ULTIMATUM ISSUED TO FILM TRADE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19269, 5 January 1931, Page 1

ULTIMATUM ISSUED TO FILM TRADE.

SORDID AND BRUTAL SCENES COME UNDER BAN (United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received January 5, 8.55 a.m.) LONDON, January 3. Mr Shortt, the chief censor, has sent the following ultimatum to all film companies, British and foreign, in the United Kingdom, says the “ Evening News”: “It has been regretfully noticed lately that films produced, in which the development of the theme necessitates a continuous succession of grossly brutal and sordid scenes, arc steadily increasing, with, in the case of sound films, sounds accentuating the situations that are nauseating to the listener. No modifications, however drastic, can suit such films to public exhibition. The board therefore notifies the trade that no fflm will be certified, whose theme, without any redeeming characteristic, depends upon intense brutality and unrelieved sordidness in the scenes depicted.”