The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-05-20
The Movies AS a Weapon Against
the Working Class


ferent-it's another life. Fine clothes, cars.
Poor people want these things too and they
amt got them. Movies gives you the real
stuff. Then it's over soon and you come out
on the street and it's the same old thing for
you, just like before you went in."
This is a stenographc report of what
seventeen-year old boy in the New York State
School for Boys replied when asked his opinion
of the movies.
And a fourteen-year old delinquent girl:
Movies make most anything seem all right.
Things that look bad on the outside don't seem
to be bad at all in the movies"
It was at the end of the nineteenth century,
in the mining sections of Pennsylvania that the
movies first made their appearance, CONNER
cially. They supplied the necessary safety
valve for the recreation of twelve-hour-a day
slaves. But great a blessing as the movies
were for the capitalist class at their origin.
they are thousandfold more valuable today that
Hollywood represents the third largest industry
in the United States.
classification.
The complete classification of the motion
pictures in the last two or three years has
resulted in more conscious shaping of this
supreme propaganda machine by the capitalists.
Consider that Owen D. Young, of Young Plan
fame is the man who leads Wall Street in
the movies and helped organize the powerful
Radio -Orpheum chain.
The three new and most important features
that have come to light since the wave of
classification have been the following:
"a The increasing Importance of the news
reel.
Der of war films.
Of he nd
themes in the average run of films.
Without going into detailed analysis of the
special value of the newsreel for propaganda
purposes, it is sufficient to point out that Fox
Hearst, M-G-M and Paramount have doubled
and tripled their weekly output and never be-
fore has the documentary film played such an
important role in the movies. In later article
we will explain the reason why we believe that
even if the film as an industry declines, which.
incidentally, is very possible, the newsreel will
be retained as the purest and most efficient
weapon for spreading reactionary propaganda.
At any rate, the theatre showing exclusively
newsreels is a recent and significant pheno-
menon. Nearly every large city in the country
at the present time has at least one house
screening rewsreels exclusively and at nominal
admission fees.
As to the war films, it is well-known fact
producers in the making of films like Wir~s
Flight, Cock Eyed World Tell it to the Ma
rines, and others. Mr.. Lasky recently was de-
corated for such cooperation by the U. S. gov
eminent.
The Sinking Quality.
The sinking quality of the Entertainment"
films is the result of the digging into cheap
novels and musical comedies in desperate eff
fort to revive interest in an industry which
at the time of the invention of the "talkie"
three years ago, was on the verge of complete
collapse.
Hollywood at the present time is a thorough
ly fascisized machine, ready to pour out i'm
peralst propaganda not only to America, but
to the whole world american films sent
to seventy countries.)
The Public Relations Committee which watch