adult theme in the picture, Marty, would you say that the use of such themes is a trend today in the movies? Obviously, it's a trend today in every field of communication there is. I'd say it's a trend in literature. It's definitely a trend in the newspapers. I remember when I was a child, certain words were taboo. They were never printed in the newspaper. Today in the explanations and descriptions of crimes of all kinds, including sex crimes, the details are explicit. In publications, the drama, even in art

and in music. The appeal is much more adult. The movies are, to a great extent, I think merely a reflection of the times or rather an exponent of them. I would only note that, again, while I would agree that there has been a rise in the adult level of current informational media, that this rise has been going on perhaps the last 25 or 30 years. But a guy named Will Shakespeare was pretty blunt and very forthright several hundred years ago. I'm not certain that we have progressed necessarily in the long period of mankind's history over this thing. Well, my point wasn't that these themes were progression. As far as these particular themes, the adult themes that are rampant today, these are rampant today, but all over.

In this particular time, they have become permissible again. I'd say to a much greater extent than they have before, as you mentioned Shakespeare, he was the epitome of say, let's the Elizabethan era, where everything went. After that, you had the Reformation where everything was down until it came back up again and it's been swinging up and back ever since then. I'd say maybe we're in the midst of one of the swings of the pendulum at the present time. But this is current and not only the movies, but in everything else. Well, why bother with such themes? Why are the movies even concerned with the more adult themes? Well, it's a present time. We are in, to a certain extent, probably the Freudian age. Everything that's ever been on this earth is here right now, but there's a new interpretation of them. Man is a thinking

animal, wants to understand, wants to understand himself basically, I guess, so that he can get the answer to anything else. And in trying to understand himself, he has to approach it through adult themes, because there's a new outlook. The question of sex, for instance, was just taken for granted before Freud and his followers. Today it has to be analyzed because people say maybe perhaps we're in a maladjusted civilization, there are a lot of things wrong with us. In order to adjust ourselves, maybe we have to look. We can only look if some people give us a mirror at which to look. Movies, the drama, all these forms of art will maybe perhaps help with the mirror. Pastor McCormick, is that your interpretation of it? Well, again, I would agree in substance, but I would only add this footnote, as it were, that talking about sex, for example, isn't necessarily adult. This is, I think, one of the confusions. We think that if we have a motion

picture, or a novel, and I'm not sure these are the same thing, which deals with some human abnormality, or some human normality in a strange situation, that we're being adult, but this can be a little boy talking in big terms he doesn't understand, too. I'm not at all certain that the vast number of movies are books for that matter, they're being printed, or necessarily being done because all of a sudden we need a reflection. I think we need this, but I'm a little bit cynical about the great mass of this stuff is being poured out of the present time. I'm not really certain that this is done simply for the purposes of presenting civilization with a mirror for its own analysis. I think your Gimber has been back to the commercial aspects of the whole problem. Sex pays off, so we make movies about sex, so we write books about sex in the present age. Well, this is undoubtedly true, but I don't

think you'll ever be able to clean out of any field. There are people that are good and sincere and honest and working at it, and then you have your imitators, you have those that are in for a fast buck, those that are in for sensationalism. And in the long run, I think these things don't hold up. It's the things that have something to say that are important, that will live and will last. The others, there is no way of kicking them out of any field if they want to go in, and there are unfortunately unscrupulous people, if you want to refer or just good businessmen, I don't know what. We'll want to say take advantage of the situation, and I don't know how you can eliminate them. This happens in the church too. You mentioned earlier that you thought there might be a difference between the novel and the movies. Did you mean in the type of theme that they do handle or can handle? Not in the type of theme that they do handle necessarily, but I am not certain, and

I have no definite opinion, I simply am not certain that a novel is on the same level in terms of a means of communication. As is a movie. I think that these are in some way different, and the difference is important. I am not sure what it is, but I just feel this. But because of this difference, perhaps certain themes that novels can and do handle should not be handled in movies. I wouldn't go as far as to say that. Perhaps the differences can be characterized by saying that if a theme is handled in a novel or they're hard back or paperback, the person must be able to read at least to read it and know what's going on. He doesn't have to be able to read, to go to a movie. If this makes a difference, I'm not sure, but I think there is a difference here someplace. Mr. Horowitz, are you

of this opinion? No, I'm not of this opinion because I think the novel can reach as many people as the movie can. In fact, today it seems to be even more surrounded by these paperbacks today. In many instances, they change the original title, which may be a title of a certain amount of integrity, and give it the word, passion, slave, or lust, or love is abandoned, and invariably throw the picture of somebody either male or female muscular in the right place is partially disrobed, and sell the book from an entirely different angle, and make it very available to those that can read, and make it to me as if you're talking about what the difference is between the two, no difference at all. Well, perhaps it's the approach that the reader or the viewer takes, a person who bought the original book would approach it because he wanted to read this book by this particular author, a person who bought the paperback might approach it because he wanted to read this book with the title and

picture it had on it. But I would still believe that, okay, Joe walks in, he sees this beautiful blonde half unrolled, and he buys the paperback for this reason. He's going to be often just the point of the time he's halfway through it. I don't think he'll buy anymore of it. I know they're selling millions of copies, but the person to whom the appeal can be made on the level of a beautiful blonde half unrolled. I don't think it's going to be intrigued by the book if it's one of the standard novels that has been rewritten because these can get pretty boring in terms of these questions in some places along the line. Regardless of why a person goes to a movie or reads a book, if he is exposed to a good book and a good movie, might not this be a step in the right direction? Why would think so, yeah. The incidentally, the same reaction you're talking to about a book happens in the pictures too. They'll tell you in the advertising maybe, what did Jane, what's her name

do? And they'll stress it, what did she do? It actually turns out when he sees the movie that she stuck a cake in the oven. And as a result, after a few of these kind of movies, he will not believe this particular type of advertising anymore. I think this is one of the problems, both in the current field of literature and also in the movie field, that the advertising of them plays a great role in both the effect produced in the person viewing it and the reason why it goes in the first place. Is it really necessary to advertise movies in the way they are being advertised today to get people to go to the theater? I can only answer in two words, no brother. We have had some wonderful pictures, some fine motion pictures, in which sex never once reared its lovely head. Good family type entertainment, nobody did anything offbeat in the picture, and then you try to sell it on that basis, and you have a murderous time, and then you hear from somebody, well, this picture just killed him in Kiyakak, we changed our advertising campaign completely.

We hit him over the head, we clobbered it, and we gave it the same approach that they used in Lady Chattel, he's lover. And this picture may have nothing to do with it, and you've got a new appeal, and there we are. We're back there because perhaps this picture represented an investment of $2 million, which nobody likes to see go down the drain, and perhaps it was a fine, hopeful endeavor on the part of some man to make a good buck. In some place along the line, they didn't want to see it. I mean, there are a lot of pictures that don't like this, it doesn't happen all the time, but it does. Your opinion is then that advertising has to be the way it is today, in order to... All advertising, this takes you out of the movie field, it takes you into the selling of baby diapers, or cereals, or almost anything else in the world. You need a model with 36, 22, 36 dimensions in order to get it across. If you might be of the story I heard about the guy out in the coast who saw this advertisement, it was just a girl, the thing else, on the page. And he wrote a letter to the company saying, I know what you're saying, but it's selling, just send me

$5 ,000. That's the idea. Well, how are movies sold before this trend started? What was the selling point then? Oh, I'd say more or less always on the same basis. I honestly feel that today they make an effort to sell them on different bases. You take, in the case of some of the foreign movies, some of the Frenchmen used this Bernard Buffet's art as advertising for some of their movies. Some people may or may not like it, but Buffet is the hottest artist going today. And when you're using Buffet to illustrate an ad, then you know that you're taking a step up, and many respects try to use sharper, smarter copy, a little more literate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Could you ever sell a movie on the basis of its high quality and artistic performance and so forth? You didn't bridge on the river quite. There was no one around for miles. And the picture

was a freak, I think, as far as box office pictures go. It was one of the smashes of last year, which is unusual here in America because it even had Bill Holden in it. It was basically a British picture. And British pictures, though, they may appeal to a certain segment of the audience, are not generally commercially successful. Nevertheless, there was a wild amount of hullabaloo about it, starting emanating from New York. The critics there, we just got on the bandwagon and the rest of the country followed. I can't explain it, but the picture having nothing to do with sex, family, or anything that most Americans are familiar with, because this was basically a British prison camp in the Far East. Still did a tremendous business. And the selling campaign was just based on the integrity of the picture. But this was the exception. This was the exception. Well, exceptions do happen in California. But this was the exception. However, I do believe that if this can happen, a picture of this type, I know that a picture of this type couldn't have gone 20 or 25 years ago was impossible. For an alleguinness in the Jack Hawkins and the Bill

Holden to come through in a picture that pleases the critics and, for the most part, please the audiences and the top business. This is a step forward. Would you consider all quiet to us in the front in this category, or is this different? All quiet in the original production. The original production? It is in one step different. In two steps, possibly. All quiet in the Western Front came out of the time when pictures about the First World War were doing a land office business. There was a cock -eyed world with that in the lone victim of glycon. There was wings. There were about a half a dozen pictures. I think the time all -top box office matches. This was a popular subject at the time. Secondly, it was an American -made picture. Thirdly, I think that of all the novels at that particular time, I think Remark's novel created the greatest stir of any book. There was a very strong anti -war feeling at the time, and as a result, Remark hit at the right time with the book.

And the feeling was all there. And they happened to make a very good motion picture on the other hand. This bridge on the River Choir, written by this French writer, Pierre Boul, I believe his name is, was read by just a handful of people in this country. Let's get into the area of what some of the effects might be on the audience of being exposed more and more to the so -called adult themes. What might some of these things be? Are there no effects? It would be very hard for me to say there may be. But in discussing this, you would have to, again, I think, take all the pressures of our civilization, everything that is happening, and not just discuss the movies as one isolated case. You would have to take all these things, analyze them all, and find out what was happening, not just cloud the movies for it. You have, as I talked about previously, your publications, and your advertising, and your stage, and your music,

too, as witness and Elvis Presley, and the few of the others. All these things combined, and then maybe if you can get an answer for some of these things, you may get an answer to what you just asked me. Can a person tell beforehand before going to a movie whether the effect is going to be good or harmful? On the basis of the advertising he sees today and the publicity that's coming out, can a person tell? I would say no. I mean, you might make certain predictions, but I would want to have to figure out a percentage of being right, particularly if you're being a matter of advertising into it, because I think this can be hiding misleading. What can a person do then if he wants to go to the movie, but he wants to make sure he sees good movies? How is he going to make his choice today? Well, as in any other field, I think, find a criterion, and that could be somebody who selects them, and almost anything else. If

you haven't tried it before, you have to go by somebody else's basis. Somebody told you that Nile on pajamas were better than cotton, so you know you'll buy Nile on pajamas. So you have to pick somebody that you know, maybe a movie critic someplace, whose word you will rely on, you'll find after a period of time, that whose taste you can depend on. I mean, this is a purely personal thing. I know that I'll take the recommendations of certain friends of mine, and other friends, if they tell me one thing, I know Darren sure that the office is going to be true for me. I came to a very irrational judgment some time ago. I refuse to go see any motion picture that it has about $15 million spent in advertising. I just tell you I don't want to see it. This is either rational or anything else, but if it gets a big belly who I just don't bother, and I would agree on the other hand, Mr. Horwas has said that most of them and I do see are based upon what I read and reviews on this sort of thing, or if it happens I have a particular theme or something I want to see.

I think I think it had to be highly selective. That's all. Well, pastor, part of that's right, but part of it, you can miss some good pictures, and I'll tell you why. Sometimes they make a good picture, and they don't know any way of getting it across, except clobbering people over the head. I'll take, for instance, a Mulan Rouge, which was a fine motion picture and an unusual subject, because it dealt with the life of a man, dealt with it fairly honestly, was directed by John Euston, who is an honest director, I think, because they have on the screen today. They realize they had a picture that might not appeal to everybody. They spent a fortune in advertising and paid off. Well, I saw that. It's by the advertising. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Our discussion this morning is indicated that movies certainly are more adult than ever, and the use of the candid theme may or may not make them better than ever. It has also been suggested that other media of expression are using more adult themes as well, and that it is not a trend just with the movies. Our discussion is indicated

that, in some respects, this current trend is a good one, in that it seems to point to an increased maturity on the part of both the movie industry and the viewing public. But on the other hand, harmful effects can be predicted if adult themes are produced without regard for artistic standards and only for their commercially exploitable values. It has been suggested that both the movie industry and the public must increase their understanding of what the function of a movie is and what is desired from a movie. But regardless of the theme or technique or star of the movie, the fact still remains what is not good box office will not be repeated. Good morning for the American scene.