CHURCH OBJECTS TO FILM SCRIPT

Wanganui Chronicle, 10 March 1947, Page 5

CHURCH OBJECTS TO FILM SCRIPT

The screen adaptation of “Captain from Castile,” Samuel Shellabarger’s novel of the conquest of Mexico, which Twentieth Century-Fox bought in 1944 for 100000 dollars, has presented something of a problem because the major villain in the novel, Father De Lora, is a cruel and corrupt priest of the Spanish Inquisition. According to the Rev. John J. Devlin, Hollywood representative of the Legion of Decency, and ‘adviser to the Producers’ Association on matters religious, th e studio was warned at the time the novel was purchased that it was not acceptable t» the church. A major objection was that Shellabarger depicted the inquisition as “witchbaiting” and overlooked th e fact that the inquisition, from the orthodox point of view, aimed itself at the crypto Jews, who became Catholicconverts for the purpose of subverting Catholic thought, Father Devlin explained. Father Devlin said that he had discussed the matter with the studio in an interview and subsequently found the third script on the picture acceptable from his point of view. “The treatment of the inquisition has been toned down very much, indeed,” he explained.