BANNED WAR FILM

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1026, 17 July 1930, Page 18

BANNED WAR FILM

M.P.’S SEE “ALL QUIET” IN WELLINGTON “MORE WILL BE HEARD” TIIE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter WELLINGTON, Wednesday. Before a large and representative audience of Parliamentarians the banned film, “All Quiet On the Western Front,” was shown in Wellington this morning at the Paramount Theatre, and practically every person in the audience left the theatre at a loss to understand why the picture had been forbidden to New Zealand audiences. Although it was a trifle strained in one or two places, nevertheless it stands out as one of the finest achievements of the motion picture screen, and is a terrific indictment of war and the most effective anti-war propaganda that could be used in New Zealand. It sticks closely to the book by Remarque, but there is an absence of the elemental coarseness which shocked some people in that volume. Whatever the audience thought of the book it could not find fault with the talkie version of the story. Perhaps it is the fact that; it is an effective argument against war, finely produced, that caused the Board of Appeal to uphold the censor’s ban. At all events that was the opinion of one prominent Parliamentarian, and probably considerably more will be heard concerning its prohibition.