Movie Lion in Politics

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 12821, 16 August 1939, Page 6

Movie Lion in Politics

The Metro-Gbldwyn lion found himself in a new role in Budapest during the Hungarian election campaign when his appearance at the beginning of a screen comedy was greeted with a storm, of cheers and boos from partisans of rival political theories.

According to an indignant screen fan who afterwards wrote to his favourite newspaper about, it, the trouble began with the showing of a news reel in which, a foreign diplomat. was seen being greeted by National Socialist chieftains in Berlin when the National Socialist sympathizers in the audience immediately began to applaud. This item was immediately followed however by a few shots of King George YI and Queen Elizabeth arriving in Canada, whereupon another, and larger section of the audience applauded in its turn.

The last few feet of the news reel took the audience back to Germany thus giving the pro National Socialists another opportunity. But their rivals, not outdone, metaphorphosed the ’ Metro-Goldwyn lion, of the next item on the programme into a British one and gave him the best hand of the evening, to the accompaniment of boos and hisses from their opponents.

Then somebody laughed and the tension ended.