TASTE AND CENSORSHIP

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 64, 7 June 1927, Page 1

TASTE AND CENSORSHIP

GERMAN FILM SALESMAN VISITS NEW ZEALAND

(From Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Monday. \X7ITH the question of film censorship running through the minds of many people in New Zealand at the present time, in view of the pending appointment of a new censor, a comparison with the methods adopted on the Continent are topical. A few words on this subject come from Herr K. F. Hubert, foreign sales manager of the Universum Film Company, Germany, in whose interests he is at present in Wellington extending the ramifications of German films. Following the post-war revolution, he says, Germany had no censor of films, and some of the smaller companies took advantage of this, with the result that many pictures became daring, not to say a little offensive. Then in. 1921 a Board of Censors was appointed which took charge of the inspection of films, and since then there has been better r-egulation of pictures. Restrictions on the Continent are not so rigid as in England and here, however, for tastes are more varied and facilities for producers greater than in most countries. For a certain class of picture there would always be taste, but the bigger companies did not offend in trying to put over stuff that really was against public morals. If a picture were censored in Germany there was a higher tribunal to which appeal could be made, and even then producers could go to administrative authorities for relief if thought desirable. Herr Hubert hopes to build up a business here, because he says America has held the market too long, and now that trade relations between Germany and the rest of the world are not so strained as just after the war, he foresees a prospect of getting his stuff on to the New Zealand and Australian market. His company is working in with some British concerns, and in this way he expects to regain the faith of the English-speaking communities. -‘But-after all,” as Herr Hubert himself says, “this will depend largely on whether he gives a variety-loving, amusement-seeking people, the right goods.” Herr Hubert will spend three weeks iu New Zealand.