Pieces Of Hate; And Other Enthusiasms Part 16

Next came: "Reel Two--Eliminate subt.i.tle, 'I can give her the best--money, position, and, as far as character--I am district attorney now, and before you know it I will be the governor,' and subst.i.tute: 'I can give her the best--money, position, and, as far as character--I am now a prosperous attorney, and before you know it I will be running for governor.'"

And again: "Eliminate subt.i.tle: 'Exactly--but you have taken an oath to stand by this city,' and subst.i.tute: 'Exactly, but you have taken an oath to stand by the law.'"

This curious complex that even a.s.sistant district attorneys should be above suspicion ran through the entire film. Simpler was the change of the famous curtain line which was familiar to all theatergoers of New York ten or twelve seasons ago when "The Witching Hour" was one of the hits of the season. It may be remembered that at the end of the third act Frank Hardmuth, then a district attorney and not yet reduced to a prosperous attorney, ran into the library of the hero to kill him. The hero's name we have forgotten, but he was a professional gambler, of a high type, who later turned hypnotist. Hardmuth thrust a pistol into his stomach, and we can still see the picture and hear the line as John Mason turned and said: "You can't shoot that gun [and then after a long pause]: You can't even hold it." Hardmuth, played by George Nash, staggered back and exclaimed, just before the curtain came down: "I'd like to know how in h.e.l.l you did that to me." It can hardly have been equally effective in moving pictures after the censor made the caption read: "I'd like to know how you did that to me." The original version fell under the ban against profanity.

In Ohio a more recent picture called "The Gilded Lily" had not a little trouble. Here the Board of Censors curtly ordered: "First Reel--Cut out girl smoking cigarette which she takes from man." Seemingly they did not even stop to consider whether or not she smoked it suggestively. And again in the third reel came the order: "Cut out all scenes of girl's smoking cigarette at table." Most curious of all was the order: "Cut out verse with words: 'I'm a little prairie flower growing wilder every hour.'"

William Vaughn Moody's "The Faith Healer" was considered a singularly dignified and moving play in its dramatic form, but the picture ran into difficulties, as usual, in Pennsylvania. "Eliminate subt.i.tle," came the order: "'Your power is not gone because you love--but because your love has fallen on one unworthy.'" As this is a fair statement of the idea upon which Mr. Moody built his play, it cannot be said that anything which the moving-picture producers brought in was responsible.

Throughout the rest of the world one may thumb his nose as a gesture of scorn and contempt, but in Pennsylvania this becomes a public menace not to be tolerated. "Reel Two"--we find in the records of the Board of Censors--"eliminate view of man thumbing his nose at lion."

As a matter of fact, no rule of censorship of any sort may be framed so wisely that by and by some circ.u.mstance will not arise under which it may be turned to an absurd use. Any censors must have rules. No man can continue to make decisions all day long. He must eventually fall back upon the bulwark of printed instructions. I observed an instance of this sort during the war. A rule was pa.s.sed forbidding the mention of any arrivals from America in France. An American captain who had brought his wife to France ran into this regulation when he attempted to cable home to his parents the news that he had become the proud parent of a son.

"Charles Jr. arrived to-day. Weight eight pounds. Everything fine," he wrote on the cable blank, only to have it turned back to him with the information: "We're not allowed to pa.s.s any messages about arrivals."

It is almost as difficult for babies to arrive in motion-picture stories. Any suggestion which would tend to weaken the faith of any one in storks or cabbage leaves is generally frowned upon. For a time picture producers felt that they had discovered a safe device which would inform adults and create no impression in the minds of younger patrons, and pictures were filled with mothers knitting baby clothes.

This has now been ruled out as quite too shocking. "Eliminate scene showing Bobby holding up baby's sock," the Pennsylvania body has ruled, "and scene showing Bobby standing with wife kissing baby's sock." In fact, there is nothing at all to be done except to make all screen babies so many Topsies who never were born at all. Even such a simple sentence as "And Julia Duane faced the most sacred duties of a woman's life alone" was barred.

Like poor Julia Duane, the moving-picture producers have one problem which they must face alone. They are confronted with difficulties unknown to the publisher of books and the producer of plays. The movie man must frame a story which will interest grown-ups and at the same time contain nothing which will disturb the innocence of the youngest child in the audience. At any rate, that is the task to which he is held by most censorship boards. The publisher of a novel knows that there are certain things which he may not permit to reach print without being liable to prosecution, but at the same time he knows that he is perfectly safe in allowing many things in his book which are not suitable for a four-year-old-child. There is no prospect that the four-year-old child will read it. Just so when a manager undertakes a production of Ibsen's "Ghosts" it never enters into his head just what its effect will be on little boys of three. But these same youngsters will be at the picture house, and the standards of what is suitable for them must be standards of all the others. There should, of course, be some way of grading movie houses. There should be theaters for children under fourteen, others with subjects suitable for spectators from fourteen to sixty, and then small select theaters for those more than sixty in which caution might be thrown to the winds.

Another of the difficulties of the unfortunate moving-picture producer is the fact that censorship bodies in various parts of the country have a faculty of seldom hitting on the same thing as objectionable. There is, of course, a National a.s.sociation of the Motion Picture Industry which maintains its own censorship through which 92 per cent of all the pictures exhibited in America are pa.s.sed, but in addition to that Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kansas, and Maryland have State censorship boards, and there are numerous local bodies as well. Cecil B. De Mille complained, shortly after his version of Geraldine Farrar in "Carmen"

was launched, that at that time there were approximately thirty-five censorship organizations in the United States. These included various State and munic.i.p.al boards. Every one of these thirty-odd organizations censored "Carmen." No two boards censored the same thing. In other words, what was morally acceptable to New York was highly immoral in Pennsylvania. What Pennsylvania might see with impunity was considered dangerous to the citizens of an adjoining State.

Of course the question at issue is whether the potential immoral picture shall first be shown at the producer's or the exhibitor's risk, or whether censorship shall come first before there has been any public showing. The contention is made by some of the moving-picture people that they should have the same freedom given to people who deal in print to publish first and take the consequences later if any statute has been violated. The right to free speech, in fact, has been invoked in favor of the motion picture as a medium of expression. This view had the support of the late Mayor Gaynor, an excellent jurist, but apparently it is not the view held by various State courts which have pa.s.sed upon the const.i.tutionality of censorship laws. When the aldermen of New York City pa.s.sed an ordinance providing for the censorship of movies Mayor Gaynor wrote: "If this ordinance is legal, then a similar ordinance in respect of the newspapers and the theaters generally would be legal. Once revive the censorship and there is no telling how far we may carry it."

No matter what the law, the real basis of censorship is the public itself. Persons who feel that tighter lines of censorship must be drawn and new bodies established go on the theory that there is a great demand for the salacious moving-picture show. But there is no continuing appeal in dirt in the theater. It does not permanently sell the biggest of the magazines or the newspapers. And naturally it is not a paying commodity to the moving-picture men. The best that the censor can do is to guess what will be offensive to the general public. The general public can be much more accurate in its reactions. It knows. And it is prepared to stay away from the dirty show in droves.

XLII

CENSORING THE CENSOR

Mice and canaries were sometimes employed in France to detect the presence of gas. When these little things began to die in their cages the soldiers knew that the air had become dangerous. Some such system should be devised for censorship to make it practical. Even with the weight of authority behind him no bland person, with virtue obviously unruffled, is altogether convincing when he announces that the book he has just read or the moving picture he has seen is so hideously immoral that it const.i.tutes a danger to the community. For my part I always feel that if he can stand it so can I. To the best of my knowledge and belief, Mr. Sumner was not swayed from his usual course of life by so much as a single peccadillo for all of _Jurgen_. His indignation was altogether altruistic. He feared for the fate of weaker men and women.

Every theatrical manager, every motion picture producer, and every publisher knows, to his sorrow, that the business of estimating the effect of any piece of imaginative work upon others is precarious and uncertain. Genius would be required to predict accurately the reaction of the general public to any set piece which seems immoral to the censor. For instance, why was Mr. Sumner so certain that _Jurgen_, which inspired him with horror and loathing, would prove a persuasive temptation to all the rest of the world? Censorship is serious and drastic business; it should never rest merely upon guesswork and more particularly not upon the guesses of men so staunch in morals that they are obviously of distant kin to the rest of humanity.

The censor should be a person of a type capable of being blasted for the sins of the people. His job can be elevated to dignity only when the world realizes that he runs horrid risks. If we should choose our censors from fallible folk we might have proof instead of opinions.

Suppose the censor of Jurgen had been some one other than Mr. Sumner, some one so unlike the head of the vice society that after reading Mr.

Cabell's book he had come out of his room, not quivering with rage, but leering and wearing vine leaves. In such case the rest would be easy. It would merely be necessary to shadow the censor until he met his first dryad. His wink would be sufficient evidence and might serve as a cue for the rescuers to rush forward and save him. Of course there would then be no necessity for legal proceedings in regard to the book. Expert testimony as to its possible effects would be irrelevant. We would know and we could all join cheerfully in the bonfire.

To my mind there are three possible positions which may logically be taken concerning censorship. It might be entrusted to the wisest man in the world, to a series of average men,--or be abolished. Unfortunately it has been our experience that there is a distinct affinity between fools and censorship. It seems to be one of those treading grounds where they rush in. To be sure, we ought to admit a prejudice at the outset and acknowledge that we were a reporter in France during the war at a time when censors seemed a little more ridiculous than usual. We still remember the young American lieutenant who held up a story of a boxing match in Saint-Nazaire because the reporter wrote, "In the fourth round MacBeth landed a nice right on the Irishman's nose and the claret began to flow." "I'm sorry," said the censor, "but we have strict orders from Major Palmer that no mention of wine or liquor is to be allowed in any story about the American army."

Nor have we forgotten the story of General Petain's mustache. "Why,"

asked Junius Wood of the _Globe_, "have you held up my story? All the rest have gone."

"Unfortunately," answered the courteous Frenchman, "you have twice used the expression General Petain's 'white mustache.' I might stretch a point and let you say 'gray mustache,' but I should much prefer to have you say 'blond mustache.'"

"Oh, make it green with purple spots," said Junius.

The use of average men in censorship would necessitate sacrifices to the persuasive seduction of immorality, as I have suggested, and moreover there are very few average men. Accordingly, I am prepared to abandon that plan of censorship. The wisest man in the world is too old and too busy with his plays and has announced that he will never come to America. Accordingly we venture to suggest that in time of peace we try to get along without any censorship of plays or books or moving pictures. I have no desire, of course, to leave Mr. Sumner unemployed--it would perhaps be only fair to allow him to slosh around among the picture post cards.

Once official censorship had been officially abolished, a strong and able censorship would immediately arise consisting of the playgoing and reading public. It is a rather offensive error to a.s.sume that the vast majority of folk in America are rarin' to get to dirty books and dirty plays. It is the experience of New York managers that the run of the merely salacious play is generally short. The success which a few nasty books have had has been largely because of the fact that they came close to the line of things which are forbidden. Without the prohibition there would be little popularity.

To save myself from the charge of hypocrisy I should add that personally I believe there ought to be a certain amount of what we now know as immoral writing. It would do no harm in a community brought up to take it or let it alone. It is well enough for the reading public and the critic to use terms such as moral or immoral, but they hardly belong in the vocabulary of an artist. I have heard it said that before Lucifer left Heaven there were no such things as virtues and vices. The world was equipped with a certain number of traits which were qualities without distinction or shame. But when Lucifer and the heavenly hosts drifted into their eternal warfare it was agreed that each side should recruit an equal number of these human, and at that time uncla.s.sified, qualities. A coin was tossed and, whether by fair chance or sharp miracle, Heaven won.

"I choose Blessedness," said the Captain of the Angels. It should be explained that the selection was made without previous medical examination, and Blessedness seemed at that time a much more robust recruit than he has since turned out to be. A tendency to flat foot is always hard to detect.

"Give me Beauty," said Lucifer, and from that day to this the artists of the world have been divided into two camps--those who wished to achieve beauty and those who wished to achieve blessedness, those who wanted to make the world better and those who were indifferent to its salvation if they could only succeed in making it a little more personable.

However, the conflict is not quite so simple as that. Late in the afternoon when the Captain of the Angels had picked Unselfishness and Moderation and Faith and Hope and Abstinence, and Lucifer had called to his side Pride and Gluttony and Anger and l.u.s.t and Tactlessness, there remained only two more qualities to be apportioned to the contending sides. One of them was Sloth, who was obviously overweight, and the other was a furtive little fellow with his cap down over his eyes.

"What's your name?" said the Captain of the Angels.

"Truth," stammered the little fellow.

"Speak up," said the Captain of the Angels so sharply that Lucifer remonstrated, saying, "Hold on there; Anger's on my side."

"Truth," said the little fellow again but with the same somewhat indistinct utterance which has always been so puzzling to the world.

"I don't understand you," said the Captain of the Angels, "but if it's between you and Sloth I'll take a chance with you. Stop at the locker room and get your harp and halo."

Now to-day even Lucifer will admit, if you get him in a corner, that Truth is the mightiest warrior of them all. The only trouble is his truancy. Sometimes he can't be found for centuries. Then he will bob up unexpectedly, break a few heads, and skip away. Nothing can stand against him. Lucifer's best ally, Beauty, is no match for him. Truth holds every decision. But the trouble is that he still keeps his cap down over his eyes, and he still mumbles his words, and n.o.body knows him until he is at least fifty years away and moving fast. At that distance he seems to grow bigger, and he invariably reaches into his back pocket and puts on his halo so that people can recognize him. Still, when he comes along the next time and is face to face with any man of this world, the mortal is pretty sure to say, "Your face is familiar but I can't seem to place you."

There is no denying that he isn't a good mixer. But for that he would be an excellent censor.