The Pittsburgh Press (March 23, 1946)
I DARE SAY —
Concerning sensational plays and movies which inflame prejudices
By Florence Fisher Parry
Last week the Nixon Theater housed a play which had been running with considerable success at the Fulton Theater in New York for two seasons: “Deep Are the Roots,” the most out-and-out play of Social Significance the theater has given us for some time.
As you know, it deals with the race problem as only those of the south, both white and colored, know it to be. The fact that “Deep Are the Roots” could not show south of the Mason-Dixon line without inviting riot, offers its own commentary. The play is highly inflammatory.
Indeed, its action in its last scenes is such as to stir hatreds and passions to their most violent expression. Because of this, it seems to me that “Deep Are the Roots” lamentably fails of its opportunity yes, and responsibility, I am of the firm mid that inflammatory plays, especially at +nervous times like this, are unfortunate and had better be omitted from the theater.
Had “Deep Are the Roots” maintained the dignity, taste and fidelity maintained in its early scenes, it could well have earned its artistic place in the current theater. But as the play proceeded, it lost touch with artistic integrity and deteriorated into just, another sensational piece of propaganda.
Now had “Deep Are the Roots” been judged purely on its artistic merit, it would have died a very early death in New York. But it seems that all a play needs to be, in order to claim the New York critics’ support, is to be a play of Social Significance, preferably a play dealing with the race question; and so long as this tendency to father radical propaganda exists in drama critic circles, just so long will plays of the mediocre artistic quality of “Deep Are the Roots” succeed in holding the boards.
It offends me to see, on either stage or screen, any distortion or exaggeration that would tend to inflame prejudices.
This last week at the Senator Theater, there showed a motion picture called “Shock” which is guilty of the same offense as that which was evident in “Deep Are the Roots.” But where the theater play distorted and sensationalized the race question, just so did “Shock” distort and sensationalize psychiatry – one of the most important therapeutic developments in medical advance.
“Shock” does not hesitate to make a deep-dyed villain of a psychiatrist, using exactly the same sensational technique as the author of “Deep Are the Roots” did to make of its “southern gentleman” a dirty, lying cheat. As a piece of screen property, “Shock” is just another psychological horror picture, of which we have had all too many lurid examples lately in our screen fare. But whereas most of these pictures have provided lurid but harmless suspense and entertainment, “Shock” can be said to exercise a really harmful effect upon its audiences. It tells the story of an Army pilot’s wife who, while awaiting their reunion in a hotel, is sudden witness to a horrible murder committed in the next room and which, although she does not see the perpetrator of the crime, plunges her into a temporary amnesia and shock.
The returned husband, discovering her plight, obtains the professional services of a psychiatrist who, we soon learn, is the murderer himself. The psychiatrist, realizing that his patient is a potential witness against him, prescribes a treatment which takes her to a “rest home” where he and his accomplice, a mistress-nurse, subject her to a horror treatment designed to set her crazy, and this failing, try to kill her by – of all things – insulin shock!
Now I am of the mind that a picture of this kind does harm at this particular time, when so very many of our returned Veterans’ treatment require the help of psychiatrists.
Psychiatry to a great many people is still a new and unproved therapy. The rank and file of movie-goers hear and read a lot about psychiatrists, but they don’t know much about them; and a picture like “Shock” does much to shake their confidence in this particular kind of psychotherapy.
In normal times a picture like this would be just another thriller. But now, with the nerves of both Veterans and their families raw, suspicious and uneasy, the picture seems to me to have an unfortunate theme. Movie-goers are better off without “Shock” just as theater-goers are better off without “Deep Are the Roots.” Why fan the flame of prejudice and distrust by giving the public inflammatory and sensational plays and movies that will only encourage dangerous emotions?
Plays of social significance are all right, are a good thing if – and it’s a big IF – they’re good plays; well-written, meaty and faithful to the theme they would present. Psychological horror films provide their own peculiar contribution to the screen, so long as they are honestly and harmlessly presented.
A play like “State of the Union” stands on its own merit. It’s a play of social significance, yes, but that it is secondary claim. Its first is – and should be – that it’s a very good play.
Indeed, as I look over the list of plays and musicals now running in New York, it is reassuring to note that the best and most popular of them all are first of all good entertainment, artistically rendered.
“Anna Lucasta” is a play about and with colored people, and it stands on its own merit, a straightforward, believable drama. Katherine Cornell’s “Antigone,” further dignified by the presence of Sir Cedric Hardwicke, covers all its faults with a mantle of dignity. The nostalgic Americanism of “The Magnificent Yankee” is reminiscent of “Life With Father” and “George Apley,” “Born Yesterday” is as incisive a stab at Washington’s pot-belly as the sharpest political cartoon, but it’s fun and it’s good and it’s Theater.
Consider “I Remember Mama.” “The Voice of the Turtle,” “Dear Ruth,” all perfect theater plays. Consider “Carousel” and “Lute Song” and “Showboat” and “Oklahoma” and “Song of Norway” and “Up in Central Park,” one of the greatest arrays of musical shows Broadway has ever assembled! Consider the wheedling charm of the Lunts’ “O, Mistress Mine.” Consider the Gertrude Lawrence-Raymond Massey performance of “Pygmalion.” Consider Ray Bolger on his toes in the new smart revue “Free to Make Ready.” Consider the poignant whimsy of “The Glass Menagerie” and “Harvey.” Consider Maurice Evans’ G.I. production of “Hamlet.”
This is show business. This is the theater in its true and healthiest sense. With the exception of “Born Yesterday” and “State of the Union” not one of these plays or shows can be said to have Social Significance. Yet they do more to advance the cause of One World (which, after all, means living together peaceably) than all the shrill distortions contained in such plays as “Deep Are the Roots,” or the feverish frenzies of pictures like “Shock.”