Cinema: Newsreel, may 16, 1955

¶ Cinemactress Ruth Roman sailed for England to star in a new film version of Macbeth that sounded more like Mickey Spillane than Shakespeare. Said Actress Roman: "We're doing Macbeth on a sex basis. I'm playing a slut (Lily Macbeth). Joe Macbeth (Paul Douglas) is a gangster who turns yellow and leaves the killing up to Lily. I'll do it with a revolver. We thought a knife would be too bloody."

¶ Two German movie companies announced that they will produce films about the unsuccessful July 20, 1944 plot against Hitler. German producers in the last two years have turned out half a dozen strongly anti-war films. Packed movie houses indicate that German audiences enjoy the self-examination.

¶ Britain's film censor, Arthur T. L. Watkins, delivered an ultimatum to U.S. producers (whose movies last year grossed $109,992,000 in Britain): "Anyone who prolongs scenes of violence is only doing so to titillate a small unhealthy section of the audience." More broadminded about sex than U.S. censors, Watkins long ago abandoned the taboo on picturing husbands and wives in bed together by commenting: "Where else would you expect them to sleep nights?"