The woes of film distributors in Japan are legion, As in several other lands, the censor here, who by the pay is a high police official and is entitled to wield the scissors in autocratic fashion, subjects the celluloid strip to very rough treatment.
Pictures of a low moral tone, sensual: in parts to excess, are often absolutely untouched provided they have a setting that makes them re~ fleet Occidental life, If such pictures are transferred to a Japanese setting, then the autocrat of the scissors nips and nips till the film is ruined or else blankly refuses to allow it to ba shown.
Some time ago, "The Forbidden Paradise," starring Polo Negri and produced by the Famous Players Lasky Corporation, under the direction of Ernst Lubitsch, was release ed after having been kept in the cupboards of the censors for two years, When it was first brought to Japan in 1924, it was declared to be unfit because it deals with the life and love of a queen and with an Army mutiny.
After several conferences between! the censor and the distributors, it, was agreed that the film would be released, provided that the titles were re-written, the locale of the raised to 25 is believed to be the {fore-runner of prohibition in Japan.
Reasons for demanding a revision lof the law are classified under four heads:—(1) That the present age limit is not high enough because the plastic period of mind and body of young man continues till he is at Toast 25 yenrs of age; (2) that a young man must be free fro Viquor until the age of 25 because that period is the most important in his life; (3) that about 4.000,000 embers of Young Men's Association, for the most part soldiers and students, will thereby be prohibited from drinking; and (4) that the proposed revision will establish a good social custom.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.