PICTURE CENSORSHIP.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 April 1921, Page 5

PICTURE CENSORSHIP.

MR. JOLIFFE’S WORK. VIEWED 20,000,000 FEET OF FILM. The film censor, Mr. W. Joliffe, has been on duty in that capacity for four years and a half, and at the end of last month had watched 20,000,000 feet of film projected on the screen. He says his eyes have not suffered in the least as a result. Discussing the censorship, Mr. Joliffe mentioned the infrequency , of appeals against his decisions. Only three have been made in the whole four years and a half. Recently the Board of Appeal was remodelled to include ladies. The members are now: Mrs. A. R. Atkinson, Mrs. E. J. Righton, and Mr. H. M. Gore. They have just sat in judgment on the first appeal which was made to them, and, as it happened, reversed the censor’s judgment. The question was political, not moral. Film censorship, in Mr. Joliffe’s opinion, cannot be reduced to written formulae. Every case must be judged on its merits. It is possible from the censor’s chair to do something to educate public opinion, but it is not easy to see any improvement. Mr. Joliffe declared that one of the pictures he passed recently was “the most morbid, the worst acted, and the worst photographed” that he had yet dealt with, but it broke the box office records for New Zealand.