And Reply

Sebastapol makes no attempt to defend "Two-Faced Woman" but assumes that it was enjoyed by "normal" people and criticised only by Bolsheviks, puritans and morons. The extremely poor houses which it drew in the one week it showed in Wellington suggest that his boast of normality is fortunately unjustified and that appreciation of the film was confined to those who can believe that "Ulysses" was banned because people would not enjoy its wisecracks for their wit and swiftness or the story for its own sake. Actually, of course, Joyce committed the unpardonable sin of dealing honestly with sex and showing our Sebastapols to be not quite the pleasant and healthy-minded little fellows they think themselves. Nor did I accume M.G.M. of producing the film with a desire to debauch the minds of the proletariat; they produced it because they knew it would be received with a suitably tolerant and slightly envious snigger by the Sebastapols of every class. What I said and what Sebastapol's letter proves is that the complete [unclear: cultura] and moral degradation of those who accept such rubbish tends to be accompanied by political [unclear: creti] useful to the enemies of society.

—H.W.