CHILD CINEMA PATRONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27383, 8 May 1950, Page 5

CHILD CINEMA PATRONS

Minimum Age Proposed BRITISH COMMITTEE’S FINDINGS Rec. 7 p.m. LONDON, May 5,. A ban on children under the age of seven going to the cinema if not accompanied by an adult is one of a number of comprehensive proposals put forward by the Departmental Committee on Children and the Cinema, whose report is published today. Five should be the minimum age for child cinema-goers, whether accompanied or not. The terms of reference of the committee, which was appointed in 1947 by the Home Secretary, the Secretary of State for Scotland, and the Minister of Education, included a consideration of the effects of cinema-going on children. It found that more than half of the children of school age in Britain go to the cinemd at least once a week. The committee does not think that a weekly visit is open to objections if the films are suitable, but they deprecate regular attendance of twice weekly or more often. Such attendance, says the report, is the habit of 13 per cent, of children between five and nine years, and 31 per cent, of children between 10 and 16. The committee found broadly that the cinema has no primary share of the responsibility for delinquency and moral laxity, which are due to deeper and subtler influences. The report recommends that children should not see films the general tenor of which is licentious or suggestive. It adds that a large number of films are exposing children regularly to the suggestion that the highest values in life are riches, power, luxury, and public adulation, and that it does not matter very much how these are obtained.