FILM CENSOR'S EYES.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17115, 9 April 1921, Page 3

FILM CENSOR'S EYES.

UNHARMED. BY YEARS OF WORK. If the proof of the pudding is in the . the-much-argued-question whether watching moving pictures injures ! tho eyes is easily answered (says the J Wellington "Post"). Mr W. Joliffe, i censor of films, has been on duty in | that capacity tor tour years and a naif, and at the end of last month had watchI ed twenty million feet of film projected on the screen. He says tuat his eyes have not suffered in the least as tho result. He also quotes his own case as exploding the iuea that steady smoking damages the sight, because ho ha's smoked since he was a boy, and is nevertheless able to do his worn without wearing glasses. The argument is not excluded, of course, that steady smoking for life enables one to watch millions of feet of film without ill resuits ; but it is not one to be given much weight. Chatting about the film censorship, Mr Jolifie mentioned the infrequency of appeals against his decisions'. Only three have been niadc in the whole four .years and a half. 'Recently the Board of Appeal was remodelled to include ladies. The members are now Mrs A. 11. Atkinson, Mrs E. J. Eighton, and Mr H. M. Gore. They have just sat in. judgment on the first appeal which was made to them, and, as it happened, reversed the censor's judgment. The question was political, not moral. Film censorship, in Mr Joliffe's opinion, cannot be reduced to written formulae. Every case must be judged on its merits. It is possible from the cen- ! sor's chair to do something to educatt. ' public opinion, but it is not easy to seo any improvement. Mr Joliffe declared that one of the pictures he passed ■ recently was "the most morbid,., the worst acted, and the worst photographed" that he had yet dealt with. But it broke the box-office records for New ■Zealand'