Valenti Attack on Film Board Upsets Directors

Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. America, surprised opponents of colorization this week by publicly attacking legislation that he had agreed not to lobby against just four weeks ago.

The legislation, now pending in Congress, would establish a National Film Preservation Board to designate up to 25 films a year as classics. If any of the classic black-and-white films were colorized or otherwise substantially changed, they would have to be labeled. Moreover, they could not carry a board seal designating them as national treasures.

“The National Film Board is a bad idea,” Valenti wrote to several hundred industry members in a report reprinted Wednesday in Daily Variety, a Hollywood trade publication. “Lamentably, it is one we will have to live with for a long time.”

Charles Warn, a spokesman for the Directors Guild of America, a key supporter of the film board proposal, said he was “disappointed to hear that Mr. Valenti is going public with his views. He indicated to us that he would support the legislation. That’s what he did in the House, and ultimately we hope he will take a similar position in the (House-Senate) conference committee,” where the bill faces its next vote.

Valenti’s letter could cause further ill will in Hollywood, where a debate has been raging between those who own films and those who make them over colorization and other processes that alter movies from their original release form--such as time compression, “panning and scanning” and “abusive editing.”

One director, who supports the legislation but asked not to be identified, called Valenti’s letter a “shocking breach of trust. He gave his word he would do nothing to hinder the bill.” But in an interview Friday, Valenti stressed that he agreed only not to block the legislation during its consideration in the House. He added that while he publicly attacked the legislation, he is not “lobbying” against it.

“I haven’t sent a single letter to a member of Congress,” he said.

The MPAA, along with broadcasters, originally opposed the legislation. But when it appeared that they would lose a key vote in the House Rules Committee, Valenti struck a compromise.

Valenti agreed not to lobby against the bill if its supporters would back changes broadening the film board’s membership and dropping a prohibition against colorized films using their original titles. After that compromise in late June, the proposal went on to win approvals from the rules committee and the full House.

Valenti reiterated his opposition to the film board Friday. He agreed to the June compromise, he said, for tactical reasons.

“I did not have the votes in the Rules committee. I did not have the votes in the Appropriations committee,” he said. “I could have gotten the votes on the House floor but it would have been a bitter battle. So I cut my losses.”

Even if he doesn’t lobby members of Congress, Valenti’s open opposition no doubt will add to resistance the bill already faces from broadcasters, producers and others when it goes before a crucial House-Senate conference committee vote sometime in the next couple of weeks.

“I don’t care how laudable or benevolent the reason seems to be,” Valenti wrote in his report to industry members, “I am opposed to any group, created by government edict and operating under government power, interposing itself in creative affairs, making business judgments of quality and content.”

The DGA’s Warn defended the legislation as a “first step toward assuring that films of national treasure have some kind of protection.” . .