CINEMA AND YOUTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20272, 4 June 1929, Page 10

CINEMA AND YOUTH.

QUESTIONS OF CENSORSHIP.

AMERICAN TALKING FILMS.

INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH SPEECH.

[ijy TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON, Monday.

One of the most interesting discussions at tho Vancouver educational conference was upon the cinema, stated Mr. S. 11. Smith, Director of Education in New South Wales, who arrived at Wellington to-day by the steamer Makura on his return to Australia.

Mr. Smith said one of the delegates, Dr. Leslie Pidgeon, of Montreal, took the view that the moving pictures of to-day, generally speaking, exercised a corrupting influence upon the minds of the young. He pleaded for State control of the cinema and urged that society should assert itself to guide the censorship of pictures into constructive channels. Censorship, he said, was a purely negative force at present. It lacked opportunity to direct a positive influence upon the motion picture industry. The law of Quebec, which prohibited children under 16 years of age from attending picture theatres, recognised the evil, and Dr. Pidgeon urged that this principle be generally adopted. Other speakers opposed the suggestion that the State should control the film.

They might as well try to prohibit the press, said Sir Aubrey Symonds. The cinema was doing much good and also much evil. They must devise plans to increase the amount of good and to eliminate the evil.

The conference as a whole opposed Dr. Pidgeon's views, but urged that a closer and more exacting censorship should prevail.

"I took the opportunity when in Canada and the United States," added Mr. Smith, "to investigate the talking films. I am strongly of opinion that if we are to preserve the purity of our English tongue drastic steps must be taken to keep out of these lands of the Southern Cross those of the American talking films which do violence to our Saxon speech. "The sincere and successful efforts we are now making in the Australian schools to maintain a high standard of spoken English will fail if our young people hear much of the execrable pronunciation of English which distinguishes most of the American talking films of to-day. Wc want legislation to enable our censor to exclude all talking pictures which disregard the canons of pure speech as practised among the educated classes in British communities. In the interests of the boys and girls of our land some drastic steps must be taken."