The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-07-05

NEA Service Stan Correspondent
 By DAN THOMAS
 HOLLYWOOD, July 5--The Il movie industry, like a lit- tie boy caught using a dirty word, is getting its mouth scrubbed with soap and wa ter.
 It doesn't like the taste of soap, but it is submitting to the scrubbing because it knows that old Ma public is the boss, after all.
 The flood of salacious, fiippant, sexy, dirt. t.for-dirt's-sake pictures that has poured out of Hollywood during the last few years already shows signs of drying up. Love affairs outside matrimony. and triangles, divorces, ana cal lous cheating within it--that has been the regular movie fare, along with sexy Aims Tn which sex is simply thrown at the audience Tor nims nH so%sSn wSich a' have as vIed IH with one another to see which could present beautiful young girls with the scantiest clothes.
 What the Public Wants?
 Then. too, there have been films about doctors which give tho iii1- pression that medical practice is q mere incident in hospitals, Capable actresses case and recast in suc- cessive roles as wanton womon, fiippant divorcees, or plain street. walkers, until the public has asso- ciated their very names with ns bandonment. Dialog from the gut. ter. Utter disregard for the pos sibie social effects of their pro. duets, all under the principle that we're w.2 giving the public what 1t
 This Is the sort of product which has brought down on Hollywot an organized protest such as it has never known before. The present crusade of the League of Decency is only the culmlnation of a growing Indignation in womens clubs and organizations for sover- al years,
 Clean Plays Draw
 And, meanwhile, clean pictures like Hell Divers" Min and Bill, V "The champ" "Smiiin' Through" 1" Daddy Long Legs" "Little Wom- en-" and ";fhe House of Roths. child" have been packing people Into the theaters.
 But 1t takes brains and thought to make such films. Given an hon. est purpose, brains, and taste, al- most any theme may be handled I without offense.
 Let's look at the manner in which Hollywood has handled some of the standard ''situations" dur. ing recent months; what 1t has done to some of its best actresses, and what can be done with real films, honestly and eieanly made, with taste and brains, without any socr!ace of entertainment value or even of box office receipts.
 Tine "Bad Girl" Theme.
 First, let's look at the bad girl the one who surrenders to love without benefit of clergy. This theme is all too real, all to true to life. Yet how promiscuously ought it to be handled on the screen where children wonder over its Implications. and alodescents may form their ideas and ideals of life from them?
 How ought 1t to be handled. if at all? Here are some of the pie lures treating this theme in recent months:
 Although very we'll made. and linterestfrg fin sDots. "A Mans Castle" was widely condemned, due to the fact that Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young are shown living together in Tracy's shack before they are married.
 Child Actress In Rad Light.
 Critics speculated on the eifec4s Ion children on another Loretta Young picture, Born to Be Bad" She is portrayed as q young pros. ltitute totally lacking in character