Movie Producers Request Extension of Cooperation with B’nai B’rith Order

The relationship formed some time ago, whereby the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America look to the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith for suggestions and criticisms concerning pictures of special interest to Jews, is to be extended as the result of negotiations just concluded between Will Hays and Alfred M. Cohen, presidents of the two organizations respectively.

Objections to the picture the “King of Kings,” raised by the B’nai B’rith some two years ago, led to the modification of that film and to the creation of a committee to advise with the producers at Hollywood concerning pictures in the course of preparation at the studios there.

The Hays organization now suggests that the service be extended so as to include the studios in the East, where many sound pictures are being made. The offer was made in a recent communication from Carl E. Millikan, secretary of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, to Mr. Cohen, in which the latter was asked to appoint a committee in New York with whom the film producers in the East might confer in reference to the pictures to which objections might be raised. Mr. Cohen accepted the invitation and is expected to announce shortly the names of those who will act as the committee.

Only recently, as the result of complaints concerning the picture “Marianne,” in which a song is used which contains a bit of Jewish sacred music, Louis Mayer, president of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Company, producers of the picture, agreed, after negotiations with Mr. Cohen, to issue strict orders to hush the picture wherever there is any of the objectionable singing.