Judge — January 2, 1932 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

JUDGE IWGWNG TH MOV Ls F you have read this column with any regularity and if you have a grain of sense in your head, you must wonder why I spend so much time talking about Will Hays and his boys. Just this week some Cleveland re owners filed an injunction suit gainst the Motion Picture Produc and Distributors, of which Mr. Hays is brawn and brains, and I find it nec- to take up the of the elder and, just to you, I want to present a left-handed defense of that shrewd gentl Contrary to general belief great newspapers which fall prey to the ruse, Will T acensor. From the first he a business man: he has saved movie companies millions of dollars in (1) shipping and storage (2) sena- torial heckling and taxes, (3) the contracts. He does exercise some sorship, but if that was his only worth to the boys in these hard times he wouldn't be sitting firmly in the movie idle. If Mr. Hays and his organi- zation were not sin to American business and routine life, then it would be reasonable to attack the movie industry with horrific phrases “un-American,” “un-Jeffer- sonian” and un-everything else, but the interesting thi bout this Cleve- land suit and the others that hb been filed before it is that, of all in- dustries, movies make the front page whenever they stub their toes on what to other corporate associations mole hills. This as: ys heads is no different from hundred paternal, qu: sorship, _quasi-monopolistic tions in American business. Some of these “institutes” are Napoleonic in their dictatorship of press and radio. The movies have never achieved that security Mr. Hays never press or criti with and boldness as have a score of other gentlemen. The mov- ies never have quite grown up to be big business. They never will. case confuse has been costs, such as assoc} success By PARE LORENTZ gor honest, no rea- logic instance, being free, and grinding no axes, I s son why, if I should have « reason, 1 should not write a critical piece about automobiles, plumbing, electrical apparatus and the various dull but necessary things that keep me within stone's throw of the a lum every day. Let me write one such piece, as I have on one or two oceasions, and the prints it, my uncle, my grandmother, and my bank will get letters, wires, and polite threats from some “ zation,” agency, or public relations chief. Right now one of the biggest corporations listed on the Stock Ex- change is being sued by fifteen differ- ent companies on the same charge in- stituted in Cleveland against Mr. Hays and his club, Have you read about it? It might stop business from turning that corner. But if one theatre owner slaps a ten-dollar suit ox a picture company it gets general notice, Grreant years ago Herbert Swope iS broke a story across the New York World's front that got Mr. Coolidge out of bed. The Aluminum Company of America was being sued for restraint of trade. The next day every paper in town carried the news that Mr. Mellon and Mr. Coolidge had wired the World to hold off criti- cism until some explanation had been The following day nothing about the story in any If it had been a movie company the public would have de- manded an ending to the story. Recommended ‘Arrowsmith"—Splendid, if f the Lewis novel Blonde Crazy” — Rough-and- ready nedy with James Cagney Frankenstein” —A thriller achieves its purpose “Monkey Business” —T h ¢ Bre in a natural. “Street Scene*—Dignified production, with the brilliant Miss Sydne miscast, that Marx + is my belief that greed, incompe- tence, and overcapitalization by sheer weight will break down “insti- tutes” and the monopolies they repre- sent. Undermining of profits may even affect. Mr. Hays and his MPPDA, If and when it does, I think that, despite all the things I have said about the elder, he has had a less malicious, less powerful and much more nerve-racki than any other industrial overlord in the country. And not because of any lack of power or brains on his part r because at-hearted feel- I-town theatre position toward the sm: owner but simply be ized, bedeviled and e ed us they have been at tir still have life and substance they still have the smell of grease- paint in them, and they couldn’t even in a Coolidge market be put on a big business ba : movies in them, accomplishes its a thriller and a good to the careful work Whale, director of “Jour- nd his brilliant leading i so of the British effects go at’ times © of necessary repetition, but it still is no picture to see New Year's Day. “Prnannener EIN” aim. It i one, due mainly of Jam Lonpe& Crazy” is another of those rough-and-tumble successfully comedies so produced this year by Warner Brothers. ‘Turned’ out by their Chicago recruits, Glasmon and Bright, performed by James Cagney and Joan Blondel, it is amusing be- cause it tries to be nothing else. n seven years of disappoint- ment, I have decided never in ng worth while in a picture “His Woman,” “Her Man,” “Her Sin,” “Her Son,” or “His Wife,” ete., ete. I can’t truthfully, therefore, give you any idea what “His Woman” might have been about. comicbooks.com