Film Posters Require No Special Censors

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 865, 8 January 1930, Page 11

Film Posters Require No Special Censors

POLICE SHOULD ACT EXHIBITORS’ OPINION Asserting that censorship by individuals of motion-picture posters was no cure, and that the police should be the authority to determine if a bill was unfit for exhibition, Mr. Henry Hayward presented an exhibitor's opinion to the controversy raised by Canon Percival James in Wellington. "I think that Canon James has taken a very exaggerated view of the need for censorship of posters,” said Mr. Hayward. He pointed out in all lines of art, as well as literature, critics could easily find cause for dissatisfaction with many of the pictures and book covers presented to the public and displayed in the shop windows, and in particular was this element evident in certain newspaper placards and magazine covers, some of which were much worse than any film poster. “It is not possible in this modern world to puritauise art and literature, and there will always be a wide diversity of opinion concerning the taste of every form. Censorship is no cure for the extravagances that prevail,” he added in illustrating the point by reference to the severe form of censorship which the Puritans tried to practise a couple of centuries ago. This movement as a whole was not to the advantage of the world and was soon repudiated. It was really censorship that cast Bunyan and Defoe into gaol, he remarked. SHOULD BE LEFT TO POLICE Mr. Hayward announced his opposition to increased censorship of film posters, and he considered that this question should be left to the police, who should decide whether any bill exceeded decency and could issue a summons against the exhibitor. To surrender the determination of the taste of posters to two or three specially appointed persons would not be advisable either from the viewpoint of liberty or art. The exhibitors were in the position of having to accept the posters sent them with the films, the majority of which were printed in America or Great Britain. He announced his opposition to the Town Clerk being allowed to exercise his discretion in deciding on the quality of posters which were the subject of complaint. There had been few, if any, objections raised during the past two years, although most of the posters displayed here were identical with those exhibited in Wellington. “In any case, we will always have a section of the community trying to j force its opinion down our throats, and if it succeeds in this campaign, why should not censorship be extended to magazines and newspapers?” SATISFIED WITH TOWN CLERK The attitude taken by Mr. A. L. O’Brien, of the Civic Theatre, was that the jurisdiction exercised by the Town Clerk, in viewing posters which were the subject of complaint, was quite satisfactory and that Mr. Brigham’s decision was invariably accepted. He pointed out that, to his knowledge, there had been no complaints that people’s sense of decency had been offended by the posters exhibited in Auckland during the past 18 months or two years.

“It does not pay to show offensive bills,” he said, because parents will not allow their children to attend shows, the advertising posters of which were suggestive, and the matinees, one of the most profitable of entertainments, suffer severely.”