The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1913-06-08
MOVIE" CENsORs
FORCED To RELAX
Official Dictators in Berlin
eco the Limit in Barring
of Productions.
VIEWS ARE PECULIAR
Logically Carried Out, Stand
Taken Would Bar Classic
Drama.

BERLIN, June THE free handed
days Of the Berlin police censor OF
| clnematograph films, whose decisions
against alleged Objectionable pictures
| have caused wrath and disgust to the
movie" managers and amusement to
the rest of Berlin, have come to an
| end. The superior administrative court
has overruled his decision prohibit
| ing film showing a penniless artist
obtaining free dinner for himself and
family in restaurant by the cx-
pedlent Of smuggling sardine into the
| pudding at the end Of the meal, ex-
hibiting it to the Mortified waiter and
| refusing to pay his check because the
| pudding was served in that condition.
the film on the ground that it might
encourage other persons to defraud
| restaurant keepers.
Problems Pending.
A number Of other vetoes by the
| police censor on the ground that the
production of the film might incite to
| crime remains to be acted upon by the
| superior court. These include the story
Of sickly tenement child taken to
the country by kind farmers and cared
4
time comes to leave for the city. After
| bidding her benefactors goodbye the
| child goes into a nearby garden and
| plucks some flowers as a remembrance.
| The censors forbade the film on the
| ground that it represented a crime
! trespass and theft Another film de-
| picted an attack on a farmer in his
home by robbers, who overpower him
after struggle, rob the house, manacle
the farmer and bind him to the rail.
road tracks, where he is rescued at the
| last moment as a train Is bearing
down on him. The censors' shears
eliminated that portion of the film
showing the struggle, the robbery and
| the binding of the man to the tracks.
As result the astonished public sees
the robbers entering the house and
suddenly sees the farmer, manacled, ly
| ing before the onrushing train.
Films Modified.
| In another film The victim smokes
| drugged cigar and is robbed while In
| stupor AS the public finally saw the
production, the victim ard the villain en-
ter house arm in arm--a flash and the
film goes on TO show the former awaken
Ing from a doze on the floor,
1t is against the law In Germany to
appropriate articles found in the street:
instead they must be turned over to the
lost and found bureau OF the police. For
lulS reason d llIiil WHICH SiluWeu q lOsci
picking up an article dropped by his
adored one, wrapping 1t up and placing
II next his heart was censored; 1T rep
resented the commission of a crime,
AS Applied to Plays.
1t Is reasonably pointed out that were
this same standard applied to the theater,
many OF the worlds greatest plays could
stage Faust" would have TO go. Most
OF Shakespeare's dramas: the. tragedies
of Schiller, 'tMedea. "orestes." and the
other Greek plays which are now being
produced at German playhouses, all
would be barred on the ground that they
present the commission OF crimes or In
citement thereto, Little will be left OF
German repertoires unless the superior
court jnterferes as il has done in the
of hn t,nildd n q rdlna' film.