BRITISH PICTURES.

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18349, 8 June 1931, Page 9

BRITISH PICTURES.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —At the risk of being branded .mpatriotic, may i be allowed to ad.; i note of dissent to the universal aclaim with which British pictures—t

ji’er more particularly to the corned.\ id near-comedy variety—have been ■ reeled locally. Carried away by what . consider unjustifiable patriotic fervour, the cinema-going community in general, whose opinions one would imagine have been influenced by tue judicious propaganda of publicity men, plus a rather stupid anti-American bias, has endowed British productions with a halo of excellence hardly deserved. Let me state my case: Practically every British comedy I have seen—and I have missed few —has depended for its appeal upon suggestive situations of questionable propriety, the underlying but all-pe>’-vading undesirable element being disguised under a veil of varying degrees of thinness, hut invariably pretty transparent. The producers of these films evidently have a blighted and warped opinion of our morals when they attempt to unload such stuff on to us. And it is generally admitted that he is a poor producer who must depend for his “box-office" returns on scenes that would disgust a schoolboy —even a New Zealand schoolboy. I will not deny that the same thing does occasionally enter into American films, hut I assert that for the most part they are clean. The American accent is advanced by many as the reason for their British preference, but this is a puerile argument. Anyway, after listening to the King’s English mutilated by “haw-haw” pseudo-comedians and supporting actors and actresses, I am definite as to which I prefer. I hope your readers will overlook my utterances of high treason and express their preferences in future only after resorting lo reason.—l am., etc., TRAITOR.