Salt Lake Telegram | 1938-09-24 | Page 6 | Nations and Pictures

I i Nations and Pictures F It I F the there is anything to the psychologists psychologists' claim that the touchy offended easily-offended person is lS r really ally suffering from froma a a d deep p sense of his own inferiority then the dictator nations must be bo afflicted with the most complete te inferiority complexes com corn lexes ever seen The Italian government nt is providing an illustration This time it is marching to war against two American moving pictures Marie Marie res Marie Antoinette recently produced and Farewell to Arms filmed some years ago and currently having a revival The The first one it offended one seems because bet be be- t cause cus it displays all the ferocious bloodiness mice malice rn e and nc barbarian qu qualities of the people of of i the French revolution from which after t f years years' th the peoples people's front h has s been born And And the second is an insult to the Italian soldier who has won three wars A revival of the film will wil not be looked upon lightly by Rome even ven if no Italian ever sees it for says Fascist st Bigwig Robert Farinacci defamation calumny t and insult would remain even if the film were shown in the smallest Broadway house Now it takes a pretty touchy people to o get so stirred I f up by DY a couple of movies There is indeed something rather ridiculous about a nation which insists that it is the reincarnation of Caesars Caesar's Rome Borne being so mortally offended at the thought that someone in some suburban movie house in America merica may may see a moving picture which shows the It Italian l an army in the process of retreat A nation which really felt fel that it was great mighty and powerful all-powerful would hardly worry so much about so insignificant a slight iL Which indicates indicates' perhaps that the dictator states states and and they all seem t to be just as touchy on T these matters as It Italy ly is is-don't is don't dont believe believe in their own boasts They bruise too easily But there is is' is another side to it which isn't quite quit so funny 1 It Itis is quite possible that this offensive counter-offensive t from th the land Jand of fascism sm may have some effect r f on the kind of dramas American movie-goers movie i may see in their own theaters Moving picture companies do a big export business they cant can't always afford to to get in wrong with a European government for fear of reprisals It has happened before that Hollywood has laid off of certain subjects certain stories and certain methods of treatment in order to avoid the will ill-will of one or another of the dict dic y I t tors And th that t is c carrying things hing a bit too far f As long as th the uniformed braggarts of Sf of Europe r f confine their war on freedom and truth to their ib own lands lands' we cant can't complain much But when t they exert a censorship censorship and that is what it amounts to to oVer over the channels of artistic f 5 expression expression ex ex- ex- ex in our own country we have a right to object t. t