FILM CENSORSHIP TESTED

Hokitika Guardian, 23 July 1930, Page 8

FILM CENSORSHIP TESTED

TALKIE VERSION OF “ALL QUIET.” >•••. WELLINGTON, July 21. New Zealand’s film censorship system is being subjected to a severe test !as the result of the banning of the ; talkie version of Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front.” I When submitted to Mr W. Tanner, the film censor, it was turned down, j and the importers ’then appealed to the I Film Appeal Board. As its usual chairman, the president of the New Zealand Society of Arts, was unable to | act owing, to ilbhealbh, the Hon P. A. I de la Perrelle, Minister of Internal Affairs, appointed Mr W. G. Riddell, for many years Stipendiary Magistrate in i Wellington, as acting chairman.' | The appeal to this tribunal failed, but the owners of the picture rights for the Dominion were not satisfied. They invited jParl i amenta,rians and Parliamentary pressmen to a private view recently, and as a sequel twenty members'of Parliament, including representatives of all parties interviewed the Minister of Internal Affairs to urge strongly the lifting of the ban. Another appeal to a wider jury took place last night, when, bv invitation an audience including many members of Parliament and the Minister of Internal Affairs, were shown the picture, obviously with the object of inducing the authorities to reconsider the censorship decision. The picture version has discarded the woi;st crudities of the original, but sufficient remains of the war’s dreadful details: to support the declaration of the hero*,! “It is a dirty and painful duty to die for one’s country.” The correspondent of the “Times” has officially ascertained that neither the Censorship Board nor the individual censor has given a reason for the decision.