"COSTUME" CRIME

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3048, 9 April 1917, Page 6

"COSTUME" CRIME

WHY-THE COWBOY IS ALLOWED TO APPEAR ON THE FILM. The British Chief Examiner of Films recently gave some interesting details' of his work before the Kinema Commission. The only two rules that Mr. Redford had laid down, he said, were that the living figure of Christ should not he. permitted and that nudity should he in no circumstances passed. His decision that it would be impossible to draw up any positive rules had proved entirely sound. The examiners been guided by the broad principles that nothing should be passed which in their honest opinion was calculated to demoralise an audience or any section of it. They had rejected, especially recently, films calculated 'and possibly intended t,o . foment socia] unrest and discontent. The examiners been compelled to object to the cumulative effects <iaused by the repetition of incidents which,in themselves might be passed, the , impression in such cases being that certain lapses' from virtue or honesty were usual and even unavoidable in the , given circumstances. Young and unthinking people might thus be accustomed to the idea that such Japses were excusable and even deserving of •sympathy.

In dealing with crime subjects tho examiners had had to discriminate between stories onlculated to familiarise young people with theft, robberies, and crimes of violence, which were likely to lead them to conclude that such were normal incidents and not very ereatly to he reprobated, and those stones which d»:\lt with, "costume" crime—i.e.. cowb-rc sJinoiings. "Feather nnd Rapier" stabbinus.. bandits, pnd Mexican It seemed to the examiners that the latter wore regarded bv the vounp- as simpk dramatic and thriHinr adventures with no connection with their own liyps or probable experiences. When thp same crimes are. committed by people in ordinary dress and home snrroiiTidii'a:!? TV examiners .v'merl nt elimiimtine details which rondo them too realistic, "lid entirely forbade nny scenes denictini? the actual method of committing theft.

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