THE LOS ANGELES FILM SINK.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXII, Issue 4348, 28 November 1921, Page 4

THE LOS ANGELES FILM SINK.

A GOMORRAH OF THE GOLDEN WEST. Mr G. A. Atkinson writes in the “ Daily Express ” :—Falstaff himself would .'have blushed to be seen in the same pothouse as some of (the film producers who came into Los Angeles during the last two years of the war and the first two years qfl the peace. They made bathing-girl comedies—without the bathing—sex problem' plays which contained np problem at all, “hygienic” films, medical films, “ should- chi'ldren-b.e-told ” films, drug films, opium den films, white slave films, and any and every kind of prurient malpractice in celluloid. In their train came a host of women of loose character and men of np character at all, wit|h little money and less modesty; the riff-raff of the stage and travelling shows, the sweepings of the Bowery and the Tenderloin; all the unholy flotsam and jetsam of opportunist America. The diamond air of California, now blowing in from tjhe Pacific, now J wafted down from the. high Sierras, ' filled them as with new wine. They worked feverishly, and there. is no excitement more hectic than tfhat; of t making exciting films. They made money freely and they spent it freely, and they attracted to Los Angeles all the hundred and one trades that flourish on the excesses of untamed rich. Ostentation became a craze Everyone had a motor-car, even the humblest mechanic. As many as 500 motor-cars were counted outside some Los Angeles studios.

A DIVORCE A MINUTE. The population of the town doubled, and still th? dollars poured in. Ostentation quickly became vulgarity, and tjhen debauchery. Mushroom settlements and suburbs of an equivocal character came into existence more rapidly than the resources of law and order could keep pace ,witn, while for those who wished to maintain a slight veneer of respectability in their relations tjhere grew up a divorce system such as the world has never seen. At one time the Lios Angeles court was granting divorces at the rate of one per minute. Debauchery grew until it became a wholesale affair. One heard of wild nocturnal revels ini brilliantly lit studios,, with detectives lying on the glass roof outside, striving to make lists of names of tjhose concerned. Picture a community, with almost boundless wealth, living in an exhilarating climate, almost removed from moral control, engaged in producing make-believe excitements for a nation suddenly grown rich, with a world war as the background, and you will begin to understand the swift demoralisation. of Los Angeles. The dire results are the revelations contained in the Arbuckle case.

THE INEVITABLE CRASH. The sound and solid film producers, worshipping their art and proud of its progress, were appalled at this invasion. Many of them, scenting the inevitable crash, moved to other places on the coast, or to New York. San -Francisco, jealous of 'the rival city s boom, opened a publicity department, witih the sole .object of casting discredit on Los Angeles. Official motion picture organisations, backed by leading newspapers, tried in vain to stem the flood of undesirable films from Los Angeles. They formed rescue organisations for.girls working there, and tried to prevent others being dragged into the vortex. “Don’t go to Los Angeles without your mother,” became a kind of war slogan. The trade Press took h hand by naming the mosf; sinister films and refusing their advertisements. Police commissioners published black lists of films and threatened to withdraw the licenses of any exhibitors showing them. The churches organise! in defence of the moral interests of the community. The prohibi|tionisrs turned their resources from drink to films, and finally there arose a nationwide agitation for censorship which succeeded drastically, Many years -must elapse before Los Angeles recovers from its historic lapse from good morals. and good sense. The real lesson of it all is contained in t(ha|t little quotation about “the mills of God.”