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*                         T A Y L O R O L O G Y                             *
*  A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
*                                                                           *
*  Issue 95 -- November 2000       Editor: Bruce Long        bruce@asu.edu  *
*                   TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed                   *
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                            CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
                   The Motion Picture Directors' Association
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                             What is TAYLOROLOGY?
TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
scandals.  This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
murder on Hollywood and the nation; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
for accuracy.
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                   The Motion Picture Directors' Association

Between 1915 and 1922, William Desmond Taylor was a prominent member of the
Motion Picture Directors' Association.  He was instrumental in its founding
and he served as its president for three years.  The following are a few
contemporary items about that organization, including a partial transcript of
one of their meetings, over which Taylor presided.  Some other items on the
Motion Picture Directors' Association can be found in TAYLOROLOGY 20 and 75.

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                                                             January 27, 1917
                                                                   MOTOGRAPHY
      The  Directors'  Association of Los Angeles, which  numbers  among  its
members most of the big directors in the country, was formed by four men  who
just talked it over one evening and brought it into being--William D. Taylor,
now  with the Fox company, Alan Curtis, the Universal comedy director, Joseph
De Grasse of the Universal and Murdock MacQuarrie, actor and director.
      The  concern is now a national affair and nearly every director of note
is affiliated.  It is doing a lot of quiet good and is self-protective rather
than  aggressive.  Taylor, Curtis, De Grasse and MacQuarrie have every reason
to be proud of their first little talk.

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                                                                 June 1, 1918
                                                               Charles Giblyn
                                                     EXHIBITOR'S TRADE REVIEW
                                                                             
               History of Motion Picture Directors' Association

     The Motion Picture Directors' Association was founded in February, 1915,
in Hollywood, Cal.
     That this beautiful foothill annexation to Los Angeles should have been
the birthplace of our organization was quite in the order of things, for this
delightful little city has won its spurs as the center of the motion picture
industry.
     The need of co-ordination among directors who at that time were
producing pictures made itself felt in many ways.  So many directors were
totally unknown to each other; the idea of fellowship was extinct; the
unwritten "black list" influence of the "stormy days" of the industry still
made itself felt in covert bigotry and selfishness.
     It was recognized as "part of the game" for directors of rival companies
to place as many obstacles as possible in the way of others.  The old
"locations" often were battlefields, and the alleged "strategy" resorted to
was as expensive as it was asinine.
     One firm went so far as to spread broadcast the statement that it had
the exclusive right to photograph all the Spanish Missions in the State of
California.  But we found, upon investigation, that the "padres" in the
various missions were always willing to extend the privilege of "take de
movee" for a liberal contribution to the poor box.  And the same "padres"
were not at all slow in getting wise to the "easy money," and the amount
advanced each time the "location" was required.
     Another company, whose studio faced the ocean, repeatedly "bluffed"
competing directors into believing that they had no right to take pictures of
a rocky formation that had, by the hand of the Creator, been placed
advantageously for pictures, and which was part of the shore acres forming
part of the United States Government land!  But incidents of this character
are too numerous to dwell upon, having since passed into the discard.
     Envy and malice caused a wave of slander to bring the entire motion
picture population of the West Coast to a sudden awakening a few years ago.
The studios were referred to as "camps," "cesspools," "habitats of criminals
and vagrants," etc.  It was charged that the reputation of a woman or girl
was at stake if she accepted employment there.  That this pernicious outbreak
was the result of pure fabrication and a desire for revenge was a matter that
the district attorney quickly discovered after setting an investigation on
foot.
     After weeks of inquiry, it was found that a minister had opened the
attack.  Briefly stated, he was compelled to admit that a girl had a friend
who knew a girl who "wanted to get into the movies."  And another girl told
her that it was "a terrible place."  The minister's informant was forced to
admit that she had never seen the inside of a motion picture studio.  The
incident caused a serious stir for some time, but according as the FACTS
became public, the clamor died away.  However, as always is the case, the
scar remained.
     I find myself forced to allude to this near-scandal for a very necessary
purpose.  While the District Attorney still was deep in his investigation, in
one studio, where twenty or more directors were engaged, an indignation
meeting was held.  Then and there it was decided that an organization of
directors was necessary.  We alone in one studio could not take it upon
ourselves to fight these calumnies for the entire directors' colony.
A meeting was called, and the exact hour arranged, and everything came off
precisely as we planned, except--
     We had forgotten to talk the matter over with the weather man.  The
director in whose home we were to meet lived snugly on a promontory up to
which a single road led, and in the deluge of rain that came down the road
was of little use to automobiles or pedestrians.  It was just one of those
southern California rains.  It was a "bird."  My automobile started on the
1,500-foot climb in fair shape, and was behaving well in the dark, when a
chap coming down fumbled his car about in a mussy fashion, and in passing me
ripped into my right fender by way of salutation and was off.  Far down below
we got a splendid view of the lights of Hollywood.  A few feet off the path
and my car would have toppled down among those lights.  Yea--a fine night!
     Out of twenty odd directors, NINE took a chance with that southern
California rain.  Those nine men formed the M. P. D. A. then and there.
A week later thirty directors attended the meeting.  And thus it grew.  After
several meetings, in the following May, we became an incorporated body.  One
year and a half later, in November, 1917, the motion picture directors in the
vicinity of New York City were called to a meeting held in the Hotel Astor,
for the purpose of forming a branch of the M. P. D. A.  When its aims were
laid before these directors the corner-stone of the New York lodge was placed
in position.  They moved with greater rapidity than had the original body,
for the reason they had fewer obstacles to overcome.  After a second
preliminary meeting a lodge of motion picture directors was opened in
Carnegie Hall, where several members were initiated.  The charter came along
in good time, and today we have our own building in West 55th Street, near
Broadway.
     The M. P. D. A. is neither a labor union nor essentially a social club.
It is a fraternal order.  Its ritual makes it impossible for the idea of
coercion, or other methods employed by labor unions, to enter into a question
when its members are concerned.
     That stormy night in 1915 was a memorable night for the M. P. D. A.
The roster today shows more than 150 members.  When one considers the number
of directors in the industry, this showing is truly commendable.  The
association's board of censors see to it that an applicant for membership
qualifies after rigid tests, and these rapidly are becoming more difficult.
The field of desirables soon will be exhausted.
     Death has claimed three of our members thus far this year, and with the
world war brought to our very door, several others now are in the service of
the Government.

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                                                             October 16, 1915
                                                         MOVING PICTURE WORLD
     The first monthly dinner and dance of the Motion Picture Directors'
Association of America, Lodge No. 1, was held one night this week at a local
hotel.  The lodge numbers about sixty directors.  Among the directors present
were Otis Turner, Robert Leonard, William Robert Daly, Del Henderson and Al
Christie.  The list of stars included Miss Helen Ware, Ella Hall, Fritzie
Brunette and Jack Kerrigan.  Otheman Stevens, dramatic critic of the
Examiner, in an address, congratulated the directors upon their enterprise.



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                                                            December 18, 1915
                                                                 J. C. Jessen
                                                          MOTION PICTURE NEWS
     The most brilliant social function in the history of the Los Angeles
film producing colony, was the first annual ball and grand buffet given by
the Motion Picture Director's Association, Thanksgiving evening, at the ball
room of Hotel Alexandria, Los Angeles.
     The attendance numbered more than three hundred and fifty, and included
many of the principal people engaged in the film industry here. The committee
on arrangements consisted of Allen Curtis, chairman, Frank Beal, William
Robert Daly, Joseph DeGrasse, and M. J. MacQuarrie; the reception committee,
Otis Turner, chairman, Charles Giblyn, Robert Leonard, Walter Edwards,
Charles Swickard, Reginald Barker, Al. E. Christie, Phillips Smalley, Travers
Vale, William D. Taylor and Hobart Bosworth, and the floor committee, Dell
Henderson, chairman, Eddie Dillon, Jay Hunt, Frank Lloyd, Francis Powers,
Charles K. French, Roy Clements, Raymond B. West, Lloyd B. Carleton, Henry
Otto, Leon D. Kent, and J. P. McGowan.
     The general supervision of taking care of the big attendance was in
charge of H. L. Massie. Music was furnished by a big orchestra, and during
the evening buffet service was continuous.  The dances were all named from
the brands produced on the West Coast, and the ball was representative of
practically every studio in this producing center.
     Among those present were: D. W. Griffith, DeWolfe Hopper, Mack Sennett,
Police Judge White and wife, Marshall Stedman, Mrs. Eddie Dillon, Max Asher,
Stella Adams, Ruth Roland, Jack Pickford, Alan Hale, Lois Weber, Mr. and Mrs.
Harry Mestayer, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Cody, Mr. and Mrs. F. H. Allen, Mr. and
Mrs. Robert Daly, Mr. and Mrs. A. Heffron. H. L. Massie, Mr. and Mrs. Willie
Collier, Bessie Eyton, Mr. and Mrs. Charles French, Charles Pike, Mr. and
Mrs. Allan Curtis, and Mr. and Mrs. Jack Cudahy.
     The net proceeds from the ball will be used to endow one or more beds in
a local hospital to be used exclusively for motion picture people who are ill
or injured.

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                                                             December 3, 1916
                                                            LOS ANGELES TIMES
     The supper dance given by the motion picture directors on Thanksgiving
night at the Alexandria ballroom was a brilliant success. Many well-known
directors and picture stars were present, among others Directors Otis Turner,
L. Scott, Lois Weber, William Taylor, Frank Lloyd, Douglas Gerrard, Joseph de
Grasse, Eddie Dillon, Chester Withey, Robert Leonard and Edward Le Saint.
Some of the stars present were Bessie Barriscale, Mae Murray, Kathlyn
Williams, Stella Razeto, Mary Miles Minter, Fritzi Brunette, Myrtle Gonzales,
Maude George, Ruth Stonehouse, Ella Hall, Gladys Brockwell, Gladys Hanson,
Herbert Rawlinson, Neal Burns, Hobart Henley.
     Mrs. Eddie Dillon presided as hostess.
     Other guests beside those mentioned were J. R. Quirk, manager of the
Photoplay Magazine of Chicago, Mabel Condon, Bessie Beatty, R. H. Jesson and
Bennie Ziedman.
     Eva Tanguay floated in late in the evening, clad fascinatingly in a rose-
colored evening gown, and proceeded to add her own brand of brilliancy to an
already scintillating occasion.

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                                                            December 23, 1916
                                                         MOVING PICTURE WORLD
     The second annual ball and grand buffet of the Motion Picture Directors'
Association, at the Alexandria, Thanksgiving night, was perhaps the most
elaborate event in the local film world in months.  Directors and their wives
from San Francisco and San Diego and intermediate points attended. In all
there were approximately 250 persons at the exclusive affair.
     W. R. Daly, chairman of the Entertainment Committee, was assisted by
Allen Curtis, Joseph DeGrasse, Roy Clements and W. D. Taylor. Otis Turner was
chairman of the Reception Committee and R. B. West of the Floor Committee.

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                                                               March 24, 1917
                                                                   MOTOGRAPHY
     At the annual meeting of the Los Angeles Motion Picture Directors'
Association, William D. Taylor of the Morosco company was elected "director"
[president]; Raymond B. West, "assistant director"; Murdock MacQuarrie,
"technical director"; Charles Swickard, treasurer, and Roy Clements,
secretary.

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                                                               March 24, 1917
                                                          MOTION PICTURE NEWS
     What promises to be the most successful year in the history of the
Motion Picture Producers' [sic] Association began Thursday evening of this
week at the first monthly dinner of the organization, held at the private
dining rooms of the Los Angeles Athletic Club.  The dinner was the first step
toward carrying out the new plan adopted at a recent meeting of the
organization, and at this the officers recently elected president for the
first time, William D. Taylor, president, was toastmaster.  In his
introductory remarks he outlined the general policy of the association,
pointing out that the erroneous impression had been gained by many that the
association was formed for the purpose of boosting salaries.  This he stated
was not the case, as the directors had bound themselves together thinking
association and discussion of methods of production would be beneficial to
each and every member, and therefore to the industry as a whole.
     In closing his remarks he introduced Lois Weber, the only woman member
of the association, who was the guest of honor at the dinner.  Miss Weber's
remarks were of a very happy nature and appreciation, for the many kindness
shown her by members of the association.  Miss Weber pointed out the need of
a press committee for the association and outlined the work such a committee
could accomplish for the association in working with the trade journals.


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                                                                  May 6, 1917
                                                            Edward V. Durling
                                                           NEW YORK TELEGRAPH
     The Motion Picture Directors' Association were hosts to a party of 100
at a dinner dance given at the Hotel Alexandria this week. Mayor Woodman was
the guest of honor. Earl Rogers and Guy Price, dramatic editor of the Los
Angeles Herald, delivered speeches.  In addition to those guests a number of
old soldiers from the Sawtelle Home were present, a tableau entitled "The
Spirit of '76," and an excellent vaudeville entertainment did much to make
the evening a most pleasant one.
     The officers of this association, which is the only really active motion
picture association on the Coast besides the Static Club, are William D.
Taylor, president; Roy Clements, secretary, and Charles Swickard, treasurer.

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                                                            November 30, 1917
                                                            LOS ANGELES TIMES
     A brilliant affair was the buffet dance given in the Rose Room of the
Alexandria last night by the Motion Picture Directors' Association. William
D. Taylor, president, and William Robert Daly, one of the directors, was in
charge. It was the association's third annual ball.
     Among those who took part were Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie
Chaplin, W. S. Hart, Al Woods. R. A. Rolfe and Jesse Lasky.

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                                                                July 10, 1918
                                                           LOS ANGELES HERALD
     A farewell banquet was tendered William D. Taylor, the well known
director, by members of the Motion Picture Directors' association at the
Athletic club.
     The dinner was in honor of Mr. Taylor's enlistment in the British army.
     In view of Mr. Taylor's departure, the association elected Frank Beal
president. He will serve ex-officio until President Taylor's term expires.

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                                                                 May 21, 1919
                                                           LOS ANGELES HERALD
     The Motion Picture Directors' association will give a Homecoming Victory
Dinner to members of the organization just returned from war tonight at the
Athletic club.

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                                                            November 27, 1919
                                                            Florence Lawrence
                                                         LOS ANGELES EXAMINER
     Can you imagine swinging the girl on the corner to the flaring
syncopated notes of the "jazz" orchestra?
     Can you picture such celebrities of the world as Bessie Barriscale, May
Allison, and the rest in the "allemand left" or the Charley Chaplins and
Douglas Fairbanks of the cinematic kingdom doing a grand right and left while
the moaning saxophone, the rattles, and the whirring drums keep feet and
pulses beating a lively tattoo to the busy music?
     Those are just a few of the remarkable dance features of the Motion
Picture Directors' ball which was held last night with tremendous success at
the Hotel Alexandria. Practically the entire hotel served as a "location"
over which camera queens and megaphone emperors ruled with undisputed sway.
     Dancing in the ball room provided a panoramic whirl of the most noted
figures in the celluloid world, and the novel and clever programs, devised,
I believe, by Victor Schertzinger, will long be prized. They were in the form
of a scenario, and showed the "fade in," the "flash-back," and when it came
to "memories of old days," the entire crowd formed into groups for the old
fashioned contra dances and tripped it merrily in quadrille and Virginia
reel.
     Elaborate decorations of flowers and palms transformed the rooms into
veritable bowers of beauty, and both the mezzanine floor where the dancing
was in order and the Indian Grill where supper was served from 11 to 1 were
constantly filled with the leaders of the film world.
     Two orchestras kept lilting music for the dancers, while the famous
Hawaiian orchestra supplied the melodies in the supper room.
     Among the stars present were Mme. Alla Nazimova, Viola Dana, Clara
Williams, Pauline Frederick, Wanda Hawley, Madeline Travers and Louise Glaum.
     The ball committees were under the supervision of Director Charles A.
Giblyn and Past Directors Otis Turner and William Desmond Taylor.
     The committee of arrangements included Joseph de Grasse, chairman, and
Reginald Barker, Wallace Worsley, Frank Lloyd, Walter Edwards, George
Melford, Frank Beal, William Beaudine and Murdock McQuarrie.
     The reception committee were James Gordon, chairman; Norval MacGregor
and Thomas Ricketts.
     Musical arrangements were under the care of Victor L. Schertzinger.
     The officers of the Motion Picture Directors' Association of America
are: Charles Giblyn, director; Walter Edwards, assistant director; Frank
Lloyd, technical director; James Gordon, secretary; Norval MacGregor,
treasurer; Fred Kelsey, inner guard; Victor Herbert, outer guard, Board of
trustees: Reginald Barker, chairman, and Joseph de Grasse, Thomas Ricketts,
Ben F. Wilson, William Duncan, Frank Beal.


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                                                            September 1, 1920
                                                           LOS ANGELES HERALD
     Members of the M. P. D. A. (Motion Picture Directors' Association) are
going ahead speedily with their plans for a dance to be staged at the
Alexandria on Sept. 16, the proceeds of which are to go to disabled soldiers
now in Southern California.
     At a meeting last night the association appointed an entertainment
committee and some of the prominent directors who will serve are: William D.
Taylor, John Ince, Joe De Grasse, Frank Lloyd and Phillips Smalley.
     Each studio will contribute its quota to the program. Already Sennett's,
Arbuckle's, Universal and Ince have agreed.  Doraldina will do her famous
Hawaiian dance, and, if this is any incentive to ticket buyers, this is said
to be the season when grass is scarce.  Wallie Reid will send his jazz
orchestra and be on deck himself.
     The cause is a worthy one and the M. P. D. A. is to be warmly
congratulated for interceding in behalf of the crippled veterans.

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                                                           September 14, 1920
                                                           LOS ANGELES HERALD
     A ball for the benefit of disabled service men of Los Angeles is to be
given in the Hotel Alexandria ball room Thursday night, Sept. 16, under the
auspices of the Motion Picture Directors' association.
     Tickets to the fete were reported today to be selling at as high as $500
each.  Among the sales the following were announced today: William D. Taylor,
$500; Frances Marion, two at $500 each; Mary Miles Minter, $500; Melodie
Garbutt, $250; Agnes Ayres, $200, and Lila Lee, $200.
     The Los Angeles Elks' lodge has offered the services of its band for the
evening.  Four orchestras will be secured.  Prominent film stars will take
part in the entertainment program. Will Rogers, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn
and company, Doraldina, Ben Turpin, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and others have
announced their intention of being present.
     A Red Cross poster autographed by hundreds of celebrities will be
auctioned off by Arbuckle and Tom Mix. It has been donated by Miss Gertrude
Gifford Hand.
     War veterans from the Arrowhead government hospital, the Crocker street
hospital and the Sawtelle Soldiers' home will attend the function.

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                                                                December 1920
                                                                    PHOTOPLAY
     Ten thousand dollars was raised for the Disabled Soldiers of the Great
War at a ball given in September at the Alexandria in Los Angeles by the
Motion Picture Directors' Association.  The affair was exceedingly gorgeous
in the appointment and entertainment and the 700 people who gathered
represented the elite of Los Angeles society as well as of the Hollywood film
colony.  William D. Taylor, feature director for Realart, was in charge of
the entertainment, and presented some unique stunts. Doraldina did her
fascinating hula-hula; Tom Mix and twenty of his cowboys in full regalia
pulled a fake hold-up and separated the crowd from its spare cash; Larry
Semon paid $500 for a bat and ball autographed by Babe Ruth, and Ben Hampton
gave a like amount for a pair of crutches belonging to one of the wounded
heroes present--and then returned the crutches.  Over in one corner was a
booth marked "For Men Only" at a dollar a man, which caused a good deal of
excitement, but rumor hath it that it was a blank.
     Among those who graced the dance and the wonderful supper served at
midnight were Wanda Hawley, Jeanie MacPherson, Ruth Roland, Lois Wilson, Mr.
and Mrs. Conrad Nagel, Mary Miles Minter, who entertained a party of twelve,
Tony Moreno with a number of society people from Beverly Hills, Pauline
Frederick and her mother, Bebe Daniels, Mr. and Mrs. Tom Forman, Elliott
Dexter, Mr. and Mrs. Wally Reid, Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Eyton (Kathlyn
Williams), Irene Rich, Margaret Loomis, King Vidor and his wife, Florence
Vidor, May Allison, Viola Dana, Colleen Moore, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Holt,
Priscilla Dean and Wheeler Oakman, Mr. and Mrs. Willard Louis, Mary Alden,
and William Duncan and Edith Johnson.

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                                                            December 16, 1920
                                                           LOS ANGELES HERALD
     A special meeting of the Motion Picture Directors' association is called
for tonight at the association headquarters in the Alexandria.
     Action will be taken at this conference on the Blue Sunday law campaign
which proposes to close motion picture theaters on the seventh day of the
week.
     The directors' association is heading the opposition.
     Addresses will be made by Vice President Frank Lloyd, William D. Taylor
and others and a communication will be read from President Reginald Barker,
who is in Canada.

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                                                            February 12, 1921
                                                           LOS ANGELES HERALD
     For the third time William D. Taylor was elected director of the Motion
Picture Directors' Association when officers were elected for the sixth year
of its existence.
     Reginald Barker is the retiring director.
     The names of officers are patterned on the executive nomenclature of a
movie producing unit.
     The other officers are: Henry King, assistant director; Wallace Worsley,
technical director; Roy Clements, scenarist, and Norval MacGregor, treasurer.

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                                                            February 13, 1921
                                                            LOS ANGELES TIMES
     Plans for a $200,000 motion picture directors' lodge of modern Spanish
architecture, to be erected in Hollywood this year, became known when
articles of incorporation were filed in Sacramento by George Clark, attorney
for the Motion Picture Directors' Building Corporation.
     The corporation grew out of the Motion Picture Directors' Association,
which is headed by Reginald Barker.  The charter names the seven trustees of
the association as corporation directors.  These are Reginald Barker, William
D. Taylor, Frank Lloyd, William Duncan, Ben Wilson, Joseph De Grasse and
Thomas Ricketts.
     The structure will be of stone and cement and will stand four stories
high.  The site is on Highland Avenue, and is owned by the directors.
An elegantly appointed cafe will be maintained on the ground floor.
     Sixteen offices, a banquet hall and ballroom will occupy the second
floor, which opens on a roof garden.  The third floor will contain lodge
rooms available to such motion picture organizations as the cinematographers,
the assistant directors, the art directors, the screen writers and the
advertising men.  A fourth floor will be devoted to affairs of the motion
picture directors' lodge.
     According to members of the board, the building will be financed by two
$100,000 bond issues, subscribed by members and bankers.

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                                                               August 8, 1921
                                                           LOS ANGELES HERALD
     When the Motion Picture Directors' association holds its August meeting
next Thursday, President-director William D. Taylor will be welcomed back to
the chair after three months' absence in the hospital here and in
convalescence abroad.  Reginald Barker, last year's chieftain, has been
presiding over the Los Angeles lodge.

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                                                              August 10, 1921
                                                           LOS ANGELES HERALD
     In Nashaipur Saturday night the A. S. C.'s entertained the M. P. D. A.'s
under the auspices of Omar Khayyam.
     Translated into better Los Angelese, the American Society of
Cinematographers had as dinner guests the Motion Picture Directors'
association on the huge Persian street setting for the Rubaiyat being filmed
by Ferdinand Earle at the Hollywood studios.
     Larry Semon, director-comedian, was toastmaster of the evening, William
D. Taylor, president-director of the M. P. D. A.; Reginald Barker and other
noted members of the Los Angeles lodge of megaphonographers were present.
So were H. F. Koenenkamp of the Semon comedies, Georges Benoit of the Earle
entertainments, Fred Jackman, the A. S. C. president, and other noted
cinematographers.

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                                                             January 24, 1922
                                                            HOLLYWOOD CITIZEN
     Welcoming comparison of American motion pictures with foreign-made
productions, but expressing a desire to protect thousands of American workers
from what they believe to be retrenchment policies of domestic producers, the
Motion Picture Directors' Association, through its director-president,
William D. Taylor, has wired the Senate Finance Committee, urging that
imports of foreign films be either limited in quantity or taxed on value,
with volume and cost of film production in the United States, as a basis.
     In the telegram sent by Mr. Taylor it is stated that motion pictures are
being produced abroad far cheaper than they can be made here, and that
producers are now establishing units for making affiliations abroad and are
drastically cutting down domestic production.
     The eleven months ending May, 1921, compared with the previous
twelvemonth, he asserts, show an increase of 36 percent in imports of exposed
film negative and a decrease of 26 percent in exports.
     "Members of this association would deplore exceedingly, a situation
wherein domestic producers would find it economically profitable to make
pictures in Europe at lessened production costs and bring them to the United
States for cutting, editing, and distribution ostensibly as American
products," declares the director-president of the directors' association.
     There is now being prepared by the Senate finance committee a Fordney
tariff bill, which imposes 30 percent ad valorem duty on foreign-made motion
pictures imported into this country.
     The present national association of producers and distributors, it is
said, is opposing the 30 percent tariff, fearing retaliation by foreign
nations.  They argue, it is reported, then American manufacturers would have
to produce abroad, to enter the European market on a basis equal to their
foreign competitors.  This, they allege, would throw American actors,
directors, workmen, artisans and laborers out of employment.
     On the other hand, it is stated that the actors favor a 60 percent duty
based on American valuation, and through the Actors' Equity Association
charge the producers with desiring a low duty in order to take advantage of
cheap labor and materials in producing films abroad for use in this country.
     The motion picture-directors are said to favor limiting imported
negative (exposed) to a designated percentage of domestic film production,
this percentage to be divided among foreign countries in proportion to their
respective volumes of film production.
     As an alternative measure, they suggest a heavy protective tariff based
on production cost in the United States at the time of entry.

      * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

[Thanks to Charles Higham for providing us with a copy of the following
transcript.  Unfortunately, a few pages are missing.]

Proceedings of a meeting of The Motion Picture Directors' Association, held
at The Hollywood Assembly Tea Room, 7016 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles,
Calif., February 24, 1921.
                                     * * *
                                       
MR. WILLIAM D. TAYLOR:
     Brothers: it is a great pleasure to see so many of us here this evening.
We are all directors.  Very few of us are going to be much more than
directors.  We don't have an opportunity to get out and realize just what
this industry means.  We are more or less getting into a rut and we have an
opportunity tonight to hear from a gentleman who has been thirteen years in
this business, associated with the General Film Company and at one time their
general manager in New York, the organizer of the Paramount program, a man
who, ten years ago, wrote an article outlining just exactly what has been
since that time, forecasting the multi-reel picture, the raise in prices from
five, ten, twenty, twenty-five, up to what they are today; a man with a
vision and a man who undoubtedly will help us a lot.  I take great pleasure
in introducing Mr. W. W. Hodkinson. (Applause)

MR. HODKINSON:
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Motion Picture Industry:
     Your president, Mr. Taylor, wrote a letter to me inviting me to come
here tonight to speak to you on the subject that is nearest to my heart, and
I think we are going to get on common ground very quickly, because I think
the thing that is nearest to my heart is nearest to your heart; it is the
possibilities and future of this great industry with which we are connected.
     It is a very great industry--greater with all of its possibilities than
any of us can realize who are close up against our work seven days in the
week--and sometimes nights.
     It is an industry, Gentlemen, that some day will govern the greatest
brains in the world, because it is that kind of an industry.
     It is more than an industry.  It is the most potent force that has ever
been let loose on this earth for the helping onward or the retarding of the
human race.
     This industry will command the best brains of the world for this reason.
It offers the two rewards that brains have always demanded for themselves--
a medium for the expression of an idea and the financial return for the idea.
     The wonderful part of the motion picture is that you don't have to
speculate as to the influence of your idea.  We know that there are volumes
in the library but we don't know how many people are reading them.  Nor do
you know how many people understand your language--but here we have a common
language.  We have something where the very financial returns will let you
check up and find to what extent your ideas "got across."
     We must either go along with the progress of the business or we must get
out of the way of the brains who will come in and go along with the progress
of the business, which will help its progress.  I believe that the industry
is at this minute facing two conditions which will make it necessary for us
who wish to go along and make progress to take stock.  I think that the
business needs co-ordination.  It must be better co-ordinated.  I think if it
is better co-ordinated most of the problems that confront it can be handled.
     You know all of the discussion that is going on at the present time,
relative to sex movies, reformers, blue laws, censorship, etc.  There is
nothing new about this agitation.  It has been a rising wave.  Any student of
conditions could see it coming for some time; and the industry must meet this
condition more intelligently than it has shown any disposition to at the time
I left New York, to keep from being engulfed.
     I am not going into details in this matter except to say that in your
position you are in the most strategic position to help this situation--and
it is a real danger and it is a real menace.
     I believe there must be some co-ordinated effort on the part of those
responsible for the putting of these things before the public in addition to
your effort.  I will briefly tell you something that I noticed as I came
across the country which will show you why we are going to be hurt by this
condition, and then I will pass on and afterwards if you want to go into this
particular subject further by questioning me I would be glad to give you my
impressions.
     The problem is that we are getting so many kinds of censorship prepared
for us in different communities that unless we stop opposition to us that is
making this condition possible, there will be so many police powers
exercised, so many drastic censorships, that it won't pay to make any type of
picture because you are not sure it will go into this state or that state.
     Today it is possible to have pictures on the shelf that will not go to
Kansas, that will not go to Pennsylvania and to Ohio.  Going through Oregon
the other day I brought with me copies of three bills that were before the
legislature that day that would effectively close the motion picture business
as an industry so far as that state is concerned.
     One required only special performances for children, boys up to 16 and
girls up to 18.  Another was that no picture showing any act of crime or
violence of any sort would be permitted.  Now we know that is radical, we
know it is the work of fanatics in that instance.  But, Gentlemen, if you
were to see as I did the method with which the local exhibitors and motion
picture powers were endeavoring to combat this you would be disgusted.
Passing on from this moral crisis, which present announcements and present
plans of the producers may or may not meet effectively, I don't see much
progress made because last night I had a bulletin sent me from New York that
is being put out by the reformers in which they quote at great length what
Mr. Brady, representing all the motion picture producers said to Mr. Cohen,
representing all the motion picture exhibitors.  Each of them admits
everything that everybody has charged against the industry but blames the
other for it.  Hence the necessity for some co-ordination in curing this
fundamental wrong otherwise we will have a state of civil war between the
producer on one side and the exhibitor on the other.
     There is also an economic side concerning this industry.  I could give
you a lot of figures as to the volume of business taken from the public and
in turn paid for films and the expense of distributing these films.  But
unless you co-ordinate them and get the significance out of them--out of
broad experience in that line--probably they would not be of any value to
you, so I will not get you to figure any more than I have.
     As some of you may know, I am frequently on record as opposed to
producers' control of this industry.  I don't know whether you know that I am
on record to that effect.  I don't know whether you know what I mean by that.
I don't know whether you think that I mean anything by it, but I assure you
that I do.  I will endeavor to make clear just what I do mean by it and just
what the great fundamental fault in this business is, and unless it is cured
it will make you and me and every individual in this industry who wants to go
along on the basis of individual merit incapable of utilizing our strength to
get out of a situation which will destroy us if we cannot utilize our
individual strength.
     I believe the theory of the producer of a motion picture having the
power to control the distribution of that picture is wrong.  I do not say
this because I want to be a middle man who gets in between a producer of a
picture and gets a commission or a percentage that belongs to the producer
because I helped pass them to the exhibitor.  That isn't primarily the thing
I am after.  It is necessary to do that to get money to support the
organization machinery necessary to properly co-ordinate these two functions
of production and exhibition; and if you put this distribution channel into
the hands of either, you can create, as far as I am able to see, an abnormal
and impossible condition.
     Now, let me illustrate more clearly just what I mean by that.  You know
we have today some fifteen national distributing organizations.  Almost
without exception the distributing companies are adjuncts of producing
companies.
     We hear about the great waste in the studios--and I presume there is
great waste in the studios--but I want to tell you some waste that probably
you do not know about.  Through being improperly co-ordinated, or not co-
ordinated, this business is only taking one-half of the revenue from the
public every year that it could take if it was co-ordinated.  Through not
being properly co-ordinated the producers are producing twice as many
pictures today as is necessary to fill all of the theaters in the United
States.
     I can tell you how many millions are wasted there.  Worse than that--
or because of the first condition of a lack of patronage from the public, an
excess production of [....]
     [A page of the transcript is missing.]
     ...obliged that I have been able to go on this far.
     Did you ever stop to think what it means when the fifteen are each
trying to undo the work of the other fourteen all of the time?  That is what
is happening in this business.
     Did you ever stop to think how far this business can progress when we
have to create tremendous machines with all of the politics that goes with
them because we have to meet release dates and it takes a certain number of
pictures to keep one of those machines going?  That is, it takes a certain
amount of product out of a production machine to keep a distributing machine
going.  There is room for lots of thought on this matter.  I have given it a
great deal of thought.
     If what I say is true, then we are beating ourselves out of half of the
revenue that this business might have from the public if we knew what we were
doing--if that is true it is quite a startling fact.  If it is true that the
industry has been producing twice as many pictures as it needs to get the
present revenue to support the theaters, on the present basis of revenue, and
to keep the same revenue at least immediately coming from the exhibitor and
from the public--that is startling if it is true.
     If we are spending twenty million dollars a year to support these
distributing machines when you could do the job much better with ten or
less--that is startling if it is true.
     If the total sum spent in production and running these machines is
greater than is taken out of the exhibitor--that is another thing that is
startling if it is true--and I believe it is true.
     If these uneconomic conditions exist they exist for one reason: the
desire of each person in the business to play his own game, regardless of
what happens to the business as a whole.  This is a business, gentlemen,
where people have been taking out, taking out, and nobody has been putting
in; and we have got to same stage in the business we would get to if we did
the same thing with grain.  When we exhaust it we have to plant before we get
another crop.
     I believe we are at the stage where we have to do some planting in this
business--more intelligent planting--and it has got to begin at the top,
gentlemen.  You can't think of all these things while you are busy producing
the picture.  It has got to begin at the top, and there must be some
architects and planners who will formulate some plan for securing these
conditions--and then cure them.
     Producer control, I think, is a vicious thing.  It puts the producer in
an impossible position.  If I thought it could be done I would be a producer
with a production organization and a distributing organization.  I don't
think it can be done.  I don't think I can do it.  I know all these other
executives that are trying to do it--I know them quite well.  I don't see any
of them that I think can do it.  For the simple reason that when we get the
balance of power by which we can force a thing which he happens to make into
a market, whether it is fit for that or not, how are we going to be guided as
to whether we are progressing or whether we are slipping--when we are
confronted with a lot of people who are on our payroll, who are telling us
how fine it is all the time.  I don't know.
     How are we going to know the capacity of all these people?  We have to
supply the money, to hire the directors, and so forth, and carry on the
systems all the way down the line.  I don't know.  I don't know.  Probably I
am mistaken--and when I think I am mistaken I go back to the proposition of
the producer-controlled distributing organization.  Films that don't run in
first run stations, don't run out in the country--which is the proof that I
am not wrong in this viewpoint.
     Why do not these producers who are requested to put out so many pictures
that they have to make them poorly in many instances to meet release dates,
and who have to have their men traveling on the same train with some other
men to sell products, or going in to unsell the product the other fellow has
sold--why don't they cut down their product and why don't they consolidate
their distribution?  It is because they don't trust the others.  It is
because no producer would want to put his product through another producer's
machine.  He would rather carry along some organization which he calls assets
when they are liabilities; and the longer he carries them, and the greater
liabilities they are, the less anxious he is to go to the banker and tell him
that is the condition.
     So much for the production part of it with the producer control.
     We have the exhibitor on the other side who feels that under this
producer control he is charged all the producer can get out of him regardless
of whether it is right or not.  Without saying whether the exhibitor pays too
much or too little, the undignified conditions, gentlemen, on which motion
pictures are sold is a disgrace to this business.  The way they start and ask
$5,000 and take $250--it doesn't build any confidence; it doesn't inspire any
respect in the mind of the exhibitor or the men who work selling the
pictures.
     We have got to have more scientific and better ways of determining
values.  It is possible to determine the value of pictures.  Some years ago
all pictures were ten cents a foot, and I went into New York and submitted a
proposition to change that.  I knew when I was trying to buy a producer's
picture as cheaply as I could that when he sold them to me he was trying to
make them as cheaply as he could to get the margin of profit out of them.
But that was regarded as foolish then, as maybe it is foolish today--when I
say we should get some better means of selling the pictures than we have
today.
     But when I devised a percentage system whereby a producer owned his own
product and had a life interest in it, progress began from that time on
because the producer had a stake, he had an incentive.
     The exhibitor today has no confidence in the people who supply him with
films.  He organizes, buys all the theaters in the town and tells you what he
will give you.  It is civil war.  It is, as I say now, a condition where
Mr. Cohen is telling you that Mr. Brady, the Representative of the National
Association, who, because he is a fine speech maker, is telling the
exhibitors that things are all right whether they are all right.
     They are all right, I presume, so far as Mr. Brady knows.  He is telling
them they are all right and the exhibitor is retorting by saying "We dealt
with your National Association and you went back on your agreement; you broke
your promises."
     Gentlemen, do you think that a great, big, dignified--what should be a
dignified--industry like this, which gives us such a field for talent and
brains is going to go along standing all of this mistreatment?  It is not.
     It is not.
     It is either going to cave in and close up or it is going to get in some
hands that will run it properly, I'll bet you.
     I walked away from the biggest thing in this business and staked my
personal fortune, every dollar, three years ago, against the written advice
of my attorney and my former associates, that this condition would whip
itself--and it is doing it very properly and very promptly at present.
     My function today:  I am trying to help some worthy element on either
side of this proposition to co-ordinate and function, and if we can help the
rest to see the same thing and guide them and shape them--fine!
     There is no patent on anything that I think.  I am telling you what I
found in a back lot in 1917 when I came back and said "What shall we do with
the motion picture industry?" and told of this civil war that is happening
now--between Mr. Brady and Mr. Cohen and I was predicting and showing that it
had to lead inevitably to that.
     It is very hard to want to do things for an industry for a lot of people
in that industry and to be misunderstood.  If you gentlemen here are
producers I am not interested in getting in-between you and your market after
a commission.  I am interested in getting you that hundred percent increase
in revenue you are missing now, and getting mine out of that.  I don't want
any of your commissions.
     Gentlemen, I am forcing into the exhibitor in conferences with him,
individually and collectively, across this country, these facts--and the fact
is that I have a mechanism.  It is a fine theory that these things are all
wrong, but what are you going to do to better them?  I have got a mechanism
that can be used with the exhibitor on one hand--because I don't put myself
in a relationship with a producer where I have to be dishonest with the
exhibitor--and furthermore I want to put myself in a relationship with the
exhibitors where I can be honest and fair with the producer who deals with
me.
     If that doesn't solve the thing as far as we are concerned, if that
isn't the type of adjustment that must come into the industry, then I will
say that I have wasted thirteen years in which I have studied this thing as
carefully as any student ever studied an engineering problem--I have wasted
these years and will take off my coat and go to work for the fellow who has
the plan that will straighten this thing out.
     I think that right now the producer-controlled organizations are
beginning to disintegrate.  I think that within a very short time, instead of
the factory system of production, we will have individual units of production
on their own; on their own merits--sinking or swimming on their merits, not
carrying anything and not being carried.
     All I want is an opportunity to keep on trying to beat a system that is
carrying a lot of surplus, excess weight, whether it is wasteful, duplicating
system, or whether it is excess capitalization, or any of these factors.
I can put that money they are wasting in the hands of the people who have
confidence enough to go along on the basis of their individual merit.
     I haven't any rough and ready rule as to what makes an efficient
production unit.  I don't know.  The director says to me "It is the
director."  Somebody else says:  "It is the producer" and somebody else says:
"Why, I am the author: I wrote it" and somebody else says something else.
     I think, as a matter of fact, that we are going to get good product from
various concerns under varying schemes and varying systems.
     I think there are going to be men who are competent to do the production
thing straight through and I think there are others who are going to need to
be supplemented.  I think [....]
     [A page of the transcript is missing.]
     MR. HODKINSON:  The best answer to that, Mr. Taylor, is to say that the
saloon was quite a success financially until the reformer used the excesses
to smoke the public out in the open, and say "do you want them or do you
not?"  And lots of people who patronized the saloons said "We do not."  And
there are lots of people who go to sex pictures, who if the reformers brought
it to an issue would say "we do not want them."
     It is true that these pictures are successful--commercially successful.
It is true, however, that that is not the whole story.  An exhibitor
frequently has a 'flash in the pan' of sensational business and undermines a
clean family business that gradually falls away from him and he cannot hold
his sex business because after they get it all they can't take any more of
it.  They go as far as they can and they can't go any farther, and if you are
going on with that you have to go all the way through.
     MR. EDWARD SLOMAN:  "Is there any way the director, himself can help?"
     MR. HODKINSON:  I believe so, Mr. Sloman.
     I believe that you gentlemen, if you grasp the significance of this, if
you realize the parts that you are playing in making these elements up and
serving them out to millions of the public--shaping their minds and their
thoughts--if you take yourselves seriously to that extent and realize that
your influence is more potent than that of the school teacher or the educator
in any other branch, and fight that in your individual way.  Fight for
certain standards of cleanliness and decency in this business that you want
preserved in your home and in society generally, the standards that you would
want followed in the theaters if your children were going to the theaters.
     I think that if you protest--perhaps you have no more right to do
anything more than to point out to the man who hands the story to you.  That
is wrong.  I do not believe in that, and in many instances--the majority of
instances--I believe that the men who are dependent on you, even if you are
under signed contract or agreement, have a right to your sincere opinion and
I think you can point it out to them that it is a poor business risk for them
to do it and that it is a poor business risk for them to ask you to do it.
     I think you are very powerful if you take this thing seriously and
realize what a wonderful position you gentlemen are in today.
     MR. TAYLOR:  "Where would you draw the line, Mr. Hodkinson?  Some of
these states and community censorship propositions are so impossible that it
would absolutely stop the making of pictures."
     MR. HODKINSON:  That is true, but just as the pendulum swings one way it
has to swing back.  There is no way we can keep from paying the penalty for
our past sins.
     I could go into my files in New York and show you a letter that I wrote
to Mr. Lasky in 1915 or 1916 on this same matter.  I said "By all means,
Mr. Lasky, we should not be forbidden the privilege of showing life in all of
its phases.  But it is when we take an incident, repulsive and gruesome, and
distort it, it is when we take a sensational incident and build it instead of
letting it run along the regular way, when we build it up to a peak and
emphasize it and 24-sheet it, that is where we get away."
     A MEMBER:  "What did Mr. Lasky say?"
     MR. HODKINSON:  I wouldn't like to quote Mr. Lasky without having my
correspondence present, but I wrote him at the time "The Cheat" was put out.
At the time "The Cheat" was put out, it made a great success on the Paramount
program and at that time I was President of Paramount--and all the time I was
watching this thing we are talking about tonight.  Sensational sex pictures
were just coming out.  We were very careful to see that we didn't give any
out, so far as Paramount was concerned.  I suppose "The Cheat" would be very
tame today but I saw the handwriting and I wrote several pages to Mr. Lasky
telling him the same thing, Gentlemen, that I am telling you tonight.
     You have got to pay in trouble in living this thing down for all the
gains you have.  No use bothering about it.  We just have to wait through it,
that is all.  We have got to re-establish confidence where we have lost it.
     I don't know, maybe we can have an overnight conversion and get
ourselves adjusted around to seeing things in their proper perspective.
I doubt it.
     I find there are very few in any walk of life, who if the responsibility
isn't put directly at their door, go out of the road to worry about the
ultimate responsibility.  Occasionally a damned fool comes along, like I did
in this business thirteen years ago, when they all said it was a nickel
thing, and I said "I don't believe it."  I kicked along and I ran a theater
and in order to run the theater successfully I had to figure some way of
getting better pictures.  The only way I could conceive was to select out of
the nickel product all the better pictures and make an admission charge of
ten cents.  I had to figure out some way of getting better pictures.
     I got the best 14 years ago.  I tried it out and it worked.  I went to
another locality and did the same thing.  I commenced to think the fellows
were wrong.
     And then I tried it.  I got control of the distribution.  I worked in as
an experiment and I have been experimenting ever since.  I don't give a damn
whether I go out tomorrow.  You know?  Nobody owns me.  Nobody's got anything
on me, "no strings." (Applause)
     Running a house of prostitution is one extreme of getting money by
catering to certain instincts in a human being.  Writing a sweet, delicate
little story, such as the best of people lives in their lives, is another end
of that same thing.  You can go so far without offending the dignity of the
public.  From one of these extremes to the other you can go so far and then
you must stop.  When you go to getting people into a theatre by a title which
suggests that you are going too far, then you get an unfavorable reaction.
You build up a desire on the part of these people who are just as abnormal
one way as other people are another.  It seems to be a law of nature, you
know, that she balances.
     MR. HUGH RYAN CONWAY:  "Don't you think, Mr. Hodkinson, the very thing
that draws the majority of people in to see a picture such as the title--the
very thing that reacts against pictures within that man's own family--the
morbid curiosity or the 'sex appeal' thing.  The fellow says, 'I will drop in
and see that,' but doesn't want his family to see it.  He sees the picture
and sees the title.  After he sees that he is very careful after that what
his family sees.  He doesn't say, 'Go down and see a picture.'"
     MR. HODKINSON:  I will tell you an instance that shows you an angle of
this same thing.  I happened to ride in a train with the wife of the
president of an exhibitors league on my way out there.  It chanced that she
got on the same train.  We were discussing pictures, and I asked her about
her husband's show and she didn't seem to know so very much about it.  And I
asked her if she had children, and she said, "Yes," and she volunteered the
information that a lot of pictures her husband had shown she would not let
her children see, and I said, "How about other folks' children?" and she
said, "Well, that is their livelihood; that's the way we make a living;" she
just hadn't thought about it.
     A MEMBER:  "If censorship regulation made conditions so that it would be
impossible for an exhibitor to make any money because nobody would go in to
see the picture wouldn't the public say, 'Open up the theatres; we want our
pictures again'?"
     MR. HODKINSON:  A few years ago they were saying the working man
wouldn't stand for his glass of beer being taken away, but where is it?
     You see, there is nothing in this world, Gentlemen, that really counts
except intelligence; and if you get more intelligence on the side combating
pictures than you have on the side defending pictures, your pictures are
going to be whipped.  If you have got more intelligence on the side of
defending pictures than you have in opposing pictures, you will whip the
other side.
     A MEMBER:  "Do you think national legislation will stop the sensational
pictures?"
     MR. HODKINSON:  Theoretically, yes.  Theoretically.  Before we had so
much political scandal as a result of the war, I saw this thing shaping up
all the time and I wanted to see the power in the hands of high grade people
to regulate this thing, and I would like to see it today, Gentlemen, but I am
afraid it would get into politics, bribery, corruption, etc.  Theoretically,
I would like to see decent, responsible family men handling this--men with
the same feeling of responsibility towards the public and the industry--
regulating that.
     But frankly, before anything else, I would have the industry know that
it is right inside and have it delegate to some one the authority to speak
for it, and whip these people who are responsible, and who, I believe, are
willing to call of their dogs when we can convince them that we are in
earnest.
     A MEMBER:  "If the producer and the exhibitor cannot get together and
meet on some common ground, what happens then?"
     MR. HODKINSON:  Well, the producer recognizes the weakness of his
position to a great extent.  In order to bolster up his position he is taking
over theatres, but he is getting himself in an awful jam in taking over
theatres.  He is finding himself in a position where he has to reject some of
his own product, his own pictures, because he cannot loose $5000 in the box
office, when he only gets $1000 for his film.  Yet he asks exhibitors to do
that.  (Laughter)
     I can tell you names, dates and places where I am renting pictures to
the producer-exhibitor, who shelves his own pictures.  (Laughter)
     A MEMBER:  "Don't they control the industry?  Don't the exhibitors
control the producers?
     MR. HODKINSON:  In a section, in a town, in a locality, but not
completely.
     Gentlemen, if I get better pictures than anybody else you can't keep
those pictures from the public...

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