PICTURE SHOWS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16492, 6 March 1914, Page 8

PICTURE SHOWS.

CRITICISED BY W.C.T.U. PRESIDENT.

SENSATIONAL FILMS AND “MORAL DECREPITUDE.”

THE NEED FOR CENSORSHIP ’ [Per Press Association.] GISBORNE, March 5

“ Six years ago,” said, the president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Mrs Don, in her opening address to-day, “ the total number ot employees in kinematograph theatres in -Great Britain-was' about DUD. They now exceed 125,(JUd. iheir wages . will probably run into £12,U00,00U per annum. The number of people visiting kinemas i>er week is estimated at eight millions. There- are,about 16,00,1) picture theatres in America patronised by more than six millions of -people per day. -In face in such figures who can estimate the power for good or evil of kiiiemaG? While I do not .intend to enter into any-detailed criticism of picture shows I should like to ask wliat is the effect of a certain class of pictures upon the rising generation. There is no doubt that a good deal may be learned from films which treat of the foreign world but it is an incontestable fact that there is another class of picture that demands most ruthless supervision. It is a class of picture that is a popular feature at many picture shows. Coarse clandestine - love scenes, sensational crimes, bushranging scenes of the Deadivbod Dick type, and murders are undoubtedly harmiul in their effect on the minds of the young, for they create a mostunwholesome appetite and invariably lead to wholesale moral decrepitude. , A, perusal of the daily advertisements for the kineina will convince you that the programmes are largely blood-curdling- and sensational, calculated, to hold spell-bound, and as one.advertisement.recently put it, witli ‘thrills enough to suit the most exacting.’ It is matter for amazement that parents fully aware of this show such apparent indifference as to the class of entertainment. which their children attend. It might be well if in New Zealaud a responsible body was created to supervise films before they appear in public; It could do the management no. harm, while it would exercise a most beneficial , effect upon, the community.” •