Margory Cohen sends a note about an old film (a good one, based on a novel by Charles Willeford and starring the late Warren Oates and Harry Dean Stanton) being banned from an Edinburgh film festival for CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.
“EDINBURGH, Scotland – The Edinburgh International Film Festival canceled the screening of a movie about cockfighting after being told it might be illegal to show the film.
” “Cockfighter,” a critically acclaimed 1974 movie about masculinity and blood sports set in the southern United States, was to have been shown Tuesday.
“The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said screening the movie could be illegal under animal cruelty laws because the fights weren’t staged.
” “They are very real and extremely brutal,” said the group’s spokeswoman, Natalie Smart. “Following an anonymous tip-off, we notified the EIFF that showing it in public would be illegal.” “
Meanwhile, the same week, a “comedy” festival audience in that same Scotland cheered an anti- Semitic comic. The world has gone mad.
Margory notes: “Not because I’m a defender of pit sport, more because — because —
it’s like the old Cajun sheriffs used to tell the fellas going to the dog fights — don’t want no man trouble tonight.”