GIFT OF FILM

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21980, 26 March 1946, Page 6

GIFT OF FILM

Educational study

DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME .(P.A.) WELLINGTON, March 25. In 1943, Dr. Hercus, dean of the medical faculty at Otago University, impressed with the educational value of such films as “The Story of Louis Pas.teur” and the story of “Dr. Erlich’s Magic Bullet,” inquired of Warner Brothers if copies could be secured for general tuition purposes in New Zealand.

There were copyright and other difficulties. However, with the cooperation. of the Education Department and the Government Film Studios, the difficulties were eventually overcome and a full-length 16 m.m. print of “The Story of Louis Pasteur” has been handed to the Minister of Education for .the use of schools. Prints of this picture and “Dr. Erlich’s Magic Bullet” have gone to Otago University for use in the Medical School.

The Pasteur film will be placed in the National Film Library and will be available free of cost to schools which have suitable projectors. The Minister of Education. Mr. LI. G. R. Mason, in accepting the gift of the film from Mr. McClurg, managing director of Warner Brothers (New Zealand), Limited, paid a tribute to the handsome gesture of the American company. “It is very gratifying,” he said, “that such magnificent film subjects. produced with all the vast resources of one of the world’s largest studios, can now be distributed free to all schools throughout New Zealand.

Mr. McClure, in reply, said his company looked forward to the time when worthwhile stories from literature in all languages could be visually presented to the smallest and most remote schools.