Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-05
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

I reviewed a strange moving picture
show yesterday afternoon.
It Is customary for reviewer to
note the names and technique of the
actors, but in this case I neglected to
do so because such details were of no
consequence.
Nothing that happened on the screen
was of any consequence. Only the au-
dience mattered. 1t was the first time
that moving pictures had been shown
inside the walls of Howard Hall, tie
building for the criminal insane at
st. Elizabetn's Hospital. It was the
first time that about Is of the inmates.
whose occupancy of jails and insane
hospitals started more than quarter
of century ago, ever had seen NOV
ing picture.
The men who composed the audi
ence were guilty of all sorts of crimes,
from larceny to murder Some famous
criminals were among them. For the
most part, under the scientific and
kindly regime of the hospital, they are
a quiet lot. They represent all sorts
and grades of mental disease and
wide range of intelligence.
For all the character of some of its
inmates, Howard Hall is quiet place
where each man is treated as an in
But due to the nature of the institu-
ton there has been in the past lack
of recreation facilities. There is an
excellent theater at the hospital where,
under the auspices of the Red Cross,
some of the latest moving picture re-
leases are shown twice week, attended
by all patients whose condition is such
as to allow them out of strict custody.
Show Held in Barred Room.
But obviously this did not apply to
the men in Howard Hall who are under
court sentences. Whatever recreation
they have must be brought to them.
And neither the hospital nor the Red
Cross up to now has had portable NOV
ing picture machines. One has just
been secured So the barred windows
Hall were darkened with blankets and
a projection machine set up.
The selection of pictures was a diff
cult problem for the hospital and Red
Cross officials. There is a rather def
mite moving picture psychology. They
wished to avoid pictures of the type
which would excite these rather easily
excitable men, which would suggest
crime, which would lead the audience
imaginatively to Identity itself with
men committing deeds of violence, or
which would have depressing effect
such as might result from a tragic de-
pictlon of home-and-mother or child
hood theme. 1t was decided to start
with slap-stick comedy So this is a
review of the effect of slap-stick comedy
on the population of Howard Hall-of
what men laugh at and why.
There was no herding of prisoners, as
might have been the case in an ordi-
nary prison. They came in by ones
and twos and threes, just like groups
OF workmen dropping into a moving
picture from the street. When they
were. all IN couple of attendants
stood by. the door as inconspicuously
as possible.
New Experience for Men.
The comedies shown had all the
familiar comic situations which the
makers of moving pictures expect folks
TO laugh at and which, for some strange
reasons, folks do laugh at occasionally,
to the great perpleXity of others. The
inmates of Howard Hall might be con-
sldered very good experimental audi
ence. In the first place, it was a new
experience for them. They had not
been disciplined to laugh at certain
situations. as most folks have through
long attendance at the movies. Then
again presumed characteristic of
some of the criminally insane is in
ability to repress the overt reaction to
an emotional stimulus. For example,
most OF us have impulses to hit some
annoying person now and then, but we
mediate on the consequences, that is.
delay our response to the stimulus.
and decide not to do so. A character
istic of the insane criminal is inability
10 delay this response, possibly be-
cause the pyramidal layer of the cere-
ie H..
folks.
In any event, this audience might
be expected to laugh at such visual
stimuli as in the nature of things
evoke laughter. 1t would not repreSs
us haw-haws due to severe critical
Judgment. Now what happened was
That this audience laughed for the
most part at the very situations which
would have caused the most laughter
IN downtown theater. It's behavior,
Strange to say, was very little more in
telligent than that of an audience
gathered in from the street.
The only possible exception was that
the greatest response came to comedy
Dellboy beating up a comedy cop"
Naturally, anything discomforting that
happens to a policeman their eternal
enemy, is grossly funny to these men.
That might be called a special response
uue 10 The environment.
"Chase" Brings Laughter.
A wave of laughter spread through
the darkened room at the familiar
chase" situation. where the actors
pursue each other through traffic
crowded streets, falling into manholes,
pushing over piles of boxes. buckets OF
whitewash, etc. 1t is just an ampliflca-
ton of the pumpkin pie situation. and
it goes over big. The laughter reached
its climax when the unfortunate object
of the chase was perched on top of the
flag pole over ten-story building and
the pole was pushed over by the pur-
suer leaving the victim hanging help
lessly above the street and finally
dropping.
This, it was explained by one of the
st. Elizabeth physicians, possibly was
an expression of the saddest impulse,
which finds its satisfaction in the dis
comforture and pain of others. The
saddist nature of some of these men is
marked But they took no more delight