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We are grateful that TIME has seen fit to publicize the cruelty inflicted on animals in making the picture Jesse James [TIME, Feb. 6]. So many pictures are being shown in which horses are thrown violently to the ground; animals are made to fight furious battles, which they would never do in the wilds, and other cruel acts are depicted that it is time the motion picture industry was made to understand that such acts are contrary to public opinion. . . .
MARIE ROSATO Secretary Louisiana State Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals New Orleans, La.
Sirs:
Regarding the horse killed in Jesse James which Darryl Zanuck claims in print and letters was an "accident," it is difficult to see how he can thus construe an animal deliberately hurled over a cliff. I am no sentimentalist but as a decided movie fan I and many like me do not relish having an evening spoiled by witnessing scenes in which there is ill treatment of animals, and cross off the list all such pictures when there is advance information.
That incidents can be treated without loss of excitement was proved in Anthony Adverse when Director Mervyn Le Roy showed the team and coach plunging over a precipice by using a long shot of a dummy. The American Humane Association is to be congratulated . . . and TIME'S fair treatment of the matter is what we have come to expect from our invaluable weekly visitor.
(Miss) CURTIS WAGER-SMITH Willow Grove, Pa.