ORIENTAL CENSORS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 49, 26 August 1938, Page 15

ORIENTAL CENSORS

The Japanese are keeping up their reputation for having the most remarkable censorship in the world, says the "Manchester Guardian." Among more serious stuff comes the news that "The Mutiny on the Bounty" has been passed for public exhibition—but with the mutiny scenes snipped out! In censoring the works of Hollywood, the criterion is that bad examples and undesirable ideas should be removed when possible, and while it is well understood that Occidentals are not nice people, it was thought unwise for a nation whose decorum is their greatest pride to see how unkindly Captain Bligh of the Royal Navy was treated. It would disturb the minds of Japanese beholders. So the mutiny scenes follow into the wastepaper basket innumerable long but illicit kisses, gambling scenes, the nastier incidents in war films, and all that it is not quite nice for the children to see —for we are all children in the censor's eyes. But there is no fear of Young Japan growing up soft. In the Japanese films there is ferocious sword play for half an hour on end, and though the killing takes some time there is plenty of it. But it is important that the right people should be killed.