Kōrero: Arts reviewing

Gordon Mirams contemplates Summer madness at the Film Censor's Office in 1956. In the 1950s Mirams was the film censor, but for many years he had been New Zealand's only serious film critic. Mirams reviewed film for the Christchurch Sun and the Radio Record in the 1920s and 1930s. His film column in the New Zealand Listener, Speaking Candidly, was a regular feature from 1939 to 1947. Mirams reviewed films during a classic era of cinema, treating them as a serious art form when most people regarded them simply as entertainment.