MASKED OBSCENITIES

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 107, 30 January 1920, Page 7

MASKED OBSCENITIES

DEGENERATE GERMAN PICTURE • snows. London, January 27. Tho "Daily Chronicle's" Berlin correspondent stales that one of tho earliest Government, measures after tho revolution was the abolition, of tho censorship. It has had unfortunate results in tho kinema world, owing to tho extraordinary vogue of tho so-called "Auflclaraugs" films. The ostensible purposo of these was to warn the German youth against erotic tendencies; and it has resulted in Hooding the picture palaces with marked obscenities, which the newspapers describe as "a tea of mud." Tho public agitation is so great that a movement against the whole industry is threatened, so the Government is introducing ,i universal kinema censorship, empowered to refuse- a license to any iilm calculated to excite base instincts. The judges will include officials, leadiug artists and writers, and men and women of experience in training the young. Kinema manufacturers say (ho Bill will kill the industry. They are thoroughly organised for a light. The biggest combination is the Ufa Company, which lias a capital of sixty million marks, and owns seven factories and fifty picture palaces—Aus.-N.'/,. Cable Assn.