The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 1930. IN BOOK AND FILM.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18626, 23 July 1930, Page 8

The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 1930. IN BOOK AND FILM.

Notwithstanding the criticism levelled at the censor who refused official consent to the screening of a filmed version of a much-debated war novel, it is generally recognised that feelings among returned soldiers and their friends are strongly in opposition,, not only to the release of certain war films for public screening, but are frankly and‘outspokenly condemnatory of a type of war book that has recently been forced on the public. At the annual conference of the British Legion of exService men a resolution was adopted without a word of introduction or discussion; That this Conference deprecates the publication of war books, where the author does not draw upon actual facts and personal experiences—and is strongly of the opinion that the late war should in no circumstances be used as a medium for works of fiction —if only out of respect for our dead and maimed comrades."

Two amendments were presented. One branch of tlie Legion wished to describe the books in question as works “which slander the character and morale of the fighting forces as a whole, and obscure and belittle the good principles for which Great Britain entered the war,” and urged that the Council should be instructed to

“counter such insidious propaganda wherever possible.” The second amendment strongly protested against the publication of “‘A Brass Hat in No Man’s Land,’ and other so-called war books.” The main resolution was approved, in a Silence that was perhaps eloquently indicative of widespread septiment on the matter. Considerable attention lias been directed to war books and the adaptation of war fiction to the film, by the action of the New Zealand censor in banning the screening of “All Quiet on the Western Front.” An appeal to the censor having failed, the applicants carried their protests to a higher tribunal which endorsed the decision of the censor. It remained, however, for a number of Parliamentarians to challenge the soundness of the edict of the censor, but although the opinion has been expressed by several Members of Parliament that they had failed to discern any objectionable features in the pictured version of a war book that was banned from the shelves of nearly every public library in the Dominion, the film has not been licensed. Reviewing the much discussed film version of a much criticised novel, Mr Mordaunt Hall in The New York Times, says:

The film has been able to accent much of the material in more startling terms than were conveyed on the written page, and this in the most unexpected manner. Although Remarque celebrated the German side of the late conflict, his book, was fashioned out of the physical terror and spiritual suffering of any sensitive individual caught in the maelstrom, no matter what flag he fought under. With all preceding war stories brought to the stage or screen, from “The Big Parade” to “Journey’s End,” there has always been an inevitable glamour attaching to fighting, no matter how carefully avoided. In “All Quiet" there is no glamour. It is courageously bitter from the first disillusionment of a bunch of German kids in a training-camp to the snuffing out of the last of them at the front. The photoplay has an extraordinary leaven of low comedy throughout; being a faithful record of the book.

Down to the last rat in the last dugout the producers and their experts have tried to do something very faithful in transferring Erich Remarque’s "All Quiet on the Western Front” to the screen. In the screen version there was not a scene nor an incident nor a detail of characterisation that did not derive from the original work. All these things have been doggedly incorporated—the screaming shells, the stabbing bayonets, the waste of life and youth, the ribaldries behind the front lines —and so on!

We think it can be said that in condemning the substance and spirit of many recent war books the conference of the British Legion spoke beyond all dispute for the overwhelming majority of the men who served. The most offensive of these compositions, both avowed and unavowed fiction, owed their success, it was always clear, to tlie non-com-batants. To denounce some of them as propaganda put forth for the injury of the nation is welldeserved censure. An author who ridicules the sincerity of the national purpose in the war and points to the armies as com posed of debauchees, fools, and knaves, is not aiming at art or truth, but perversion of the illinformed. The general principle of judgment that a war novel which is, in effect, a libel on tlie troops is not to be tolerated, will serve well enough. Tlie war books tq be condemned fall into two classes, and this applies to the film version—those written to provide lubricity and horror for the vulgar market, and those in which the author travesties the war to demonstrate what a superior person he is or what a wicked world we live in. Some books, indeed, make a bold bid for admission to both these categories; but generally speaking, we think it can be said, that the]

great mass of tlie people wish to respect the feelings of the men who served, and, in the main, the ex-service men have long since come to the conclusion that the time for the publication of war novels has gone by.

HOSPITAL FINANCE.

Early in the year we expressed surprise that the Health Department had rejected the South Canterbury Hospital Board's building proposals to provide addi tional accommodation and had substituted a revision of the scheme in the form of a demand that the Board should first expend £IO,OOO on the construction of an administration block. We said at the time that it would no doubt come as a surprise to the whole district to learn that the Board had so completely changed ground that “it had decided that the building of the administration block be the first work proceeded with, and that the order of erecting the other buildings be decided at a later date.” Information was subsequently disclosed that the Department of Health was behind the change of plans and that the Board had no alternative but to comply with the bureaucratic edict issued from Wellington. One of the members of the Board who participated in the discussion at the Board’s meeting in February last, while admitting that the need for additional accommodation was generally recognised, remarked that “the technical adviser to the Health Department desired to begin at the wrong end.” The latest decision of the Department of Health, no doubt came as a shock to members of the Board, but the call for reduced expenditure from the Consolidated Fund is imperative, and the Board has no alternative but to bow to the inevitable. At the meeting of the Board yesterday the chairman said that he thought it would be possible to carry on under present conditions for another year. This admission is most significant, in, view of the claim" the Board put before the public six months ago that the time was then overdue for a forward step in hospital policy involving the expenditure of nearly £50,000 on hospital improvements at Timaru. We rather fancy that the Department has come to the conclusion that, it has become responsible for ordering the Board to “begin at the wrong end.” Tlie expenditure of £IO,OOO on an administration block would not have provided increased accommodation at the hospital. On the contrary, it is now clear that the Board, in the judgment of the chairman, can carry on for another year without the £IO,OOO administration block, which means, in effect, that .additional hospital accommodation is not considered imperative for two years. It is hoped in view of the veto of the Department that the whole proposal will be overhauled and a beginning made at the right end —when additional accommodation is required. The Department’s notification that it proposes to withhold subsidies on donations is a serious matter, and tlie Board should, in view of the financial arrangements for the current year, based on its estimates that assumed the Department would not cut too deeply into the provision made for social service, offer the strongest objection to such a sudden cancellation of an implied undertaking.