17 NOVEMBER 1917, Page 5

THE CINEMA,

Tim Report of the chief evidence taken by the Cinema Commission of Inquiry, instituted by the National Council of Public Morale, has been published in book form. A aort of Blue Book dealing with the cinema is now therefore in the hands of the public. Among the Commissioners we and such well-known names as those of the Bishop of Birmingham, Lieutenant-General Sir R. S. S. Baden- Powell. Monsignor Brown, Professor Gollancs, Dr. Saleeby, and Mr. T. P. O'Connor. The Report, weighted with its metes of evidence, is very long, but it Is also very interesting, and the most impatient must admit that the subject is of great importance. It cannot be but that the picture palaces are having a perceptible effect upon the mind and character of English youth. The multiplication of them all over the country during the last few years seems almost miraculous. The Bishop of Birmingham's figures concerning the number of persons who attend them, as they appear in the book before us, are more than astonishing. " They represent a visit to the cinema on the part of every inhabitant of the British Isles practically twenty-four times a year." It is, of course, upon children that their influence for good or evil is most potent, and we think it will surprise not a few of our readers to find that, according to a large consensus of expert evidence, the influence of "the pictures" makes for good. Very serious charges have been brought against the cinema, but these charges have been proved to be exaggerated. The " pictures " themselves have been complained of as tending to instil bad morals, and the palaces " have been complained of as offering in their great hells, with their alternations of bright light and darkness, endless opportunities for indecorous behaviour. In individual cases such charges can of course he proved, and the Report contains various recommendations—better lighting and the appointment of a State Censor, den—by which these evils may be reduced to a minimum ; but, even as things aro, the best authorities are the moat hearty in their defence of the cinema as an institution. Take, for instance, the evidence of Mr. F. W. Barnett, Probation Officer and Court lifissionor at Westminster Police Court, into whose district come some of the worst slums in London, those in Notting Dale "I consider the cinema to be the most harmless form of recreation we have ever had." He would, of course, like to see the picture shows yet further improved, but meanwhile he makes use of them in their present state :— " I very frequently take my probationers to picture shows with beneficial results, and the general phases of life there shown are, in the main, what I should smsh them to be for such a purpose— that is to say, they give a faithful representation of city life in which both the failings and virtues of humanity are thrown up in bold relief. From my point of view I should not wish to give my probationers a view of life which was too widely different

The Mamas Us Premed Poeition and Eidetic Possibiliti 8. Loudon. Williams lirsats.. ilea. 5i. sct.l

from the actual conditions they would themselves later have to encounter."

Were the cinemas shut, Ur. Barnett believes, "there would be an immediate and immense increase in hooliganism, shop-lifting. and similar street misdemeanours." Questioned as to the increase in juvenile crime, Mr. Barnett attributes it to other cause. than the cinema: putting little faith in the statements of boys who say they stole money to go to the pictures. They catch, he thinks, at the first excuse. Before the cinema was popular, boys used to say that they stole to go to sea. Another Police Court Missioner, Mr. John Massey, of the Old Street Police Court. makes an almost similar statement

" The films chiefly complained of, crime and ` crook ' films, have, in my opinion, little, If anything, to do with the increase in juvenile crime. Let any keen observer attend a cinema when ' crook' film and detective story is shown and listen to the children's cheers when the ` crook ' has been run to earth and punished. To my mind the effect is neutral, if anything, and almost forgotten in the pictures that follow. The children of this district could learn little, if anything, about crime from such films. . . . 'What is needed to-day is real, first-hand knowledge of the rendition. in which the poor live. Lack of this is the explanation of so much Billy talk about pictures being harmful."

All those who may be considered experts on the subject of children's welfare agree that the cinema might be made all educational force, but unfortunately "educational films '• are not popular with either boys or girls. They learn much from what they see upon the screen, but they will not go voluntarily unless, the information is indirectly conveyed. The Commission concludes—the wording is ours —that the old expedient of dis- guising powder in jam was a sound one, and will have to be resorted to again. Several witnesses of weight seem to think it would 1.0 well if instruction illustrated by moving pictures emild form part of the ordinary echoed curriculum. Such an idea will no doubt I, strongly opposed by the persons who are determined that education should not be made easy. Even they, however, will be made to • pause when they read the following statements, founded as they- are upon incontrovertible evidence :- " On the average, where other conditions are equal, the fund of general knowledge possessed by children who frequent the pictures is far wider and far richer than that possessed by thee: who do not. Much of the knowledge acquired may be trivial and superficial. Much of it is not. Essays set to children upon useful information learnt at the picture house reveal a long list of items of educational interest. Facts of geography, history. literature, natural science, industrial processes. aerial life, and current events are detailed in groat variety."

It is difficult, indeed we should imagine it ie impossible, to form a judgment regarding the influence of the new craze for " pictures " on the adult oharacter. The criticisms of Y.M.C.A. officials with the Army in France are, however, worth consideration—and they are very favourable to the cinema. Space forbids us to quote more than a few sentences from the interesting statement of Mr. Oliver H. McCowen, described as " practically the head of the Y.M.C.A. in France " " We have noticed that the cinema in France makes a very remarkable contribution to the behaviour and moral of the troops. I have repeatedly had testimony from Town Majors and moo in charge of the diecipline of the various places, that the opening of one of these cinemas in a town has meant an Monodist° diminu. tion, amounting in some cases to fifty per cent., in drunkenness

and crime."

It must be added that the Y.M.C.A.is naturally very careful as to what films it places upon the screen, and manages to make a goal many of them instructive. The religious secretary of the Y.M.C.A., the Rev. W. E. Soothill, is, however, very doubtful of the good which comes from the giving of definite religious instruction by means of pictures.

We think no impartial reader can study the Report of the Commissioners, and turn over the three hundred odd pages of evidence upon which it is based, without coming to the conclusion that, in spite of certain grave drawbacks, the new amusement is as innocent as, and more profitable than, any which has as yet held the publio spellbound. As we have already said, the COI2111111.41J11111, recommend. the appointment of a State Censor, believing, us they do, that the cinema, "for Its own protection, as well as for the ensuring of its continued suitability to the nation. *should have the support and the official countenance of the State." On the other hand, they offer a warm tribute to the manner in whielt Mr. T. P. O'Connor, the present President of the Board of Censors, has done his diffioult work.