“SPARED A GOOD DEAL”

Evening Star, Issue 20688, 10 January 1931, Page 9

“SPARED A GOOD DEAL”

FILM CENSOR ON HIS TASK [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, January 10. “ There certainly lias been a tendency in that direction,” said tbe Government film censor (Mr W. A. Tanner), referring to the statement of the British censor that there had been an increase in the number of films in which tho development of file theme required a succession of grossly brutal and sordid scenes. In the light of bis own experience Mr Tanner was inclined to think that the British censor’s observations had been prompted by a number of films of a certain type which had been manufactured lately. They were good pictures, based on novels of powerful writers, but they were fairly strong stuff. Comparatively long scenes devoted to brutal fighting were not altogether healthy, and ho had turned down a good deal of that sort of thing. There had been quite a number of pictures coming from the United States in which negroes and half-caste negroes formed tho cast, Mr Tanner continued. Ho had blocked all of them. One of them, which bo named, had had a great stage run in Now York and elsewhere, hut would not bn appreciated by the people of Now Zealand. With cabaret scenes and others laid in surroundings of low/juality, they were rather sordid. “ The general public don’t know what they have been protected from,” added Mr Tanner. “ They are inclined to grumble at me, hut they arc spared a good deal.”