The Press: Newsreel Damage?

• Share

In Hollywood one evening last December Sidney & Doris Preisler went to the cinema. They had been married a year. Sidney, 25, was a musician. Doris, 21, was four months pregnant. Seeking light amusement they chose the Hollywood Pantages Theatre where a film called Imitation of Life was showing. Warmed by the picture's exaltation of mother-love, the Preislers were in a pleasant glow when it came to an end and a Universal Newsreel took its place.

Suddenly upon the screen was flashed the naked corpse of Public Enemy George ("Baby Face'') Nelson, scarred, cut and bloodied by the bullets of Federal agents (TIME. Dec. 10). At the grisly sight Doris Preisler gasped, gripped her husband's arm, shut her eyes in horror. Hustled home, she suffered a miscarriage, underwent two operations. Last week Sidney & Doris Preisler sued Universal Pictures for $150,000 on the ground that the newsreel had done them that much damage.

When the Hauptmann murder trial opened at Flemington, N. J. press photographers and newsreel cameramen were admitted on Judge Trenchard's condition that no pictures be taken while court was in session. To minimize confusion the five major newsreels—Paramount, Hearst Metrotone, Fox, Pathe, Universal— jointly operated a single sound-camera, each company receiving a print of all pictures taken. The camera, electrically controlled and housed in a soundproof hood, was lodged in the balcony, about 35 ft. from the judge's bench. A microphone was hidden behind an electric fan over the jury box.

Films were supposed to be made only when Judge Trenchard was not on the bench. But the dignified old judge must have been the only person connected with the trial who did not suspect that the camera was turning whenever an important witness was on the stand. Among newsmen, who could hear the motor being started and stopped by remote control, it was an open secret. A courtroom guard was stationed hardly a dozen feet from the camera. Counsel for both sides could easily have been aware that their examination of Col. Lindbergh, Mrs. Lindbergh, Dr. Condon and Defendant Hauptmann was being recorded for history. It was generally understood that the films would be released the instant the trial ended.

Last week word buzzed among the newsreel editors in Manhattan that The March of Time proposed to re-enact the Hauptmann trial in its first screen release. Honest denials by The March of Time were met by skeptical snorts. Determined to score a resounding beat, the newsreels sprang their trial scenes on the screen simultaneously with the premiere of The March of Time.