"LEAGUE OF DECENCY"

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 31, 8 February 1935, Page 5

"LEAGUE OF DECENCY"

JVfESSAGES we print in our film section to-day from leaders of America's film industry point to the fact that Hollywood is determined to lift not the general body of talking pictures but all pictures above the cheap suggestions of sex and crime that have characterised many of them in the past.. The first rumblings of the storm were heard last year when hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholics in the United States banded together in a "League of Decency," the object being that members would attend only those films which were approved by their church authorities. The league has grown in numbers and to-day more than 16,000,000 Catholics are active members. It would be idle to suggest that the League has not affected the making of films. Lists have been drawn up and films have been placed in three categories: A (approved), B (forbidden to children), and C (condemned). These lists have been widely circulated and, in many towns, theatre-owners have been. afraid to screen those pictures that have fallen into the league's . third category. In St, Patrick’s Cathedral in New . York, one of the priests recently read the following messagé from the cardinal:Our family firesides have long been bemoaning without any means of vocal protest the low estate to which the screen has fallen. Yo glorify through the film, crime, shame and immorality must necessarily engender .a baser appreciation of life and belittle reverence for authority in the family, school, and civic life. The talking picture wields a power almost _as great as broadcasting for the education and enlightenment of the people, and it+is fit and proper that the producers . themselves (who are, after all, in their jobs merely to give the public what it wants) should be brought to see that a vast part of-the picture-going public jis taking a firm stand against much that is trashy and sordid in the films to-day.