Cinemas
On screen
Barnier continues

He's not a Negro, he's a prefect, and a famous one. He operates in the Var against cinema directors who persist, on the basis of the visa given to films by ministerial censorship in Paris, in wanting to screen them in their establishments. It costs these good French people a thousand prefectural harassments, and perhaps as many francs: summons to the simple police court, conviction, costs, etc... This is what the omnipotent Barnier wanted.
The latest fantasy of this cinephobe does not lack flavor. The Association of Var Show Directors informs us as follows:
“A tasty incident has just occurred during the fight that the prefect of Var undertook, almost two years ago, against cinema in his department.
The director of a cinema was prosecuted on July 4 before the simple police court of La Seyne-sur-Mer for having projected on the screen a film entitled: The Strongest, published by Fox-Film, and taken from the work of Georges Clemenceau, former prime minister and senator of Var.
Despite the indignant protests of the accused director, who cited in vain the ministerial visa with which the film was endorsed, and the authority of "Father Victoire", the film incriminated according to the findings of the report of the police commissioner - who must being a deadpan was deemed dangerous for order, morality and public tranquility in the Var department, and the director was condemned.
We must regret, for many reasons, the first purely literary, that “the Tiger” no longer exerts its claws in the press. The world loses beautiful pages, nervous, witty, vengeful. How well Barnier, the famous leader of L'Homme Libre, would have served us. Not only because this official seems to be attacking both the film and the author of the novel from which the said film is based, but also because this extravagant person (I'm talking about Barnier) is acting against the logic and legality. In the absence of Georges Clemenceau, withdrawn from the controversy, we are left with — thank God! — journalists who have tooth and nail, judge soundly and therefore defend good causes. I don't know of a better one - to be supported - than that of the Var director, bullied by his prefect, Clément Vautel, Louis Forest who understood, practiced cinema and each enjoy considerable authority, could drag themselves before the public opinion this Barnier, to make people laugh at his expense — prefect, you wanted it! — .bring him to return to the norm and wisdom.
A high-ranking personality should immediately call this prefect, Mr. Maunoury, Minister of the Interior, to order, to law and to common sense. He is careful not to... Would his subordinate have succeeded in convincing that clemency, even cinematographic, is the only enemy? It looks like it.

J-L Croze