Periodically people here in Utah Valley raise their voice and take pen in hand to protest socalled trashy movies which are saturated with sex, violence and sordid situations. The issue is kicked around a bit, then dies with little or no action and no results.
Few would deny that many moving pictures fall into this category. But too few people care enough to mount a concerted protest to the theater owners and distributors. Meantime, more such films are booked and sent to the local theater managers who must run them. And meantime the public continues to support them, making their showing a profitable venture.
To be sure there are many outstanding and high quality films. Usually these are well-supported. Movies like “Mary Poppins,” “Those Calloways,” and “Shenandoah” have been highly successful at the box office here.
But it apparently is impossible for movie producers to come up with a top quality production every time. For one thing, to produce them is often highly expensive. Those in the format commonly termed “cheap” or “trashy” frequently are easy and inexpensive to produce; yet they seem to pay well at the box office. Indeed, according to one observer in the industry, some of them are big money makers.
Who makes them pay? The answer, of course, is the movie-going public – the people who support them. We can protest, criticize, advocate and demand, but as long as we support the trashy-type films with our attendance we can be certain there will be more on the way soon.
When the people demonstrate at the box office that they desire the decent movies and want no part of morally-degrading ones, then the long-hoped-for upgrading can be expected.
Here in Provo we pride our-selves on being an area of culture – a university city of high tastes and standards. Yet, the socalled cheap films often outdraw the better caliber ones and some efforts by local theater managers to bring in special cultural productions have fallen flat. “Der Rosenkavalier,” exclusive color movie filmed at the famed Salzburg Music Festival showed here last May and the theater manager “lost his shirt” for lack of attendance. Yet, a few persons who had been to Austria and rushed to buy seats acclaimed the festival as “one of the biggest things in Europe.”
“Hamlet” didn’t go over well; “LaBoheme” didn’t pay expenses; the beautiful Royal Ballet which showed just recently was a financial success largely because of outstanding support by dance classes at BYU with only an average of 81 tickets sold to townspeople for the four performances.
In Orem last week the city council discussed the problem of junk movies after receiving many protests of “obscenity” in parts of a film playing at a local drive-in. Surprisingly enough, that same film, when it played in Provo, outdrew the Royal Ballet; and at Orem it played five nights to big crowds. A sad commentary was that publicity of official protests only sparked attendance the last two nights, so that the customers on the traditionally light Monday and Tuesday nights quadrupled the usual number.
This result would seem to point up the truth of a comment by an Orem councilman that each family must look into the problem, reexamine its standards, and take its own measures against filth in any form.
Another avenue open is for concerted protest by large numbers of citizens. The PTA movie review committees have rendered fine service in past years in recommending good films. But, to the knowledge of theater managers contacted, no protest by the citizenry has gained any steam, at least not in recent years. In one attempt, church and civic leaders were invited to join in a letter-writing campaign but only one letter was received by the sponsor. This kind of apathy can never get results. One or two letters will accomplish nothing. Only a broad-based effort will succeed.
The local theater managers, in most cases, have no say in the film booking and would be only too happy to run strictly high-quality shows. To “call them on the carpet” would be of little avail. But they undoubtedly could supply the names of the owners and film distributors who line up the films and make the bookings or least would be glad to forward the mail.
In the final analysis, however, the protest with the real authority back of it would be a boycott of the objectionable films. This can only be accomplished by you, the public. When theater owners and distributors find out that the people of this area will not support morally-degrading films, they automatically will cease booking them. When pictures which are wholesome and uplifting continually attract the biggest crowds, this is the kind of film we’ll get.