The Carlisle independent., 1921-02-03


 Lawbreakers who have been dig ging up yarns about hard falls and blows on the "bean" they received ,, in their youth to meet the physical injury" theories of crime propounded lpy their sympathizers, will now switch to the moving picture excuse if they are up to the minute Not | only murderers and thieves, but bank | robbers, wife beaters, horse thieves, auto bandits and runaway husbands | will now shout with one accord that | they never dreamed of straying from the narrow path until the movies" suggested it. And we don't see what the motion picture men can do about it, either. If they try to satisfy their critics, they are lost. Reform CTS are unsuitable and one "cut out" will lead to another, until they will get back to the beginnings of pie ture as entertainment-scene in Baraboo, Wisconsin and the represen- tation of Chinaman eating a rat, which was, we believe, the pioneer comic "fillum."
 What, do you suppose, has caused such a sudden general outburst against the motion picture?
 When the first machines and films were made and placed before the public, our scholars. clerics, philan- thropists and publicists were all looking the other way. They saw it as toy to please the minimizing, not as a means of disseminating use ful information and moral instruc- tion. It was allowed to develop in old sheds, reclaimed stables, aban- doned buildings, transformed skating rinks, and pool halls, fitted out with rude benches. Regular actors sniffed at it. It was the '9Topsys of enter tainments-left to just grow
 From such an unpromiseing begin hing, it has been developed into the mightiest means of entertainment that the world has yet known. Let us be honest about this. Where, a comparatively few years ago, few , hundreds in a community would have means to attend the theater few nights in every season, thousands now can find entertainment at num- Der of picture theaters any night in the year, and some are there every night-people who are starved for some relief from the dull routine of life; whose leisure hours were spent in monotonous repitition of drab trivialties or stupid potations; people who could not afford to attend regu- lar theaters and who doubtless would have been bored stiff if they had. , If in the business of making and showing moving pictures excesses have occurred, good taste has often been violated, things offensive to mo- rality have appeared, lay the blame where it belongs. The high brows" disregarded 1t, the regular patrons of the drama sneered at it and it had to create it's original clientile from the masses who were wholly outside of the sphere of theaters, lectures and even books. Consequently it grew up purely as means to enter tain. People whose lives are tame and eventless want spice in their lei sure hours; they prefer the lurid dra- ma as naturally as they read books of adventure and big headlines.
 Il The offense of the motion picture men, in the view of certain element. is that they have made great deal of money by pleasing people. This element instinctively suspects what ever the majority of people enjoy. They are certain it must be sinful or wicked, somehow.
 Let the educators, publicists and moralists make a belated start to create demand for more informing and educational pictures. It is being done, here and there. In recent news papers we note that the Toledo | (Ohio) museum gives daily shows for the children, including films of great paintings, scenes from grand opera, illustrated music, which attract thou sands every week; that the Noel Me morial Church at Shreveport, gives moving picture entertainments twice week; that 6,40O schools in the Uni ted States have moving picture equipment, and so on.
 It is not practical to expect the mo- tion picture men suddenly to take away what their patrons want and
 substitute something they wouldn't care for at their own risk and ex- pense; but we don't doubt that the New Orleans owners would cheerful