BANNING OF A FILM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22809, 19 February 1936, Page 7

BANNING OF A FILM

MR SINCLAIR LEWIS'S CHARGE DENIALS AND CONTRADICTIONS NEW YORK, February 17. (Received Feb. 18, at 10 p.m.) Mr Sinclair Lewis's charge against Mr Hays has produced a whole series of denials and contradictions, until the status of the prospective film is now a complete muddle as far as the public is concerned. To-day Mr Hays declared that the film had not bt-c-n banned by his organisation. Meanwhile, however, Mr Lewis has not retracted his charge. The spokesman for the producing company said that the original script prepared from " It Can't Happen Here " had been abandoned because it was found .that its production would be too expensive. He said it was planned to undertake production later if a new and less expensive version could be prepared. Another case of alleged censorship developed at Hollywood to-day when Charley Chaplin's agent, just before the comedian sailed for an eight weeks' holiday in Honolulu, said he had learned that the German Government had banned the film " Modern Times." He denied that Chaplin was a Jew or a Communist, or that the film had any political significance. The agent suggested that the Nazi opposition might be due to a " squib" published in a French newspaper saying that Chaplin had accused Herr Hitler of copying his moustache. Such an accusation Chaplin had never made, even humorously, he said.

Mr Sinclair Lewis, the Nobel Prize winner, declared that the production of the motion picture of his latest novel, " It Can't Happen Here," dealing with the rise of a mythical Fascist power in America, had been banned by direct order of Mr Will Hays (director of the policy of the motion picture industry). He said that a large producing company was prepared to start filming when Mr Hays issued his order, basing his reasons on " a fear of international politics and fear of boycotts abroad." Answering this, Mr Lewis declared that while his work was a propaganda book, "it was propaganda for only one thing—American democracy." He termed Mr Hays's action as " a fantastic exhibition of folly and cowardice."