MOVIES AND MORALS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2188, 12 October 1920, Page 2

MOVIES AND MORALS.

'ITIE Wellington Bust urges the G■vernmenl to exercise a more strict censorship over cinema picture.-., it ask- “f; lire Government fully alive lo this gradual dovgradation? We are compelled lo ask litis question because an increasingly huge stud ion of the public is asking it ; because, too, it would seem that picture producers, especially those of America, are working up to the ultimate ounce of boiler pressure that public tolerance will stand . The Government may say, and that: in all sincerity, Dave we not enough already on baud .' True, it, may also ask, Have we not appointed a censor of lilmsAdmitted. Even so, many of the difficult social problems which the Government is endeavouring to solve derive much of their complexity from inllueuees that: the cinema picture can foster, if it does not generate, by the increasing number of unwholesome pictures that are being shown. Js the Government really alive to this unit ter? If not, then it is time our common-law makers r-penl an hour or so in analytical study of the pictures being shown. Most programmes, of course, contain instructive, entertaining, or auiusiiig 'pictures, to.u*hich no exception can be taken. Obviously, these are now under consideration. But some of the latest emanations from the American cinema studios, especialy those with hypocritical pretensions to lofty moral purposes, are especially commended to our legislators. Sonic of these pictures arc unquestionably exceedingly harmful in the impressions (hoy make, and seem specially designed to make, upon adults, as well as upon adolescents and children. Unless Members of Parliament are wilfully purblind, they cannot come to any other conclusion, after seeing some, of pictures, than that they are conducive Lo the setting up of moral gangrene in the body politic Then

again, there is far too much use made in the pictures of the revolver and automatic pistol. The effects of this - liberal- gunplay iu tbfe pielures cannot be good for the maintenance of public order, nor for the education of our children. Such displays, at any rate, do not discourage, even if they dq not sanction, the drawing of the gun on the least provocation or just out of sheer devilry.

Grown people who disapprove of pictures of the kind here under criticism, have the remedy in their own hands. They can stay away from Ike pictures. Parents who realise their responsibility for Hie 'religious, moral and iliental welfare of their children-can forbid their frequenting the pictures till the time there is the risk of harmful and unsuitable pictures being shown. . But there^

ro other parents.' Tito ‘Tea! wrong doers” may .-'till bo inclined to bundle their offspring; off to the picture theajre without regard to the character pf the dims; hut for such children’s sakes, if for no weightier reasons, (lie Government should institute a general drastic deau-up of the picture programme. The matter is urgent, and becoming increasingly so. If the authority of the censor needs enlarging, lot that: be done. In any case, the whole subject is one thal the Govcrumnt must attend to, and that without delay.”