FILM CENSORED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 308, 28 December 1940, Page 6

FILM CENSORED.

AUSTRALIAN HORSES. CHARGING IN THE DESERT. (By Air.) SYDNEY, Dec. 20. A typical instance or extreme censorship is holding up export of a picture that was to place Australia on the film map—"Forty Thousand Horsemen, - ' produced by Mr. Charles Chauvel, of Hollvwood, in' Australia at a cost of £30,000, which was guaranteed by the Xcw South Wales tiovernment, Universal Pictures and Hoyts Theatres. The film took eight months to produce. It features the exploits of the Australian Light Horse in Palestine in the last war, mingling a fictional romance with fact. The film was seen and applauded by members of the State Cabinet, Federal Ministry of Information and military and educational authorities, but the Chief Commonwealth Censor, Mr. Cresswell O'Reilly, ordered deletion of a scene depicting the charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba, and also ordered cuts in a romantic sequence in a desert hut between the hero and heroine. It is believed that he considered the sight of horses falling in the charce brutal. 8 The battle scenes were enacted bv picked units of the Australian Light Horse, and during the charge six horses fell accidentally in the sand. Other falls were faked. Mr. Chauvel denied that trip wires had been used to bring them down. One State Minister suggested that perhaps the censor objected •to the word "bloody." "We need not be squeamish if this word, so common to Australians, is used in a real Australian film," he said. The matter will be carried on appeal to the Federal Minister of Customs.