Movie Mayhem

The Faculty Committee on Student Activities has adopted a regulation of student film showing that is no regulation at all. In the future, undergraduate organizations are not to show movies in the University's tax-free buildings to make profits. To do so not only would bring suits from local movie houses against unfair competition the students' use of educational facilities to avoid overhead expenses but such abuse of the University's educational privilege threatens its tax-free status. Secondarily, student groups are supposed to be formed for cultural purposes, not to make money in film showing.

When the undergraduate organizations from the Liberal Union to the German Club went into the movie business, the Faculty Committee stepped in. It decided that a student group could show films only connected with the club's stated purpose. Dean Watson must clear all titles. The Committee also forbade the students to make profits, although Watson said they could make a little money if it was used to cover the cost of another film or of bringing a speaker to Cambridge.

The required connection between film subjects and the purposes of undergraduate organizations already is in danger. For the petition which the HLU has submitted to present All the King's Men clearly shows that the tenuous line between a proper and improper film will not prevent a club from remaining in the movie business.

More important, no one will audit the account books of the groups that show films. They will be able to make as much money as before, provided they do so quietly and slowly.

With no auditors and no firm limits to the type of film, movie showing is essentially right back where it started. The French Club will show French films, the Mathematics Club will present the latest in science fiction, and the Astronomy Club might even show The Moon Is Blue. And unless the University has an accredited official watch the club books, there will be no assurance that the desire for the dollar has not supplanted a club's legitimate cultural activities.

Some day, when it is too late, officials will discover that in trying to satisfy groups which are untrue to their own purposes, the University has brought upon itself a tax bill.