DELINQUENCY AND FILMS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27471, 4 October 1954, Page 8

DELINQUENCY AND FILMS

No Direct Link Seen In Children BRITISH EXPERT’S VIEW (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, October 2. Films alone have no bearing on juvenile delinquency. This is the opinion of Miss Mary Field, an expert on children’s films, who has arrived in Auckland in the course of a tour of Australia and New Zealand under the auspices of the British Council. Miss Field, who is in New Zealand at the special invitation of the Department of Internal Affairs and the New Zealand Film Institute, is executive officer of the Children’s Film Foundation, of which Mr J. Arthur Rank is chairman. Miss Field said that British Magistrates found that no juvenile crime could be directly traced to films. “When you make up a whole picture of mass media—films, radio, newspapers, comics, conversation—of which none is particularly good,” she said, “then it naturally has an influence. “In addition, a child already with a tendency toward delinquency because of a bad home is the child who seeks out the worst sort of film.” Censorship laws were more rigidly enforced in Britain than in New Zealand, Miss Field said. She had one point, however, on which to congratulate the Dominion. That was in its recent introduction of a special type of certificate recommending a film specially for children. The system had been introduced in England a little more than a year ago, and she was delighted to find that New Zealand was following suit, she said. The film, “Johnny on the Run” was the first. New Zealand recommendation. Making of Children’s Films The Children’s Film Foundation does not make films itself, but employs selected companies which it considers the best of their kind to deal with individual themes. A non-profit making unit, it is an amalgamation of representatives of four organisations to sponsor and supervise the production of films which children will readily enjoy. Miss Field usually thinks out a story, which she hands on to a free-lance writer, and he works out a dialogue for submission to the board. Finally the theme is handed to a company, whose script-writers put it into final shape for production. Miss Field supervises the entire process of the making of the film. Famous film stars, she said, were not particularly wanted for the films, but it was becoming a tendency in Britain for well-known actors to appear in a film as a guest artist at a fairly nominal fee. In such a film they could act without worrying about the box office, she said. The first famous start to take such a part was A. E. Matthews who, at the age of 86, told Miss Field it was time for him to think of his future audiences. Jean Simmonds and Mandy Miller were two other stars who had played in the films for children. Miss Field will go to India after her visit to New Zealand.