Island Plea For More Movies

From Our Mangaia Correspondent THE one surviving local talkie-show upon Mangaia, Lower Cook Group, which began with a whoop and a rattle some two years ago, and was there after well patronised, is apparently be coming a victim of the much-discussed dollar gap.

Feature films are not of the quality we once enjoyed; handsome, half-Tahitian Jon Hall no longer does deeds of derring do in Glorious Technicolour. and “repeats” are dishearteningly frequent—it would ap pear that the exchanges in NZ have a smaller supply of films, and these of a lower grade, than in 1949. The dubious advantage of getting in to a fourth repeat for sixpence is our local playgoers’ one compensation for the existing state of affairs.

What we all want to know is, what are British producers doing about the matter?

Have they not, perhaps, realised that at Mangaia Island there is a market for The Red Shoes, Morning Departure, etc., etc?

True, they might take but twenty pounds a night; but it would at least be in Empire currency.

In general, the sound-on-film show has put the clock of native progress— mentally, at least —forward half a cen tury, and, should supplies of films be re duced (or even fail entirely) a valuable educational adjunct would be lost to the islands.

Mr. L. G. Usher, Public Relations Officer to the Government of Fiji, accom panied by Mrs. Usher, arrived in Sydney early in May, having travelled via New Zealand. They left Sydney on May 5 bj the Orion, to sbend several months of long leave in Europe. Next month, Mr. Ushei will attend, at the Colonial Office, a conference of Public Relations Officers from all over the Empire.