FILMS AND MORALS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21906, 15 September 1934, Page 12 (Supplement)

FILMS AND MORALS

ADULT LE\-EL justified ENGLISH CRITICS VIEWS Another viewpoint on the question of | 61m morality is provided by Mr. Herj hern Thompson, the noted English film ! critic, rn a recent issue of his journal, j Film Weekly. j The discussion of the moral (or I immoral) influence of films is becomF ing a " silly season " topic be remarks. ; The latest celebrity to contribute to ! it is Marion Davies, who is now in England. She took time off from, seei ing the sights in order to discuss the j future of films. Miss Da vies is reported to have ! sard: " Hollywood producers have found [ oat that the one person who matters | is the child of eight." The reason she gave for this extraordinary statement was that parents have to take their children to the 1 pictures with them in the evening, 1 and the film must therefore be suit- [ able for thp child to see. In combating this viewpoint, Mr. Thompson points out that the child of | eight has nothing to do with the i cinema. His proper form of amusement j is hoop-bowling and top-spinning. By i the time his parents are ready to go j to the pictures he should be in bed. ! But, whether be'is in bed or in the { cinema, there is no excuse for seti ting him up as the arbiter of film ; entertainment. j The doty of the film producer Hike | that of the novelist and dramatist) is jto provide adult entertainment for I adult minds. Obviously some of that 1 entertainment will be unsuitable for i children. Just as beer and tobacco (are unsuitable for chikliah stomachs. J oat as certain passages in Shakespeare

are unsuitable for childish ears. Just as certain paintings in our national museums are unsuitable for childish eyes. I But that is no reason why beer, tobacco, Shakespeare and pictorial art should all perish in a kill-joy holocaust. Because the childish imagination must not be upset, are we never to have another picture of the realism and magnitude of " AH Quiet on the Western Front?" Is " Trouble in Paradise " to be banned lest it cause trouble in the kindergarten? The idea would be laughable, were it not discussed with such seriousness. The new screen reformer's ideal apparently, is that all future film epics shall be based on the works of Talbot Baines Reed and R. M. Ballantyne. And you and I will be giren puffpuffs to play with if we get bored or fidgety, and a bag of oranges and sweets when we come out. I can do no better than give you Miss Da vies' own prediction: "Can you imagine Garbo as Peter Pan? She would play it, and play it well." Pretty good, Miss Da vies! And what about Conrad Veidt as Rumpelstiltr.kin and Charles Laughton as Goldilocks?