Protesting Protestant

HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE REFORMATION, MR. CROSBY?

We are curious to know whether Hollywood has heard of the Pilgrim Fathers, Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, or Thomas Jefferson. . . . We like amiable Catholic priests, mystic Bernadettes, charming nuns as well as the next man, but why this conspiracy of silence against America's Protestant tradition? . . . It is high time we have a series of pictures that portray our diverse religious traditions, including the bracing vigor of Protestant Christianity and the moral grandeur of historic Judaism.

So editorialized the February number of the Unitarian Christian Register. And many a protesting Protestant agreed. Wincing under the quadruple impact of Going My Way, The Song of Bernadette, The Keys of the Kingdom and The Bells of St. Mary's he wondered why Hollywood should be so long on Catholic heroes, wondered also what might be done about it.

One of the wonderers was in Hollywood itself. Last week a dark-&-handsome, soft-spoken young Navy lieutenant named Paul Frederic Heard rushed to finish some Navy teaching films so that he could take on a job of Protestant movie production and pressagentry. He would be secretary of the newly organized Protestant Film Commission, one of whose aims was to flavor Hollywood's movie output with as much Protestant salt as possible. Among Secretary Heard's immediate duties:

P: Raising $1,000,000 to produce religious shorts and documentaries (chiefly 16-mm. for church and school use).

P: Setting up a public-relations committee to "encourage" writers to produce work with "the Protestant point of view." (This would probably involve a certain amount of author-subsidizing.)

When asked if the Commission would try to propagate Protestant analogues of Going My Way, etc., Heard answered: That is definitely one of our aims. . . . We will try to find a way to dramatize what the minister calls 'the Christian way of life.' "

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