As 1943 dawns, the whole film industry fairly bristles with questions. What will be the effect of the salary ceiling? Will money cease to be an incentive to stars, writers, directors and executives as they approach their $67,200 maximum? Will the whole scale of values in Hollywood change? Will there be more emphasis on careful story preparation and less on stars? Will youngsters and capable but hitherto obscure character actors get a chance? Will the public, final arbiter in show business, accept substitutes for its favorites any more than it did in the past?
Men in Service.
Of the 18,000 men employed in production, more than 4,000 have joined the armed services. Among them are Lieut. Comdr. Robert Montgomery, Lieut. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Lieut. James Stewart, Pvt. Melvyn Douglas, Lieut. Clark Gable and Lieut. Burgess Meredith. Many directors are in the service, including Lieut. Col. Frank Capra, Comdr. John Ford, Pvt. Garson Kanin and Major William Wyler. Names of film pioneers appear in the persons of Lieut. Comdr. Eugene J. Zukor, Major Arthur Loew and Pvt. Carl Laemmle. Many cameramen and technicians are serving in the U. S. Signal Corps or in other services; so many that the studios have asked and received essential ratings for those who remain.
Priorities.
Priorities in general and the film shortage in particular are other unsolved problems. Conservation is being tried on a voluntary basis in consultation with the WPB, with cuts of 10 per cent to 24 per cent on the 1941 quotas of various companies. But demands on the available supply of raw stock are enormous, and training films come ahead of films for the public.
Government Approval.
Both Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill know from personal experience the therapeutic value of film entertainment. For example, exhausted by hours of planning United Nations strategy together, they sought relaxation at a movie in the White House projection room. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt wrote to Lowell Mellett, Chief of the Bureau of Moving Pictures:
'The American motion picture is one of our most effective media in informing and entertaining our citizens. The motion picture must remain free insofar as national security will permit. I want no censorship of the motion pictures; I want no restrictions placed thereon which will impair the usefulness of the film other than those very necessary restrictions which the dictates of safety make imperative.'
That letter has remained the industry's Magna Charta against bureaucratic encroachment. 'Those very necessary restrictions' apply to export censorship imposed under the Trading with the Enemy Act, which went into effect automatically when it was officially recognized that an active state of war existed. The industry has voluntarily policed itself through the Production Code Administration to eliminate any scene or dialogue that would give the enemy useful information.
The British, too, have recognized the importance of motion pictures in a wartorn world. When Hitler launched the Battle of Britain, bombing London and other cities, film theaters were closed as a matter of safety. Within a month they were reopened by the government because it became abundantly clear that movies were essential to the maintenance of both civilian and military morale. The industry responded wholeheartedly and kept up a steady flow of pictures.
Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America.
Substantial recognition came in the autumn of 1942 after negotiations for release of the frozen funds were opened through the State Department by Will H. Hays on behalf of members of the MPPDA of which he is president. In due course funds accumulated over the three years were thawed, and checks totalling $42,500,000 were sent to Mr. Hays for delivery to the eight distributing companies in the MPPDA. Similar arrangements were also made for non-member companies. One producing and distributing organization had been threatened with serious financial difficulties until it was rescued by this, the most dramatic fiscal event of the year.
Public Opinion.
Earnings generally, however, were higher in 1942 than in 1941. In the United States, as in Great Britain, civilians and service men alike turn to the screen for relaxation. Increased attendance at motion picture theaters has more than offset the combined effects of wartime taxes and the loss of markets in countries now dominated by the Axis powers.
War has brought an interesting change in the emphasis of thematic material. It is the public which determines production trends, and the public was slow to manifest enthusiasm for pictures with serious war themes. In 1938-39, for example, Confessions of a Nazi Spy did not achieve great popular success. Nor was The Mortal Storm notably successful in the following season. Even as late as 1940-41, two films entirely unrelated to the war headed the list. Third and fifth places in terms of box-office popularity went to slapstick comedies with a background of American training camp activities. Serious war films ranked further down the list. Nine out of the top-ranking fifty-three dealt with the war.
In the season of 1941-42, which ended Aug. 31, first honors at the box office went to Mrs. Miniver and Sergeant York. Among the first 53 box-office favorites were ten war pictures. It is significant of the changed attitude of movie-goers that the first eight of the ten war pictures were serious. It is also significant that, even in wartime, the public continues to diversify its entertainment investment.
War Activities.
Of course, war activities of the industry have expanded enormously. As indicated by the quotation from President Roosevelt cited above, the service of entertainment continues to be of first importance. This has been extended to troops in combat areas by the donation of 16 mm. prints of feature pictures to the armed services.
The War Activities Committee is the industry's organization to marshal all branches of filmdom, production, distribution and exhibition, in support of the war. It includes presidents of 33 companies and organizations, and its ramifications extend into nearly every community with a film theater. The nationwide war bond drive in September was typical of its patriotic activity. More than 15,000 theaters are cooperating with the government by exhibiting films released under the aegis of the War Activities Committee. Since the organization of the Hollywood Victory Committee three days after Pearl Harbor, more than 1,100 players have made one or more appearances in Army camps and Navy bases through USO Camp Shows, Inc., and on bond-selling tours for the United States Treasury Department. Through this committee all requests for star appearances for patriotic or charity purposes are cleared.
Screen personalities, recorded on film and radio transcriptions, have also participated in the Australian Austerity Campaign. Arrangements for the screen and radio appearances 'down under' were made at the request of the Commonwealth Government through the International Film Relations Committee and the Hollywood Foreign Department Committee. Production of army training films in Hollywood continues on an increased scale.
Production Code Administration.
As the year ended, two appeals from Production Code Administration rulings added to the gaiety of nations and also pointed up the fact that appeals from PCA rulings are rare indeed. In fact the Code, adopted by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America in 1930, has now come to be taken for granted. More than 99 per cent of the interpretations by the PCA go unchallenged.
When there are appeals, for example, in re the use of sailor and marine expletives in the cases of In Which We Serve and We Are the Marines, they go to the board of directors of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. This is made up of the heads of the various member companies, presided over by Mr. Hays, and has continued since March 1922, as the central policy-making body of the industry. The brief for upholding the Code was prepared by Charles Francis Coe, author and lawyer, who is vice president and general counsel of the MPPDA. The board agreed that, even in wartime, morality and good taste must be served; so the offensive words were eliminated.
Movies in War Areas.
Meanwhile, the shape of things to come in the post-war world has begun to appear in North Africa. One of the first commodities that followed General Eisenhower's army into the reconquered area was a supply of American movies. The populace was starved for entertainment and the general staff shrewdly included movies in its arsenal of ideological weapons. The films need not be laden with propaganda, merely a background that reveals life in a democracy is sufficient. China, too, has been asking for more American movies. In response to a request from friends in her former home, Pearl Buck has made up a list of motion pictures that will give them a better idea of life in the United States.
In contrast, it will be remembered that among the first commodities banned by Hitler in conquered territories were American movies, lest they remind the enslaved populace of the freedom that continued in the democracies.
Both acts, encouragement by the democracies and banning by the Axis, are indications of the new importance movies have achieved as a medium of mass communication in war and in peace.
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