What is Art?

By P.S. Harrison (1929)

Mr. Quinn Martin, picture critic of the New York World, wrote the following in the issue of the Sunday World of March 10:

Sunrise

... It will pay you to pay for it and lay it on the shelf... the theme is very unpalatable; the hero attempts to murder his wife, so that he might run away with another woman, with whom he was infatuated. It leaves an unpleasant taste.

Much more to the point, it seems to me, is the following paragraph which I borrow from John Gould Fletcher's interesting new booklet "The Crisis of the Film":

But the fact remains that Sunrise is one of the most beautiful sequences of pictures shown on the screen... "

Mr. Martin closes his article as follows:

"It is always a little disconcerting to realize that when a fine motion picture is up for discussion in the public print it may well be expected that the journals most associated with the industry itself will be the journals most likely to fail in their search for merit." In my review of Sunrise, which appeared in the issue of October 1, 1927, I said that Sunrise was a "marvelous production," and "Like The Last Laugh, it is a masterpiece." but Messrs. Andy and Herb Anderson, of State Theatre, Detroit Lake, Minn., informed this office that their customers did not find it such a picture. In fact, they went so far as to print a public apology in The Detroit Lake Tribune, stating that they booked it after a high recommendation by Harrison's Reports. "Never in our eight years of operation of the State Theatre, in Detroit Lake have we been so humiliated and so completely misled in our selection of a picture as we were with the picture Sunrise, presented this week for the benefit of the Girl Scout organization of this city.

"Practically all Picture Theatre operators are guided in most instances in the selection of their pictures by what is called the "Harrison's Reports," a paper published by P.S. Harrison, of New York City... who has a reputation of never mincing his words in condemning poor pictures....

"Under no circumstances would this picture have been exhibited here had we known its content; but now all we have to do is express our regret and ask our patrons and especially the Girl Scout organization to accept our humble apology for this most unfortunate circumstance."

Mr. Martin and others might say that the kind of audience and the smallness of the town might presuppose unappreciation- but a prominent exhibitor that has a theatre in a big town in one of the New England States informed me that many of his old customers stopped at his office and complained to him about this picture in strong terms. Other exhibitors, too, have informed me that they have had complaints about the nature of this picture's theme. This is what prompted me to advise those that have not yet played it to pay for it and lay it on the shelf.

There is no question that Sunrise is an artistic picture. But Mr. Martin forgets that the exhibitors are not in the business for the purpose of educating the people; they sell, not art, butentertainment to make money with and if incidentally they contribute to the education of their customers all well and good. Otherwise they cannot pay the landlord, and the film companies will not accept wooden money. The film companies, in fact, want their money in advance. They make sure that they will get theirs before an exhibitor gets his.

Like all exhibitors, P.S. Harrison is not conducting "Harrison's Reports" to tell its subscribers how artistic a picture is. Every time I let my love for art get the upper hand in my I have caused a loss to many exhibitors' pocketbooks. Sunrise is one instance. The Last Laugh is another. But in The Patriot, I did not let my artistic feelings run away with me, even though I had to take the opposite view of all daily and trade paper reviewers. The results justified me, for I have never yet seen a picture that made so big a success in this city and so big a failure in the rest of the country. I could mention many other similar instances, including Chaplin's A Woman of Paris, which was declared as a masterpiece by the authors and received a prize, but which failed a the box office.

The great trouble with most critics is that after a while they feel as if everybody ought to bow to their opinion and if the great body of picture-goers do not agree with them, such persons are, in their opinion, not developed mentally to recognize art. The truth of the matter is that the combined average intelligence of the picture-going public, of any public, in fact, is far greater than the average individual intelligence. That is why critics receive frequent jolts; they see their opinions belied by the facts; pictures that they praise do not draw big crowds, and pictures they condemn draw big crowds.

P. S. Harrison, "What is Art?," Harrison's Reports, March 23, 1929, page 48.

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