ALIEN FILMS

Hokitika Guardian, 11 April 1928, Page 3

ALIEN FILMS

“ The puhlic consciousness Inis he(Diiio increasingly uneasy sit the lorrihle tlmistino of alien pictures and ideas upon the eyes and minds id' the whole (-(immunity. In this most popular <d the arts it was no more conceivable that British thought*, sentiments sympathies and ideas should lor ever he ex hided in our own land, than that Americans should he content to he tax,td hy Lord Xorili. The film can oivo all that a picture can oive. free Imm the limitations of heine; lixed. It can

present all that narrative can present without the drawback that it cannot t.lie senses \ i-ihlc to the eye. Its movement is not limited as in

drama. It can he spacious as epu. H can wander with Odysseus through the Ira ntasi ie islands of the Cyclops

and the Sirens, nr it can peent to us. m, in • H indie Wakes." the realistic whirring of monstrous machinery and the pattering of a thousand feel. The ideas projected may belong to a romance of fairy-tale grim realism or comedy. And there is not the least reason why they should not conlorni to British taste." ".Daily Chronicle."

YOUNG OFFENDERS. Since the early days of the nineteenth century the people of this country hav Icon engaged In amending their criminal law on certain easily definite lilies with a deliberation which it may be honed has its advantages since it seems to he .inevitable, though it may be regarded as excessive. The lost link in the chain that has thus been gradually forged since the time of Eomily, if not of Howard, is the report of the Departmental Committee on the Treatment of Young Offenders, which is of the first importance to the numerous persons who are interested m the prevention of crime by punishment of otherwise, and who occupy positions of all degrees of responsibility, or no rosoonsihility at all. Its scope is very wide, its substance bears constant, signs of compromise, and it suffers from the defects characteristic of multiple authorship; but the Commissioners have snared no pains to make their inquiries complete, and in almost all cases have worked out their conclusions to completeness. If. therefore, the report is not epoch-making and contains no new principles to guide fut. ore action, it is invaluable as recording the stage that has been reached in one particular direction, and as indic.aing lic.'vv aecciptcd principles 'may best he applied in the immediate future.—Sir Harry Stephen in the ‘•Edinburgh Review."

THE CHURCH AS A CAREER. In a letter to the "Morning Post.” Mr. Eden Phllpotts. the well-known novelist, says:—"The supremo problem is to know how educated men. such as the Church requires, can ho found to subscribe to its demands. It is not poverty, or the need to face a strenuous and ill-paid calling which creates the lack of men anxious to enter the profession. Enthusiasm for humanity and the inspiration to sacrifice are eveipresent in noble natures. But the inability to confess belief in the essentials demanded prevent the hulk of well-educated men. who are also honest men from accepting Orders, and the Thirty-nine Articles must stand as a bar to those who, by their very quality and strength of purpose, might prove of the highest value to the Establishment."