29 OCTOBER 1937, Page 6

I see a News Reel Association of Great Britain and

Ireland has been formed to protect the interests of all con- nected with the production, distribution and exhibition of news-reel pictures. This means, I hope, that there will be a body qualified not merely to make representations where necessary, but to receive them where necessary. News-reels are a welcome and valuable feature of the moving-picture world, but their potentiality for evil as well as for good is great. Nothing is more important than that what profess to be news-pictures should be news-pictures pure and simple. We do not want political doctrines, or political institutions or even anything as laudable in itself as recruiting, pushed insidiously by news-reels which profess to be giving straight news and nothing else. But if we do not want it we some- times get it. The only safeguard is in intelligent vigilance by audiences, and firm protest when the case demands it.

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