Movie Letter: Lament for the Audience—and a Mild Bravo

Just what elements constitute the enlightened film audience in the United States? I wish to define “enlightened” somewhat more broadly than as applying to the public devoted to the experimental and documentary cults, and yet not so loosely as to apply to the public which might be idealistically designated as enlightened by the National Board of Review. While it is a good sign that this Board selected, in the teeth of the American industry, the Italian made Bicycle Thief as the best film of 1949 (which incidentally it was), and that six foreign films were on its ten-best list, there is no evidence that American taste in motion pictures has been improved by either internal criticism or the competition of the better foreign films. It must be understood that only New York City sees all the good foreign films and the best of the experimentalist work done here and abroad.

One can reason, of course, that New York City is the mecca of a good portion of the cultivated citizens of the United States during some time of the year, but their number can hardly add sensibly to either the size or the quality of that “enlightened public” which views films steadily in New York. This city has a considerable number of art-theatres, concentrated in the populous areas of Manhattan (where a round dozen exists) but also outlying, one being as far from the hub as Coney Island. By “art-theatre” I mean a house regularly committed to showing outstanding foreign films, usually French, Italian, or British, but sometimes revivals of memorable American films, which indeed have done better at the box-office than some of their foreign rivals.