The Trend of the "Movies"
By L. E. F.
THE following paragraphs from an editorial appearing in the July Sunset Magazine are of more than passing interest: "In practically every sizable community of the United States, the weekly capacity of the moving picture houses now exceeds the total population. "During an investigation in Portland, Oregon, it was shown that out of 2,647 children selected at random in five grammar schools, 91.7% regularly attended motion picture shows. Almost one third of the total went at least twice a week. 64% attended screen shows every night. "The committee found 197 girls between 16 and 18 who attended the picture houses at night without being accompanied by adults. On the basis of the findings, it was estimated that 5,564 schoolgirls under fourteen, and even a larger number of boys, visited the 'movie' theaters of Portland at night every week." Commenting on this fact appeared the following words: "The film that depicts crime, violence, unbridled passion, and reproduces the pictures of expensively and scantily dressed women in attractively staged orgies, must of necessity give the child a distorted view of life and its values. "The thoughtful, unprejudiced observer cannot escape the conviction that the present interests of the child have not been served by the new form of entertainment. The juvenile population would be better off without it in its present form. The too prevalent film plays of crime and sex interest leave evil suggestions in the child's mind, suggestions that cannot be counteracted by the effect of the infrequent showing of really meritorious educational films." The ruinous results of many of these suggestive pictures, upon the minds and actions of adolescent American youth, can hardly be overstated. The blasted reputations, the ruined characters, the heinous crimes, the broken hearts and shattered homes, are too familiar to need more than bare mention. Morality, decency, high ideals, character building — all are trampled underfoot in the mad scramble for sensational and sentimental amusement. Yet this world-sweeping mania was foretold plainly in the Sacred Word — that "in the last days" the world would give itself over to pleasure. See 2 Tim. 3: 1-5. And the saddest feature of all is the marked change in the attitude — a lowering of the standard — among the professed followers of the spotless Christ. There is constant agitation, in the larger Protestant denominations, to rescind the former rulings of the church concerning amusements. Shall the line of demarcation between the church and the world be utterly obliterated? What has the church in common with the "movie" theater? Let not the Christian church sanction these encroachments. Let not the money intrusted to her members by the living God be spent for these things that are sweeping the world away from Him. The moving picture promoters have commercialized this pleasure craze that has the modern world in its grip. It has become a gigantic business scheme. Film producers send out the reels that are most demanded and consequently bring the greatest number of nickels and dimes into their pockets. Last year, some 7,000,000,000 nickels passed from the hands of American devotees of "pleasures" to the tills of the exploiters of this passion. Truly the times fit the prophetic mold. "Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God" is one of the leading characteristics of the age. Let not Christians be drawn into this deceptive whirlpool. The line of demarcation between the church and the world should be clear. L. E. F.