DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 119, 10 August 1927, Page 14

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

MORAL MOVIES (Copyright, 19t7.) T GO to movies a good deal and I have yet to see one that I regard as distinctly immoral, unless it may be something imported from Europe. Col. J. C. Wedgewood, a member of Parliament in England, says that, “the stuff we get from America is almost too moral —they are the most straightlaced people in the universe, in fact they are too much of the Gene Stratton Porter type. Don’t let us shut down the only stream of sound, moral influence coming into our country.” He says the British must get away from the idea that American films are immoral. They are dull, he claims, perhaps, and sentimental, sloppy sob stuff, but never immoral. My own observation leads me to believe that Americans are more particular about the moral quality of their entertainment than any other people. In any country in Europe things are exhibited on the stage and screen that people in America would not stand for. All this talk about a movie censorship is aside from the mark because the producers know that the public will not stand for immorality, and the public is where the money comes from. The best censor is the opinion of the man who pays the bills. At bottom, the American public is sound and sane. Mr. Babbitt may excite the risibility of Sinclair Lewis and H. L. Mencken, but at least he is a decent chap and he does not want his family polluted by European importations coming in to pander to the lowest elements of humanity under the high-sounding title of “art.” Americans are characterised by the fact that they have more bath tubs per capita than any other nation. They are also morally cleaner. They don’t care for dirt in whatever form it comes. And while there is a certain element that is always attracted by suggestive things th 6 great body of the people does not like them. Aside from Lulu Bell, w r hieh is about the most uselessly immoral performance I ever saw, plays and books and movies that appeal to a depraved moral sense are not continuously prosperous.