‘DAWN’ TO BE SCREENED IN DEFIANCE OF BAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 297, 7 March 1928, Page 1

‘DAWN’ TO BE SCREENED IN DEFIANCE OF BAN

CHAPLAINS STORY “NOT SUBJECT FOR FILM”

By Cable. —Press Association. — Copyright. LONDON, Tuesday.

The producer of the Cavell film, “Dawn,” Mr. Wilcox, announces that despite the censors’ ban it will be screened in cinema theatres throughout Britain. Committees in three of the large cities will inspect the film in order to ascertain its fitness for exhibition to the public. The Rev. Horace Gahan, who was a British chaplain at Brussels in the Great War, and was the last Englishman to see Nurse Cavell alive, says: “I am strongly opposed to the exhibition of the film ‘Dawn.’ “It is most undesirable to reawaken memories of the war even if they are accurate, and apparently this film is not. Miss Cavell did not faint on the execution ground and no soldier refused to fire. She was not shot by an officer. The execution was carried out in the usual way, none of the firing squad knowing which rifle was loaded with blank or real cartridge.

“I regard the hour I spent with Miss Cavell on the night before her execution as the most sacred in my lifetime. The subject emphatically is, not one that should be reproduced on the films. Miss Cavell was a brave and noble woman who deemed it her duty to do as she did, but she was perfectly aware she was acting contrary to the laws of war and was running a very grave risk.” —A. and N.Z.-Sun.