Drop That Gun!

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Drop That Gun!Author(s): Gordon MiramsReviewed work(s):Source: The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Autumn, 1951), pp. 1-19Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1209930 .

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D r o p T h a t G u n !GORDON MIRAMS

GORDON MIRAMS came to his present position of chief government censor and regis-trar of films in New Zealand after spending a year and a half with UNESCO in Paris, inthe Film Section of the Department of Mass Communications. He is well known in hisown country as a film critic and commentator, and is the author of Speaking Candidly, abook dealing with the social and entertainment aspects of the cinema.

IN 1948 and again at the end of 1949 the British Board of FilmCensors of Great Britain complained to producersin Hollywoodabout the amount of violence in many of their films, a modifiedprotest on similar lines being made at the same time to Britishproducers.Since then these complaintshave been echoed by nu-merous organizationsand individuals. What justificationis therefor them? My answerwould be-"Plenty!" And to back it up Iwould put forwardsome rather striking, and probably provoca-tive, findings arrivedat as interim resultsof a comprehensivesur-vey of motion picture content on which I am at present engaged.For example, I would claim: that less than one sixth of English-speakingfeature films are free from any displayof crime and vio-lence; thatone halfof all featurescontainatleastone actof murdercommitted or attempted; that Western melodramas-a type ofentertainmentfrequentlygiven top marksfor wholesometenden-cies-are nearly twice as "violent" as other types of Hollywoodscreenplays,the bulk of killing in them being done by "sympa-thetic" characters.

These findings,and othersdiscussed n thisarticle,arebasedonan objective analysis of 100 features (70 U.S., 30 non-American)which entered New Zealandin the four months between the endof December, 1949, and the end of April, 1950. They can be sup-ported by statisticalevidence and are, I am convinced, reliable.What I am doing is privateresearchand has no officialconnectionwith my position as censorand registrarof films in New Zealand.However, it will be appreciated that such a role, requiring the

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careful examination of virtually every film coming into the coun-try, offers a uniquely favorable opportunity for studying andcharting accuratelythe patternsof cinema conduct and attitudes.And it also exempts the results of the surveyfrom the suggestionthat the material wassubject to selection in one form or anotherlikely to produce a preconceived result or to give color to someparticulartheory. The problem of "sampling,"which is usuallyone of the bugbearsof researchof this nature, scarcelyenters intothe present study. As censor, I simply take for personal scrutinyand analysis every film as it comes along; and, by and large, thetotal product of all American and British studios does come intothis country,at the rate of approximately400 featuresevery year.It must be stressed hat this article does not claimto be anythingmore than a preliminaryand tentativereport on the incidence ofcrime and violence in 1oo features which entered New Zealandover a particularperiod.'At the sametime, reference to the list oftitles suggeststhat the group of filmsanalyzednot only representsalmost the total import of features into New Zealandfor that pe-riod, but also correspondsclosely with the whole feature outputof the major American and British studios at approximatelythesame date. Ultimately I intend thatmy surveyshould cover a con-siderably argertotalof films,sopermittingamoredetailedexami-nation based on a much broader foundation. At this time ofwriting I have, in fact, nearly finished putting an additional 200features under the microscopefor evidence of crime andviolence.I would simply saynow that the findings described in this articlehave so farbeen sustainedby this wider test.

Though certain general inferences have been drawn, it is notthe object of this particularstudy,nor for that matternecessarilyof my surveyasawhole, to attemptto estimatewhat arethe effectson audiences of screenviolence, or of any other patternof moviebehavior.Before there can be accuratediagnosistheremust oftenbe clinical analysis.It is, indeed,astronglyheld belief of mine that

A list of these films will be found on pp. 17-19.

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much research into the influence of the cinema on the public isvitiated by a lack of adequate prior analysisof what motion pic-turesactually contain. Before trying to decide, for instance,whatare the effectson children of a regulardiet of Western and gang-sterviolence, it is surelyessential to analyzethe diet to see exactlywhat its basic ingredients are. Knowing this, it clearly becomeseasier to decide whether the diet is liable to prove indigestible ornot, and what other results it is likely to have on its consumers.I would go further and suggest that, until this close examinationof content is made, it is impossible to reach any reliable conclu-sions as to what are the particulareffects,or even the broad cur-rents of influence, of the cinema on the community.A study of crime and violence on the contemporaryscreen is,of course,only one aspectof my whole researcheffort. But it is animportantone; and it is alsoa field in which the marginof humanerror is likely to be relatively small, in that the data can be gath-ered with comparativeease and considerableaccuracy.For, afterall, an act of murder or mayhem portrayedon the screen is aneasily recognizable occurrence: a sock on the jaw is somethingwhich, so to speak,hits the observerin the eye. There is not theapproximation or guessworkinvolved which frequently and in-evitably enters into, for example, an analysisof the ages or eco-nomic status of screen characters.

Strikingthough some of the figures n this articlemayappear-and especially those referred to in my opening paragraph-theyare in fact conservativelyestimated.Whereverpossiblethe screencriminal has been given the benefit of the doubt. For instance,there are dozens of technical trafficviolations which are not re-corded on my crime sheet. To be included there, a trafficoffensewould have to be really serious, and even result in actual courtproceedings.Similarly,when it comes to "fightingwith weapons"and even to murder and homicide in stories of the Western type,I have not attempted to list every instance of gunplay, or everyoccasionon which a cowboy or Injun bites the dust. To do that,

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one would need to run the film in slow motion and to use an add-ing machine. Consequently, episodes showing killing in war, anIndian attackor massacre,or a gun duel between bandits and thesheriff'sposse among the rocks, though they may contain manyexplicit and often detailed instancesof individual slaughter,havenot been itemized.They are listed onceonlyasexamplesof "groupviolence." Again, much of the homicide which occurs in filmsmight, on a legal interpretation,be correctlycalled manslaughter,but I have not included such manifestations as "crimes"unlessthey obviously are such. Thus, killing ostensibly in self-defenceor in order to mete out vengeanceor rough justice-for example,by the "goodies"in Westerns and in gangsterfilms-has not beentreatedas culpable homicide or manslaughter.In my analysis,therefore,a distinction has been made between"crimes"and "acts of violence." For not only would it be unreal-istic to brandas"criminal"the typeof killing indulged in by cow-boy heroes,privatedetectives,and other sympatheticscreentypeswho so frequently take the law into their own hands, but it alsodoes not seem to me realistic to treat as "crimes"the common as-sault and battery-the punching on the chin, the brawling andbashing between individuals and groups-which occurs repeat-edly in the majorityof films.

Taking crime and acts of violence togetherunder one heading,we find that in the 0oofilms under scrutiny, there was a total of659 recorded instances of crime and violence: an averageof 6.6per film. Only 14 of the films were entirely free from any displayof either crime or violence, which means that 86 per cent had itin some degree. These are figures for both American and non-American films. If, however, one considers only the Hollywoodfilms involved, one finds550 crimes or acts of violence in 70 suchfilms-an averageof 7.8 such acts per film. Only 8 out of the 70filmswere completely free of crime and violence (i 1.4 per cent).Here I would like to refer to the surveyof motion picture con-tent undertaken in 1930-1931 by Dr. EdgarDale, of Ohio State

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DROP THAT GUN! 5University, and a team of observers,and published in 1935asoneof the Payne Fund Studies on Motion Picturesand Youth. To myknowledge this is the only previous researchproject in any waycorrespondingwith the present one, but because of the obviousdifficultiesof exactlyrelating the criteriaandmethodsused in onecasewith those used in the other,anyparallelsmustbe drawnwithrestraint and with considerable reservations.All the same, theDale survey does provide certain pegs-admittedly not the moststable ones-on which to hang a few interesting comparisonsbe-tween the subject matter of movies today and twenty years ago.For example, Dale's surveyof 115 Hollywood filmsrevealed that84 per cent depicted one or more criminal acts, there being anover-all total of 449 crimes and acts of violence, which works outat 3.9 per film. This is exactly half the rate of occurrence (7.8) inmy group of Hollywood films-and by what can only be regardedas a freakof mathematics, t is half to theverydecimalpoint. Thus,for what it is worth, an inference may be drawn that, while thenumber of individual Hollywood films containing some crimeand violence is not markedlygreater now than two decadesago(88 per cent as comparedwith 84 per cent), the intensity of suchmanifestations is twice as marked.So faras non-Americanfilms areconcerned in my survey,therewas,for the 24 Britishfilmsunder presentexamination,anaverageof 4.3 criminal andviolent actsper film. (Two of the filmswere ofstainlesscharacter in this respect.) That leaves a total of six "for-eign" films, with a total of six acts of violence (no "crimes"oc-curred in this group). However, the number of filmssurveyedinboth thesenon-Americancategoriesis asyet too small for any finalconclusionsto be drawn,though thereis an indication-which myfurtherresearchis substantiating-that Hollywood producersaremarkedlymore interested than other producersin portrayalsoflawbreakingand bashing. There were 15 crimes and acts of vio-lence in one American film; 18 such acts in another; and 25 in athird. The highest score for any British film was 11.


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Questions which are frequently asked and which are broughtinto prominence by these figuresare: Is an excessive amount ofcrime and violence shown on the screen?Is violence being ex-ploited by the cinema for its own sake, rather than to meet thelegitimate dramaticdemands of the plots of screenplays?Theseare not easyquestions to answer,because one has firstto ask,"ex-cessive"by what standards?Certainly,to find 25 acts of crime andviolence in one comparativelyshort feature,or even 15 such acts,would appear on the face of it to be a superabundance of badbehavior.

Perhaps some answer to the question can be given by statingthat no fewer than 21 of the ioo films under considerationwererequired by the New Zealand censorship to undergo cutting inorder to remove or tone down some of the violent and criminalelements. There is obviously not spacehere to give a detailed ex-planation of the criteria of New Zealand censorship. It may beenough to say that there is no formulated or inflexible code ofprohibitions; that each film is judged on its own merits; that thecensor has wide legal powers to remove anything which, in hisopinion, would for any reason be undesirable in the public in-terest; and that a guiding principle, in this matter of violence, iswhether it is being exploited for its own sake rather than for thesake of legitimate dramaticexpression. So by these standards-and theyaregenerally regardedasfairlyliberal-one film in everyfive contained gratuitousviolence and needed some treatmentonthat score. I would add that, in the 21 films cut, the excisionsmostly represented a toning down or shortening, and still leftplenty of bashingand lawbreakingto reach the screen.And, espe-cially with Western films,there is of coursea convention of screenviolence which censorsaccept.Now let us consider crime on its own, independently of vio-lence. In the 70 Hollywood films analyzed,a total of 289 crimesoccurred-an averageof just over 4 per film. But 18 of these 70filmswerefree of crime(thoughnot necessarilyof violence in some

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DROP THAT GUNI 7form), so that the crimeswhich did occur were compressed nto 52pictures: an average of 5.5 per picture. In the 24 British filmsunder survey,the averageof crimesper picture was2.6, and if oneleaves out of account the 5 British films which were altogetherclear of crime, the averagegoes up to 3.3. As stated,there were nocrimes portrayedin the 6 "foreign"films; but the sample underanalysis is too small for this figure to mean anything conclusive.However, if one lumps the 100 filmstogether, one findsa totalof 353 crimes-an over-allaverageof 3.5 crimesper picture. Only29 films could leave the court without a stain on their characters.In other words, 71 per cent showed one or more crimes. In onefilm there were 12 crimes, in another 16, in a third 17.What type of crime is most frequently portrayedon the screen?As might be expected, the answeris murder. But it maybe a littleunexpected to learn from my surveythat one half of all the filmscontained at least one actof murder committedor attempted,andthat the murder rate was more than three per film. Specifically,there wasa total of 168 murdersandattemptedmurdersoccurringin 47 films.For what it is worth, here is anothercomparisonwithDr. Dale's findings: Twenty years ago the murder rate was alsoshown at roughly two per film, but only about one film in threehad anything to do with murder then, whereas today murder isfound in one filmout of two.

Of the 168 murders and attempted murders occurring in thefilms I have surveyed, 73 of them-or not far short of half thetotal-took place in 17 Western stories. That is more than 4 perWestern, on an average:and it should be noted that much of thekilling in Westerns,especiallywhen carried out by "sympathetic"characters,has not been classedas "murder." But I shall returnto Westerns later.

Next on the crime sheet for 100 films-but well down on itbelow murder-is "fightingwith weapons" (69 cases), and afterthat crimes of burglary,theft, embezzlement,and shoplifting (36cases). Holdups and robbery with violence, including cattle rus-


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tling, come next with 15cases;and afterthat,with 14casesnoted,come crimes in the categoryof graft, bribery, officialcorruption,dereliction of duty, and grosslyunprofessionalconduct.Most of the other crimeson the calendararerepresentedin myanalysisof the seamyside of screenbehavior-smuggling, piracy,bigamy, baby farming, cruelty to children, kidnaping, jail break-ing, forgery, perjury, suicide, treason, sabotage, mutiny, graverobbery, abortion (yes, there were three cases of that), prostitu-tion, and so on. But the incidence of them wasso slight comparedwith the other crimes I have mentioned, especially murder, thatlittle purpose would be served now by giving the exact figures.What I think is most interesting to note is this very fact that theywere so infrequently portrayed-for if the screen were indeed"holding a mirrorup to nature"and presentinga true or even ap-proximate picture of crime in the community, the disproportionwould not be nearlyso marked.I am, in short,not convinced thatwe should be ready to find reason for congratulation in the factthat only one single case of prostitution was noted in 0oofilmsascomparedwith 168 cases of murder and attempted murder. Pos-sibly the screen reflects in this the community's attitude towardthe "respectability"of various sortsof crime-as measuredby thewillingness of the public, the film producers,and, one must add,the censors,to recognize their existence and permit discussionofthem. By this standard of measurement, the crime of murder isregardedasbeing infinitelymorerespectableand, by implication,much lessworthyof condemnationthan,say,prostitutionor abor-tion. Is this a proper sense of values for the cinema to foster insociety?But such a considerationaside,what otherreasonscanbe foundfor this emphasison violence and the disproportionateemphasis,or rather lack of emphasis,on other kinds of misbehavior-par-ticularly in the realm of sex?Is it becausethe averagepersonfeelshimself detached from murder, as something which cannot pos-sibly happen to him; and therefore he can view it with feelings

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DROP THAT GUN! 9of clinical detachment combined with those of vicarious excite-ment?There is undoubtedly something in this explanation.

Nobody is likely to take very seriously the excuse put forwardsolemnly, if ratherdiffidently,in the Hollywood Reporter of Au-gust 21, 1950,when it reportedand commentededitoriallyon thesuggestion by "one of the most importantclubwomen in the coun-try"that the excessive violence in Hollywood filmstodayis just adirtyand deliberateplot by the Reds and "commies" n the movieindustry to condition the people of America to gross brutality asit is now practicedin partsof the world under Sovietdomination!May not a better explanation be that censorshipis to blame-censorship in the widest sense?I startedthis surveywith no pre-conceived notions. Yet increasingly I have been forced to theconclusion that there is more than a casualrelationship betweenthe rise in the portrayalof violence and the decline in the por-trayal of sex in the cinema, with the result that, to reduce thematter to its essentials,we may go so far as to say that the starkact of ending life is treated as being infinitely more suitable forpublic consideration than anyreference to the actof beginning it.As ratherstrikingevidence that the connection between thesetwoscreen trends is not purely accidental, there is the fact shown inthe New Zealand censor'sreport for 1950 that out of every tenexcisions made in films for a twelve-month period, seven werefor reasonsof "violence."And of the remaining30 percent of cutsmade for all reasonsother than excessiveviolence, only half weremade on the score of what might very broadlybe called "sex"-unduly suggestive scenes or dialogue but including also "coarseexpressions."Whereas97 individual films had to undergo one ormore cuts because of violence, only 25 were cut for "sex." Onerealizes then how astraythose people are who equate censorshipwith sex, and who imagine that this is the chief or only problemwhich a censorhas to face.

As I have hinted, I believe that the main, though not the only,reason why violence is so prominent on the screen today, out-


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weighing other elements to such a markeddegree, is that society'staboo on sex matters (operating through informal as well asthroughofficialcensorship)hashad the tendencyto divertafunda-mentallyhealthyinterestin sex into abnormalchannels. A stream,damnedat one spot,will alwaysseek another courseif there is suf-ficient pressure behind it-and in this case, the film industry'spredominantinterestin the box officehelps to supplythe pressure.Overemphasizedviolence degenerates nto sadism-and most psy-chologistsagreethat thereis aconnection between sadism andsex.

I do not want to seem to overstress this relationship, becauseexcess in anything is to be deplored; and it is excess which is thereal evil in every aspectof the subject under discussion. The in-dustry went too far once in exploiting sex. There was inevitablereaction from the moralists, and the public was persuadedthatfairly rigid censorship (either official,or operating through theHollywood Production Code) was necessary.Again, it is my per-sonal belief that thisreaction also went too far.There wasso muchclampingdownthatthe industry, seekinganotheravenuethroughwhich to exploit the demand which society alwaysmakesfor sen-sation and excitement in some form, has been going to extremesin the glorificationof violence-often senseless,atavisticviolencewhich extends far beyond the dramaticrequirementsof the plotsof screenplays.

My comments, of course, are nowhere to be interpreted as ad-vocating that the remedy is more portrayalsof prostitution andabortion and similar unsavorytopics at the extreme of sex. Thediscrepancy in this regard has been mentioned solely as beingsymptomaticof a general social attitude.To return to our study of case histories. Murder is a crime:other forms of physicalviolence may or may not be criminal. Itwould in my opinion be unrealistic, not to say unfair, to manynoble heroes of the screen to regardevery sock on the jaw, everyexchangeof blows in a barroombrawl,as a reprehensibleact. Butbecause of the repetitive nature of this sort of behavior and its

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conditioning influence on audiences-possibly also its callousingeffect, leading perhapsto a stagewhere the violent reactioncomesto be acceptedas normal and even commendable-an analysisofthis varietyof screen conduct is called for. I haveaccordinglysepa-rated physicalviolence into three categories:personalassaultandbattery;free-for-all ightsandbarroombrawls;violence on women(notably, the slap in the face).These combined typesof physicalviolence were seen 259 timesin ioo films,an averageof 2.6 casesper film. If one takesAmericanfilms only, the average is 3 per film; and if one considers non-Americanfilmsit is i.6, which is just over half the rate for Ameri-can films.

Taking Westernsseparately,we find 70 actsof combined typesof physicalviolence occurring in 17 such screenplays;that is, 4.1per film. This is almost double the over-allaverage.A recent offi-cial Hollywood analysisof production confirmsmy own findingthat one American feature in every four is of the Western type.When acts of physicalviolence are sorted into their three sepa-rate categories,it is found that in the 100films therewere 194actsof personalassaultandbattery-that is, fisticuffsbetweenmanandman, the punch on the jaw, andgeneralrough-and-tumbleaction.This is an averageof just under 2 per film for 100 films. (Therewere,believe it or not, 26 filmswhich did not containanydisplaysof this nature.) In 38 per cent of the cases,the hero wasone of thecharactersinvolved-no peace-loving citizen he! The hero, in-deed, was almost twice as liable to be involved as the villain, whofigured in only 20 per cent of the cases.And heroines are not allby any means such gentle souls. A surprisinglylarge percentageengaged in assaultand battery 13 per cent of the dearcreatures,to be precise. As for Westerns, there were 49 cases of personalassault and battery in 15 such productions-3.3 per film (twoWesterns examined were nonviolent to this extent at least).The secondmost popular type of physicalviolence wasthat in-flicted on women, the slap-in-the-facebeing overwhelmingly the

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the jaw, the slap in the face, the general rough-and-tumble,couldhave the effect of setting up a behavior pattern which might, incertain circumstances(say, too much to drink), become a sort ofconditioned reflexwith sometypesof individual.It is my experience that screen violence is getting tougher anddirtier as well as more common. Fights are also more prolonged.Much fightingfollows, of course,a set pattern, especially in West-erns: it is often as formalizedas the stepsof a ballet, or swordplayon the stage.Here the censornaturallyrecognizesthat the cinemahas conventions, and respects them. On the other hand, themovies, seeking new sensations for their audiences, are foreverthinking up and demonstratingnew ways of inflicting pain andinjury-the stomach punch, the rabbit chop, the kidney punch,the slash-over-the-face-with-a-gunbarrel,he attackwith a brokenbottle, the holding of the opponent by the arms while somebodyslugs him in the stomach,the kick to the head, and so on. This isthe sort of material which the censor (at any rate, the censor inNew Zealand) is likely to tone down. Furthermore, there is atendency in films for antiviolence to be explicitly discouraged:characterswho at the beginning showreluctanceto carryand useguns, or to punch their opponents, are almost without exceptiontreatedasbeing unmanlyor stupid, and end byseeing the erroroftheir pacifistways.

Again, the mere fact that screen charactersdo, so every often,emerge unscathed from the most ruthless exchange of blows-with the thudding impact of each punch registeredon the soundtrack-may in itself be a disquieting factor,because of its possibleinfluence on juveniles and those with juvenile minds. It wouldbe very hard to learn from watching, shall we say, the averageWestern, that a punch in the teeth delivered with the full weightof the body behind it, sufficient to knock a man half way acrossaroom, can actuallybe very painful, not to saydisfiguring.Or thata barrageof kicks,kidney punches, and rabbit chops is not some-thing from which you are likely to emerge without a hair out of

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place and scarcelybreathing heavily. Little boys seem to have tolearn by experience that punching can be painful; but little boysforget as they grow up, and the cinema helps them to do so. If thecinema showsthat crime doesn't pay (and this is questionable), itcertainly doesn't show that brawling usually hurts-any morethan it teaches the lesson that life is precious and death is per-manent.

That the film industry is fully conscious of the appeal of thesort of sensationalismdiscussedabove is evidenced by the regu-larity with which it is exploited in their publicity. If there is anincident in a filmshowinga manbeing punched in theguts,kickedin the teeth, sluggedon the head with a gat, knifed in the back,ora woman being slapped in the face or tossedover a balcony,youcan bet the censor'sscissorsthat a reproduction of that incidentwill be included in the "trailer"andwill alsoturnup in the postersand other pictorial publicity.

And so we come to death by violence and what the figuresre-veal. They show that there were 245 deathsby violence caused orattempted in ioo films (199 caused, 46 attempted). That is 2.45per film. And from these totals deaths by violence committed bya group have been excluded-for example in warfare, in gunduels among the rockswith the bandits and the sheriff'smen fall-ing like leaves, or in Indian attacks and massacres.The deathsrecordedare those caused by leading and identifiablecharacters;deaths which are sufficientlyemphasizedfor their individual oc-currence to be noted. It may be worth mentioning that Dale'ssurveyproducedan averageof less than one deathby violence perfilm.Bythis test,the incidenceisseen ashavingmorethandoubledin two decades.

What is perhapsmore noteworthy is that 36 per cent of thesedeaths in my 0oo films were caused by "heroes,"mostly in thecourse of bringing criminals to justice or retribution, or in self-defense. (An analysisof crime and punishment on the screen,notattempted here, will almost certainlyreveal that justice is mostly

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meted out, not by the courts after due processof trial and convic-tion, but by individualswho, in effect,take the law into their ownhands.) Villains are responsible for a slightly smaller percentageof violent deaths than heroes.

The death roll in British films is much smaller than in Ameri-can ones. If one separatesthe product of the two countries, onefinds 230 violent deaths caused or attempted in 70 Hollywoodfeatures (3.2 per film), comparedwith only 15 in the 24 Britishfilms (.6 per film)-five times as many. There were no deathsbyviolence in the 6 "foreign"films examined.This enormousdisparityis partlybut not wholly due to the in-fluence of the Western on the American figures.In 17 Westernsthere were 100 deaths by violence caused and attempted (86caused, 14 attempted)-an averageof just under 6 per film.And,remember, this excludes group slaughter. In the American filmsother than Westerns, the rate of death by violence was 2.45 perfilm-still a long way ahead of the .6 per film of the British pro-ductions,but lessthan half the deathrate forWesternsalone.Andwho in theWesternsarethe agentsof deathmainlyresponsibleforall this slaughter?Not the "baddies"but the "goodies"-the lead-ing characterswho claim our sympathetic interest. They kill orattempt to kill two men to everyone on whom the villains drawabead or a knife (48 to 24).

What are the most favored techniques (other than bare fists infights) for committing murder and other acts of violence?To anoverwhelming degree, the gun (revolveror pistol) is the favoredweapon among all characters.It figures 147 times in acts of mur-der and violence in 100 films,ascomparedwith only 22 occasionson which a knife was the weapon (next to the gun, however, theknife is the most popular lethal weapon on the screen).The gunfiguredas the weapon on 76 occasions n 17Westerns-more than4 times per Western.

Killing by rifles,tommyguns, strangling,swords,and bowsandarrows(Redskin or Robin Hood) had some practitionersin my

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1oo films; but poison, drowning, and hand grenadeshardly any.Among the specialistsin crime there werejust enough disciplesofthe school of murderby contrived lynching, hooks,running overby car, wire clippers, the blunt instrument, and the did-she-fall-or-was-she-pushed?methods to enable those techniques of actualor attempted bumping off and mayhem to appear in the list andgive it variety. But the ubiquitous gun, whether six-shooter incowboy holster or deadly toy in women'shandbags,has put prac-ticallyall other methods of murderasa screenart out of business.The gun in films is carried almost as a matter of course-as onemight carrya cigarette case, and it is produced just about as cas-ually. To judge by Hollywood product, it has become nearly asessential a part of the averageAmerican household as an icebox.Should the occasion arise, every householder and nearly everyhousewife of even the most respectablesort will be found to haveagun concealed in thewritingdesk or in the dressingtabledrawer,loaded and readyfor business. Is this another triumph for Ameri-can salesmanship:"A gat in every home-no family should bewithout one"?

So taking one consideration with another, it becomes prettyclear that the "cult of death,"which many criticshave discernedas the most marked characteristicof contemporaryliterature, isjust as much a part of the film as of any other form of expression.Perhaps,indeed, it flourishes most abundantly in the film. Mak-ing all allowances for the formaland stereotypedpatternof muchscreen violence and crime-which could arguablybe its most dis-quieting aspect, since it comes to be accepted as normal-andgiving due weight to all the familiar argumentsabout catharsis,escapism,and fictionallicense, one is still left with a big questionmarkas to whether the cinema can be as innocent in its influenceon social attitudesasits apologistsinsist.The supportersof capitalpunishment deplorethe lesseningregardforthesanctityof humanlife which theydetect in the present generation,andwant toretainorbringbacktheropeas adeterrent-but if thereisone placeout-

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DROP THAT GUN! 17side the battlefield where human life is treated as cheap, it is inour movie theaters.Even the Western film, as I have shown, hasbeen infected with the cult of violence for the sake of violence toan extent which the defenders of this type of entertainment haveprobably never realized because they have never really analyzedits subjectmatter. The revelation is a depressingone. In this cen-tury of unhitched standardsand discreditedvalues,one of the fewcomfortable absolutesremaining to us seemed to be the Westernnovel and Western film-until films such as The Outlaw andDuel in the Sun began to pollute the innocence of the genrewithunsavorysex and sadism.Once started,with impetusfromthe boxoffice,a deterioratingprocesssuchas this quickly gathersmomen-tum. Small wonder really that the British Boardof Film Censorsmade their two proteststo Hollywood producers.Forhoweverlib-eral and broadminded he may be in this matter of violence, thecensor in many countries today must have the feeling of being arider trying to rein back a horse which is threatening to bolt. Ifthe cinema once got the bit in its teeth, or were completely givenits head, there is almostno sayingwhere it would end.

?O _04 _0>The following are the 1oo films examined and registered byNew Zealandcensorshipbetween the end of December, 1949,andthe end of April, 1950, which Mr. Miramsanalyzedfor crimeand

violence. AMERICANWESTERNS

The Gal Who Took the West(Universal)Curtain Call at Cactus Creek(Universal)The Kid from Texas (Universal)

Comanche Territory (Universal)Ambush (M-G-M)She Wore a Yellow Ribbon(R.K.O.)Indian Agent (R.K.O.)

Riders in the Sky (R.K.O.)The Rustlers (R.K.O.)Laramie (Columbia)Cow Town (Columbia)The Blazing Trail (Columbia)Horsemen of the Sierras(Columbia)

Davy Crockett, Indian Scout(United Artists)The Plunderers (Republic)Canadian Pacific (2oth Cent.-Fox)Fighting Man of the Plains(2oth Cent.-Fox)


19/20

THE QUARTERLYCOMEDY AND FARCE

The Lady Takes a Sailor (WarnerBros.)A Kissfor Corliss (UnitedArtists-David Nassour)Father was a Fullback (2oth Cent.-Fox)Tell It to the Judge (Columbia)Miss Grant Takes Richmond(Columbia)Free For All (Universal)My Friend Irma (Paramount)The Great Lover (Paramount)

CRIME AND DETECTIONDeath in the Doll's House

(M-G-M)Tension (M-G-M)Chinatown at Midnight(Columbia)The Reckless Moment(Columbia)Prison Warden (Columbia)The Story of Molly X (Universal)Abandoned (Universal)The File on Thelma Jordan(Paramount)

The Threat (R.K.O.)Whirlpool (2oth Cent.-Fox)White Heat (Warner Bros.)Backfire (Warner Bros.)MUSICAL

Oh, You Beautiful Doll(2oth Cent.-Fox)On the Town (M-G-M)My Dream Is Yours(WarnerBros.)Jolson Sings Again (Columbia)Red Hot and Blue (Paramount)

SOCIAL DRAMA, ROMANCE, WAR, AD-VENTURE,AND MELODRAMAThe Doctor and the Girl(M-G-M)The Forsyte Saga (M-G-M)Intruder in the Dust (M-G-M)Malaya (M-G-M)The Red Danube (M-G-M)Interference (R.K.O.)Holiday Affair (R.K.O.)Tarzan and the Slave Girl

(R.K.O.)I Married a Communist (R.K.O.)The Big Wheel (United Artists)Mrs. Mike (United Artists)Pinky (2oth Cent.-Fox)Dancing in the Dark (2oth Cent.-Fox)State Department File 649 (20thCent.-Fox-Film Classics)Three Came Home (2oth Cent.-Fox)Chain Lightning (Warner Bros.)

Beyond the Forest (Warner Bros.)Task Force (Warner Bros.)The Heiress (Paramount)Captain China (Paramount)South Sea Sinner (Universal)Bagdad (Universal)Sword in the Desert (Universal)Holiday in Havana (Columbia)All the King's Men (Columbia)Tokyo Joe (Columbia)Barbary Pirate (Columbia)Sixty Fathoms Deep (Monogram)

BRITISHNow Barabbas (Rank-de Grune-wald)Diamond City (Rank-Gains-borough)

18


20/20

DROP THAT GUN!Madness of the Heart (Rank-Two Cities)Give Us This Day (Rank-Bronsten)The Gay Lady (Trottie True)

(Rank)Adam and Evelyne (Rank)Helter Skelter (Rank-Gains-borough)Poet's Pub (Rank-Aquila)A Run for Your Money (Rank-Ealing)Don't Ever Leave Me (Rank-Triton)

Boys in Brown (Rank-Gains-borough)The Huggets Abroad (Rank-Gaumont-British)

Marry Me (Rank-Gains-borough)Christopher Columbus (Rank-Gainsborough)The Small Back Room (LondonFilms-The Archers)The Third Man (London Films-Carol Reed)

19No Room at the Inn (AssociatedBritish Pictures)Under Capricorn (Transatlan-tic-Hitchcock)Paper Orchid (Columbia [Brit-ish])Sword of Honour (Butchers)Mountains O'Mourne (Butchers)Three Silent Men (Butchers)Front Line Kids (Butchers)Night Journey (Butchers)

AUSTRALIANSons of Matthew (Charles

Chauvel)NEW ZEALAND

Journey for Three (N.Z. NationalFilm Unit)ITALIAN

Four Steps in the Clouds (Blasetti)Stromboli (Rossellini)RUSSIAN

The Happy Bride (Mosfilm)Russian Ballerina (Lenfilm)

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