Mood-Sharpening in Manila

In Manila the cinema theatres open at 8:30 a. m. and run continuously till near midnight every day of the week. Vans go through the streets plastered with posters to lure the populace to the theatres. Biggest sellers on newsstands are movie magazines, particularly those which carry "good" (undraped) pictures of Hollywood females.

Four universities has Manila: University of Santo Tomas (founded 1619, oldest under U. S. domain), University of the Philippines, National University, University of Manila. The little brown students of Manila are fond of moving pictures, especially ones which portray luscious Hollywood white girls making love.

A shocked correspondent of The Christian Century reported last week an interview on Manila's cinema with President Antonio C. Torres of the Manila municipal board (son of a supreme court justice of the Spanish regime). No prude but by hobby a criminologist, President Torres had declared: "70% of the present day crimes and immorality have been provoked ... by imported films. I particularly resent the influence which the motion pictures are having on the thousands of college men and women in this educational center. Our students, without knowing that the pictures which the movies give of American college life are distorted, flock to these films portraying college love and then go out and try to reproduce what they see there because they think that is what the modern collegian must do to be up to date. Our vice squad tells me that it is a common practice for students who intend to spend the night in illicit sex adventures first to attend a movie to sharpen their mood. That is why we have more trouble with rooming houses located near theatres than with all others. Many people, in judging the significance of American influence in the Philippines, believe that the movies play a large and undesirable part in the total of that influence. American pictures not only constitute 95% of all the films exhibited, but they dominate our Filipino-made product. The first movie against which I lodged a protest was a Filipino-made film which was copying American pictures and going them one better."

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