MOVING PICTURES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 489, 23 October 1925, Page 4

MOVING PICTURES.

INFLUENCE IN THE EAST. MORE HARMFUL THAN OPIUM. “I have been spending, many days now at Hollywood, Cellujoidia, as the pert American Press calls it. In England we have never treated the film seriously, and as a consequence we have our periodical outbursts of re--gret that the film industry its virtually an American monopoly,” states the writer of "Letters from a Traveller” in the “Saturday Review.” “I had ;an opportunity of discussing this with Mr Douglas Fairbanks. ‘lt is true,’ he said, ‘that the Californian sun helps us in our studio work, but no consideration of climate ought to prevent the British from producing films. Some of .the most successful films in recent yeans have come from Berlin, where climatic conditions have been overcome by artificial means. Hollywood has gone ahead because here we are a film colony. Everyone is engaged in the industry 5 we think* ndreani, and live pictures, and for that reason we are able to get- good results. Nowhere in England have you such a concern trated film settlement, ami without it you cannot do first-class work.’

“One day, in China, I thought that at last I was off the beaten track ; the village was a small one, and nowhere could I isee a display card in any Westernscript,” the writer adds. “I turned the corner and there facing me was a poster with a Chinese inscription. In the centre was a little figure in a bowler-hat, decayed frock-coat, baggy trousers and bigboots ; Charlie Chaplain was the pioneer flame of the Western civilisation in that corner of China. I have before me a letter from an educated Chinese in Peking. “He writes ; ‘I think I can say a great deal unfavourably about the American films in China. Most of the pictures give an unfavourable impression of American daily life, for instance, the numerous reels of detective and mystery stories, cheap love affairs, drciss for the sake of extreme undress of the gentle sex, craze for almighty dollar's.’

“The fundamental truth is that every film produced in the west has a different effect when displayed in the Orient. In India I found that the Police Commissioners viewed the matter with the greatest seriousness. One ex-Police Commissioner said to me : ‘lf Western influence declines in the Orient, I think it will be largely due to the intrusion of the moving picture.’

“The Oriental' may not be pier,al according to our Western Standards, but he has a conception of modesty which we have long ago lost. He bnce respected Western women because he knew nothing about them, and he respected the Western men, because they seemed capable of protecting women. To-day he thinks that from the film he has learnt everything .about Western sjvomen ;■ he regards them as all immodest and hip contempt for. Western life is profound.

“Would it be impossible for the United States Government to send a, special Commission to the Orient to examine the effects of films out there and then to set up a special censorship on the exportation of films ? One remembers that the. United States Government was once very interested in opium, and films do more harm than opium out East to-day.’’