The Phoenix Jewish news., 1955-09-16
The Year in Hollywood
Film Makers
Are Breaking
Away From
Their Tuboos
By Leon Gutterman
Copyright, 1855,
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc.)

HOLLYWOOD There is no
other field of business in the world
in which evolutionary change is so
continuous and so rapid as in the
motion picture industry. From the
time Thomas A. Edison projected
the first flickering shadows on
screen 63 years ago, the chain of
progressive development in motion
pictures has been so uninterrupted
that each passing year has seemed
to produce a new turning point.
The present year is no exception.
Rather, it now looms as one of the
most significant milestones in film
| history.
Judging by what has been hap
pening. 1855 may well go down in
the annals of motion pictures as
the year of the Great Emancipa-
ton for Hollywood-the year when
film producers stopped looking ov-
er their shoulders to see If any
long-held taboos were lurking in
the bushes, waiting to leap out and
thrust their ugly shapes between
the picture makers and their plans
for the pictures they want to make.
In short, 1855 shows every prom
ise of being the year when those
who guide the deStinieS of this
most spectacular of industries I'm
ally were freed from the Shackles
of bigotry, prejudice, ignorance
| and intolerance which have bound
them for so long and have prevent
ed so many stories which, in them
selves, were inspiring and alto
gether worthy, from reaching the
screen.
1T is UNNECESSARY to enum-
crate here all the many objection
able tabooS which have hung over
Hollywood's film makers for de-
cades, taboos which so often made
them say, cts great story, put
we can't make it as picture be-
cause there a minority segment OF
the population which will yell its
collective head off if we touch that
kind of subject or that kind OF
character, even though there's no
ban on it in the Production Code. !"
It is enough to mention only the
one which comes most closely
home to the readers of this column
- the taboo against making motion
pictures whose stories were bullt
round people of the Jewish faith.
For decades, though the big major
ity of the film producers were
themselves Jewish, they bowed to
the taboo. Pictures aggrandlzlng
Catholic priests or Protestant cler-
gymen they made without heSlta-
ton, but a picture whose hero was
| a rabbi-never. There remained a
| fixed conviction that too many peo-
i ple not only would not welcome
such a picture but would protest
/ volubly against its showing.
A FEW YEARS ago, it took a
great deal of courage-of which,
fortunately, he has an abundant
supply-for Producer Daryl r
Zanuck to break the ice with the
making of "Gentleman's Agree
ment'. The picture did cause some
raised eyebrows and some grum'
bled dissentS, but it proved a great
popular success. Nevertheless
practically no film maker venturec
to follow in Zanuck's footsteps. The
taboo still remained.
Then a great many things began
to happen, both in the motion pic
ture industry and in the world al
large, things which began to make
people think and, gradually, to soft
en- and then change their view
points. Whether they liked it OF
not, the people as a whole tounc
that the troubled condition OF the
| world was affecting their own daily
| lives.
THIS is THE great significance
| of the year in Hollywood and 1T
| great triumph. This is the year o
| the Great Emancipation. Motion
| pictures, at long last, have broker
| the chains which have bound then
and now can move forward to thu
| greatness as the worlds best en-
tertainment and the worlds great
est single power for good whicl
| always has been awaiting the in
dustry.
The Jewish Consumptives' Relic