J. Boyce Smith Jr. — Selecting for Better Pictures (1926) 🇺🇸
The problem which is fraught with the greatest difficulty and responsibility for the motion picture producer is that of selecting the material to be screened.
by J. Boyce Smith
Those who have to wrestle with it very feelingly describe it as “the agony of the business.” Executives charged with the duty of choosing the vehicles which shall be put into production, and dictating the manner of treatment and presentation upon the screen, must consciously or unconsciously have some method, rule or standard of arriving at their judgments — in other words, a “philosophy of selection.” Probably, in most cases, the method is unconscious and the executive relies upon experience which he feels has given him the intuition to know what constitutes good box office material. His method probably has its basis in the quotation “Old experience doth attain to something of prophetic strain.” His experience enables him to sense what will interest the motion picture public.
But what is the question which the harassed executive, probably unconsciously, puts to himself in judging the material submitted? Is it “What themes are the motion picture public clamoring for?” or is it “What themes would make a splendid picture which should interest and entertain the motion picture public?” In other words, is the sole thought of the producer to give the public what he thinks they want or does he permit himself to speculate as to what they ought to like? Has the producer not a big responsibility to endeavor to elevate the public taste rather than confine himself solely to catering to its obvious and very human tendencies?
The wise producer “keeps his ear to the ground” endeavoring to determine from the record of box office receipts of various pictures just which kind and style of picture the public wants? But would not he be wiser to permit his mind to soar into the vast, inexhaustible realm of the human imagination and draw from there the elements which, when cast in the new and delectable form of a screen drama, are capable of amusing, refreshing and elevating the spirit of man.
What the public wants, or thinks it wants is not always what it really wants or what is best for it. The public in a sense is like a big child. Parents who educate their children by studying and catering to their likes and dislikes have in the end an unenviable product on their hands. Motion picture audiences are, at least in part, made up of mature people but the tendency of any crowd is something different from the sum total of the tendencies of the individuals composing it. A crowd will often enjoy and applaud something which its individual members would blush to witness alone and would hastily condemn as individuals The crowd morality is lower, let us say, than the individual morality. The fact that a certain type of picture, therefore, seems to be popular and “sure-fire” does not prove that the audience is incapable of being equally aroused by the appeal of a picture of a higher type. Unless the higher and better instincts of the mass of people are capable of responding, and do respond, to the efforts of those who furnish entertainment of the higher and better sort for the masses the course of human nature would seem to be steadily downward, and no one with true vision believes that human nature is headed on a downward course.
What motion picture producers need above all else, therefore, is a faith in the capacity of the motion picture public to appreciate and applaud the best that can be offered on the screen in the way of theme, story and presentation. The producer who aims to cater to the baser, ignoble or depraved taste of a portion of the community may consider himself wise in box-office cunning but his ultimate goal must prove the folly of such a screen philosophy — else mankind is plunging to perdition. For the present day appeal and patronage of “the movies” is so widespread in every nation under the sun that it is reasonable to predict the perdition of the race if the taste for motion pictures evinces marked and definite signs of depravity. It is not the purpose of this article to particularize but it could easily be proven by citing numerous examples that the most successful commercial pictures are those with a wholesome human appeal and which play upon the higher rather than the less noble emotions of the audience. Let producers, therefore, not fear to aim high in selecting material for the screen!
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J. Boyce Smith [J. Boyce Smith Jr.]
General Manager, Inspiration Pictures
Collection: Motion Picture Director, July 1926