Hollywood gets religion

ALVA JOHNSTON

Motion pictures which flourished by clinging to Satan have discarded him for Mother Church

■ The Church is at last giving its attention to the motion pictures. The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, and other religious bodies, are investigating the cinema industry.

It is true that the cinema magnates—who conjured the two-billion-dollar picture industry out of the air—are Jews. The ancient Jews, who survived the massacres, burnings and other Christian attentions over many centuries, had to be fast thinking, quick moving, resourceful, willing to take chances. All of which constituted an ideal heredity for the movie magnates of today. No other race has so much of the imagination, the pioneering spirit, the gambler's recklessness that built Hollywood in less than a generation. Under the circumstances, it is only fitting that the Federal Council and other Gentile organizations should now assume their proper responsibilities towards the films.

The Federal Council, the most influential and boldly progressive of Protestant organizations, represents twenty-two or twenty-three denominations. It has been promoting the cause of racial justice by giving inter-racial dances and church sociables for the black and white young people of different New York congregations. The motion picture investigations of the Federal Council are concerned primarily with the question as to whether Will Hays has been greasing the Church. The inquiry started when the Council discovered that clergymen, who had been assigned to render impartial judgments on the moral trend of the films, were on the Hays payroll. The Council's investigating committee has issued a 156-page report on this subject, its findings being that it is inexcusable to gild a parson, but that it is excusable for a parson to stand still and let himself be gilded. It was discovered that more than fifty representatives of religious and civic organizations had received salaries, expenses and honoraria from the motion picture producers. Mr. Hays denied that he had been trying to buy favorable verdicts on the morals of the films. He scorned the suggestion that he had been hiring moralists to moralize in the best interests of the motion picture industry. The payments were made, he claimed, for technical work. He was entirely disinterested in providing odd jobs for the key men of the moral forces of the country.

At any rate the incident shows that the cinema craves the approval of the churches. Some authorities say that the Protestant Church in America exhausted its moral energy in establishing Prohibition, and that the growth of crime, of the drink evil and of immorality is due to the spent condition of the church. The motion picture producers do not share this view; obviously they believe that religion still enjoys a dangerous amount of health. Literature and the stage may flout the church, but Hollywood is desperately anxious to conciliate it. The movie industry has felt the teeth of religion in the passage of state censorship laws.

■ Hollywood is perhaps too ingratiating and gregarious. In its eagerness to be friends with religion, politics and reform groups, it has discarded rich picture material. The oil scandals, for instance, have been taboo. The reign of corruption in American cities is neglected. The crooked banker and the exploding bank, which are objects of the most painful public curiosity, play no part in the movies; Will Hays makes speeches winding up with "God's in His heaven; All's right with the world." The bootlegger is picture material, but their Federal and municipal partners are generally exempted from film treatment, because of the Hays rule against anything that tends to undermine confidence in government. Enforcement agents never take bribes, commit blackmail or perform illegal raids in the movies. The Hays code for directors specifically declares that "drinking scenes in America" must not be shown except when absolutely necessary for the plot—a definite confession that the movie Czar feels no responsibility for giving an honest picture of the times. Another Hays rule forbids ridicule of the clergy—an absurd invasion of the rights of the churchmen who are as much entitled as any others to the moral tonic and wholesome discipline of satire. Another Hays rule commands the directors to treat scenes between the law and the law-breaker in such a way as to support the constituted authorities—a rule which, conscientiously enforced, would require the director to throw the sympathy with the lions as against the Christians in Ben Hur, with the bloodhounds as against Eliza in Uncle Tonis Cabin and with the Coast Guard as against the rumrunners in smuggling scenes. It is a violation of the Hays rule to present Huckleberry Finn, which is the tale of a young criminal's effort to help a fugitive slave to escape in violation of the Constitution and the laws of the land. In the war pictures the cinema has shown that it can preach a powerful sermon, but the Hays "Don'ts" and "Be Carefuls" prevent the rugged treatment of contemporary abuses. An exception is the gangster picture which has indirectly exposed the feebleness of Federal, state and city governments. The gangster picture is, on the whole, the most meritorious and socially valuable achievement of Hollywood; it has stung and shamed the country into a campaign against racketeers. But so strong is the tendency of Hollywood to apologize, to grovel, to abase itself, to parade its inferiority, that it has been expressing regret and sorrow over the racketeer epics and promising to have no more of them. Even the gangster film, however, illustrates the timorousness of Hollywood. Because of the industry's ambition to be a big brother to everybody and to protect all racial susceptibilities, the ethnology of gangland is seldom precisely indicated; the Capones of the films usually come of fine old American families, and there is some confusion between the Unione Siciliana and the Society of the Cincinnati.

• The morbid fear of making enemies is understandable in a two-billion-dollar industry. There is nothing so nervous as two billion dollars. Enemies might cause national censorship which could easily ruin the industry. Hollywood has been under a curious crossfire from the intelligentsia on one side and the better element on the other. Canon William Sheafe Chase, dean of the New York reformers, called Old Ironsides an appeal to the gutter instincts; Gilbert Miller called the movie dictator "the highest salaried nitwit in America" after Hays had barred degeneracy as a theme for the cinema. Hays discourages the development of the American brain, according to Ivan Abramson, by opposing the exhibition of Sex Eure, Forbidden Fruit and Enlighten Thy Daughter; Hays withers the national conscience, according to the Rev. Dr. Twombly, by countenancing things like The Love Parade. In this controversy Hays has come out strongly in favor of the better element, promising to do his utmost to cause Hollywood to turn out "good" films and pleading with the churches to help him make the films "good". Hays has, in fact, kept the screen swaggeringly chaste by comparison with the stage and the novel, but he wants every denomination to aid in making it still more virtuous. The Buddhists, Mohammedans and Confucians have, according to cables, rendered volunteer assistance by rioting against the prolonged bussing bouts and chaise-longue rodeos of the films.

The church would obviously perform its greatest service, if it would teach Hollywood by example rather than precept. Let the Federal Council or some other religious group produce a pious epic that grosses a million dollars. Everybody knows what imitators the magnates are; there will be an immediate stampede to dramatize purity and sanctitude. It would be better still if the church would produce a series of masterpieces; three or four super pictures could be made from the money now sunk in one cathedral. The only question is whether the movie public would accept the 100-per-cent pure film. Screen lovers are fond of their villains. It has always been found difficult to make goodness interesting. The church itself supplies proof of this; heaven has never been successfully treated in literature, while hell has been magnificently done. The greatest medieval and the greatest modern epic poet turned out their masterpieces on the hell theme. The Satan of Paradise Lost is sublime; Beelzebub, Moloch, Belial, Mammon and all the minor fiends are admirable; the inhabitants of heaven are despicably insipid. In an effort to buck up his heaven, Milton, the most devout of poets, raves about the sex life of the angels; his heaven is the kind of place that the police would close at once.

(Continued on page 84)

(Continued from page 55)

The devil, the supreme character in Christian literature, has recently been dismissed in disgrace in most parts of this country. On the whole, it appears doubtful if contemporary clergymen are competent to advise on the drama, since most of them have been in the conspiracy to suppress this greatest of all dramatic figures. The devil made his last public appearance in New York sixteen years ago when he traded bites, scratches and gouges with Billy Sunday under the auspices of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and a distinguished committee. Christianity, the Modernist brand at least, has lost much of its popularity by becoming too genteel. The decline of piety, which is the subject of complaint on all sides, is apparently caused in part by the folly of the churches. The fatal error of Modernism has been that of killing dramatic suspense; there were thrills and shudders and hot and cold flashes in being a Christian when one was constantly menaced by the everlasting bonfire. It seems a little unfair that Hollywood, which has flourished by clinging so loyally to Satan, should be placed under the supervision of bunglers who have spoiled their own show by discarding him. The enormous mileage of empty pews in the churches of America suggests that it is impossible to run a religion without a villain. Perhaps the church, after all, has more to learn from Hollywood than .to teach it.