Audience – Psychology

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22741, 29 May 1937, Page 14 (Supplement)

Audience - Psychology

LONDON FILM EXPERIMENT To make an experiment in audiencepsychology, "Beloved Enemy" was shown with a happy ending in Leicester Square, London, instead of with the tragic ending with which the film was first provided. After a fortnight's showing of the hero's death there was another fortnight in which the hero recovered from the assassin's bullet and married the heroine. The version to be presented on general release in England will depend on an analysis of the preference which Leicester Square audiences manifested. Arthur Jarrett, of Gauinont-British, says that London audiences seem more willing to accept an unhappy ending than provincial audiences are. But an unhappy ending is not necessarily "uncommercial." iFrom time to time audiences like "a good cry"— l only it must be a good one. They resent a film that is gratuitously sad, in which Boy might just as well win Girl but does not. , N History and tradition do not count, it seems. Mr. Jarrett says that audiences will neither know nor care that "Beloved Enemy" is based on tho life story of Michael Collins, the Irish leader, who really was shot dead. An English critic doubts if they would even resent a last-minute reprieve for Sidney Carton; they might think it a far, far better thing. But if they do not resent Sidney Carton's death —and the critic does not think they do —it is because audiences like to identify themselves with the hero or heroine of a play or a film, and the idea of self-sacrifice or martyrdom is one in which it is very easy to luxuriate. ' While audiences do not like films that make them feel miserable, it is by no means certain that the death of the hero or heroine does mako them feel miserable; it may exalt them. It is all a question of stylo and mood. One would not dream of going to a theatre to see a Hamlet who did not die—or to a cinema to see Donald Duck killed.