Hays Poll

Of prime concern to Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, Inc. is the fact that U. S. cinema attendance has declined about 30% in the last two years. Last week the organization took action. To the kind of people that Cinema Tsar Will Hays believes have lately begun to be interested in the cinema--bankers, editors, ministers, scientists, socialites, teachers, writers--were mailed 150,000 small blue leaflets, containing ballots. On each ballot were listed 34 species of cinema under six generic heads. Voters were asked to check their favorite kind of cinema, add remarks. Twelve million more such ballots will be distributed, by mail and in theatres, in the next six months. Ten thousand ballots returned last week showed that: 1) educated cinemaddicts are fondest of animated cartoons, particularly Mickey Mouse; 2) cinemaddicts of lower mental rating prefer subdivisions of Drama, like "spiritual struggle," "social and sex problems," "society." Critics of the poll pointed out that: 1) typical cinemaddicts--whose opinions are most valuable--are the least likely to bother writing them on a ballot; 2) producers think they already possess most of the information the poll is intended to disclose. Said Motion Picture Herald: "The industry hardly needs to confess obtuseness by any such gesture."

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