Cliff-Hanger

One night last week a disgruntled movie fan received a soothing visit from the U.S. cinema's highest brass. Shepherded by Eric Johnston, their official spokesman, such bigwigs as Loew's Nicholas M. Schenck, 20th Century-Fox's Spyros P. Skouras and Paramount's Barney Balaban gathered in Washington for the occasion. The fan: Colorado's Democratic Senator Ed C. Johnson, author of a bill to clean up Hollywood morals through federal licensing of movie players and producers (TIME, March 27).

Next day Big Ed Johnson rose in the Senate to announce a reprieve. He was postponing the hearings on his bill before his own Interstate Commerce Committee. His visitors, he said, had assured him of their "grave concern" over the commercial exploitation of movie performers' immorality, and they planned to put a stop to it with a "stringent amendment" to their advertising code. Big Ed was willing "to permit this to be done voluntarily and effectively."

He had some kind words for Eric Johnston: "As president of the [Motion Picture] Association, he has been and is a wholesome influence for common sense and decency. Yet he does not have the authority usually vested in a czar. I wish he had that power. I hope it may be imposed upon him soon."

At the Senator's bidding, his morals investigator, Judge Stephen S. Jackson, ended a trying fortnight in Hollywood, lost no time in getting back among friends. But, like any longtime movie fan, Big Ed could appreciate the thrilling suspense of a cliffhanger. At week's end, he let it be known that he had faith in the sincerity of the cinemoguls' intentions, but he was "so darned proud" of a couple of new movie-morality bills he was drafting that he might introduce them soon, anyway.

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