cry of some producers that the only profitable plays are the nasty ones.
That cry, of course, is based on fact. Without doubt, as things now go, the nasty pictures are the more profitable, because they are the most elaborately made and the most gorgeously advertised. The very lewdest of them have secured their patronage by advertising that they deal with “moral problems.”
But all public taste is cultivated. Every city which can boast of public spirit has citizens who THE JEWISH ASPECT OF THE “MOVIE” PROBLEM 121 spend tens of thousands of dollars annually in an attempt to create a community taste for good music. They succeed to a certain extent, but very rarely do they make it pay. It appears that the work of demoralizing the public taste is far more profitable. And as our whole range of public entertainment, outside of the higher musical field, has fallen into the hands of groups who do not know what the term “art” means, it is evident how overwhelming the appeal of the dollar must be.