FILM CENSORSHIP

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 September 1927, Page 3

FILM CENSORSHIP

MR. TANNER’S POLICY. “We- hear complaints about the film censorship, but the trouble is that those people who complain never come to its with any particular instance, (hey content .themselves with general statements,” said Mr. W. A. Tanner, the newly appointed Film Censor, in outlining the principles of his censor“There is one misconception which I should like to remove,” said Mr. Tanner. “There seems an extraordinary amount of misunderstanding relative to the Government censorship. We do not import pictures, and never have done so. Wo are responsible only for the elimination of admittedly objectionable features from those pictures when they are here. The film is composed of art and literature as well as drama. There are all three elements and they are’open to public criticism all the time. You know how it is with literature: one writer is admired and his books are sought, another’s name is anathema and he is likely to get more than his share of criticism. So it is with the films. Many that are passed by this office are pleasing, others have to be cut out or trimmed down. We have, in fact, received a gibe from London, where it was stated that a feature was “dull enough to pass even a New Zealand censor,” but we carry on to the best of our ability. “Yet there are people who are not satisfied. To those people I would point out that no such action as they urge us to take can possibly be a substitute for parental control. These must be paramount all the time. People should not allow their children to go to the pictures unaccompanied, sdif they wish to exercise that control properly. But, unfortunately, there are many people who give ther children money and send them to the pictures to get them out of the way. In Germany they will not allow a child of less than six years into a picture theatre in any circumstances. I Jiope that that state of affairs rules in New Zealand, in effect, to-day. Wc are fully seized of our responsibility for the films being as clean as possible, and we carry out our duties even to the extent of condemning them at times.”