Judge — July 31, 1920 — page 26: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

by W.G, Caawrono and By Sense America lic, will Sennett, while his OW you allow bath One of me, is the nds for—the fusion of slap-stick And to make it really ripe, one finds as many occasic lorger, O Gr Mack Sennett to ig girls refuse to bathe? the wonders of the American Screen, to “Sennett Comedy.” and all that it and legs. he g eddy.” An Tourneur’s much ut mind of the Exhibitor combining, sort of photodrama with the cheapest sort of “Co au'lience that comes to see Mary Pickford, or one of films, or perhaps a Griffith picture, is asked to sit through first a two-reel travesty on humor, with bedroom dilemmas and npossible black savages chasing equally impossi- rities through the underbrush of d near Santa Monica, Cali- coarse wit, of ble white bathing “ce! Africa or some uninhabited isl fornia The P tures, sitting in majesty assembled on le liable to affect injuriously our weak and inflammable morals, has never touched, apparently, the subject of Sennett Comedy That same Board of Censors disapproved and forbade the jon in Pennsylvania of some three hundred and twenty- up to, but not inclusive of, April Fool's . as far as I can see, is a Sennett nnsylvania State Board of Censors of Motion Pic sand all other subjects exhit four nr Day, 1020. Comedy Of the total number three hundred, and better, belong to the days gone by—the dead, departed ages of the motion picture industry’s infancy, of split reels and French films and fly-by- night companies with a couple of thousand dollars’ capital. The remaining odd films—two dozen or less altogether were produced in modern times: within, that is, the last three ion pictures But no one of then or four years That's illuminating. Of three hundred and two dozen offi- cially canned films, the three hundred would be listed in the dic tionary as while the two dozen only would fall in legal phrase: “within the memory of man.” Looking over the names of the companies that produced films offensive to the official morals of the State of Pennsylvania is like reading a list of the dead in a motion picture mausoleum — Gaumont, Kalem, Lubin, King Bee, and Biograph. Here and there appear, also, the names of the living—Famous Players Lasky, Goldwyn, Universal, and Fox. (Note: Particularly Fox.) But no Sennett “obsolete,” Censorship Lenso We are forced to an obvious conclusion: After all, Mack Sennett of bathing-girl fame must be a pretty cagey bird. The inventor of screen bathing suits with fascinating females pro- truding from both ends is able to get past in Pennsylvania. The name that $s the Censor’s list is one that is still alive having languishingly outlived the allotted motion picture span of life—threescore months and ten, This is the American Film Company, that can boast cleven censored films. The American has languished not so much because its films were poisonous (opinion differs here) as because they were poor opinion unanimous). Usually, it may be remarked, the two go hand in hand Then comes Fox. Ten films. inst our scant two dozen of modern times. the entire list of recently disapproved films Mack Sennett, Fox couldn't even be clever. Other names on the obsolete list are unimportant. Othe names on the “modern” list are not: Paramount-Artcraft Famous-Players-Lasky ranks next to Fox, with five films— a film a word. What makes this fact stand out as vital, instead of being merely cute, is that the Famous-Players-Lasky group is prac- tically at the head of the motion picture industry in America today, and is making, on the whole, the best pictures. It is in a position of leadership that even the still-decidedly-alive Fox organization cannot for a moment claim. What Famous does today many of the other companies will be doing tomorrow Without going into any arguments for or against official censorship as against the more general censorship of public underlying good sense, let us remember three And all ten, mind you, scored Practically half Evidently, unlike taste and things: Although the screen, during the past three years, has been much cleaner than during the carly days of filmdom, the pendulum is now obviously swinging the other way once more Leading producers, like Famous-Players-Lasky, are bringing in more and more of the sex lure to gratify the “come-ons.”” Mack Sennett, having survived the period of re liness—perhaps because of so much bathing—is still flourish- ing like the proverbial green bay-tree, and spreading throughout filmdom (censors or no censors) the gospel of the prosperity of the lovely limb, largely the bum joke, accompanied by exposed, comicbooks.com