FILM CENSORSHIP.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11763, 29 July 1916, Page 4

FILM CENSORSHIP.

HOW IT STRIKES THE MANAGEMENT.

A MANAGER'S VIEW. The provisions of tlio Film Censorship BUI, introduced by the Government on Thursday, were brought under the notice of Mr E. J. Pegg, manager of the Grand Picture Theatre, this morning. 1 Mr Pegg expressed the opinion that while there were instances in which films that might not please all tastes had been shown in some of the picture theatres 'of the Dominion, these instances were so rare as to furnish no warrant for the wholesale censorship of all films imported to this country. It was a case of penalising the whole of the moving picture business for the indiscretions' and Oversights of a very tew individuals. The agitation for a censorship had been engineered almost exclusively by people who based their qualifications as critics of moving picfrire ethics upon the fact that they seldom if ever saw ] a moving picture show, Perhaps the most influential and responsible' critic of the picture ehow in the Dominion was Mr G. M. Thomson, of Dunedin, who spoke with some knowledge of the subject. Unlike the critics who made a boast of only having been in a picture theatre once in their lives, Mr Thomson based his objections to this form of entertainment not on the immorality of the pictures, but upon their unreality—their detachment from the real everyday life of the people. That was an objection that could be levelled at any form of fiction, and if a censorship were to be imposed to give effect to Mr Thomson's objection, all plioto-plays, without exception, woftild have to be placed under the ban. It was true that a certain proportion of photo-plays dealt with marital relations, and with the exploits of criminals, but the proportion was not larger among films than among novels and plays for stage production. To censor the moving picture show because it charged a low price of admission was about as equitable a piece of political morality as would be the taxation of cigarettes while cigars went duty free. There' was a good deal to bo said for the classification of pictures, hinted at in the Bill, bat there were considerable practical difficulties in the way of providing a moving picture programme ' especially suited to the intelligence and morals of the young personOf course a great deal would depend upon the ability and knowledge of the censors, but the general experience of Government censors in any line < of enterprise was not very encouraging. The Bill was a piece of class legislation, pure and simple- It was a censorship of the amusements of one class of the community by another class which wtfuld resent as impertinence the suggestion that its own amusements required supervision and censorship.