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Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 491, 6 September 1915, Page 6

The kinematograph developed as a form of public entertainment so swiftly that it became primarily an aniuseriierti*b'Cfbre"' its possibilities as an educator ;were realised. There are many who, Seeing the possibilities of the moving picture, • regret that it should be chiefly used to purvey unreal melodrama and knockabout fooling, allegedly comic. At last meeting of the Board of Governors of the Technical, College, the chairman, Mr George Scott, touched on the possibility of some form of control being imposed on picture theatres, in order to heighten the quality of the films shown. There is no doubt that in the past few years there has been a decline in films of directly eduCatiohal value, and also, it must be in pictures of real value as drama. The dramatic sense and the appreciation'of beauty are as much provinces,of, education as are processes of manufacture-or of science. Scientific, industrial,' and scenic films- have ! been largely dispensed with in favour of a cheap -form of emotional drama; it may be because a section of the public demands such drama, but it is not necessarily the New Zealand public's demand. Our principal picture supplier is America, and the American picture drama is made to suit the taste of a large, illiterate, and crudely emotional section of the American public; : the New, Zealand public takes such pictures because it must. In a sense this cheaper melodrama and "comedy" is "demoralising," because it tends to maintain crudity of taste, but it actually affects only a few whose taste is in any case elemental. Against anything really debasing the public can be trusted to act effectively as its own censor, but the decline of the film that is at once entertaining and educational is to be regretted.