Asked about the controversial beach scene between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here To Eternity, Zinnemann said:

"I remember being in a bit of trouble with censorship on that scene on the beach. We still had censorship in Hollywood at that time and it was difficult to be allowed to do that scene, but it was very interesting. And I had, over the years, a very good relationship with many people in the church, in particular in pictures like The Nun's Story - tremendous support after they decided they would trust me! But it took many months before that happened and not being a Catholic I knew practically nothing, so I had to do research in convents. And the warning signals must have been out because in the beginning when I came into a convent, there was utter politeness. With the greatest courtesy they would show me a printing press or something that had nothing to do with what I was looking for.

But after a while it all worked out and no one could have been more supportive, particularly the Assumptionists who were missionaries in what was then the Belgian Congo. And I had the great privilege of being there for several months and working there and seeing what they were doing. It was a tremendous education for me.

Asked about the fact that he felt there would be bad press in Europe for the American army From Here To Eternity were shown generally, he said:

"Yes, that was a time when the Americans were greeted as the saviours in Europe, saviours from Germany. And I felt that to show the film was not a happy idea and it should be postponed, but the film people of course didn't know what I was talking about. Anyway, they were very happy with all the money that came in! The reaction was very favourable and the picture was very successful and I think basically nobody thought any better or any worse of the army."

It must have been a big change to go into a picture like Oklahoma fairly soon after that, Canning asked:

"Yes, and to this day I don't understand why I was offered that, because nothing in my previous work would indicate that I had any kind of talent for that sort of thing, but I was fascinated by the possibilities of the big screen, the TODD-AO process, which was in itself technically very interesting. So it became very interesting for me from that point of view, but it was not anything that I had deep emotions about. Whereas in pictures like Man For All Seasons or High Noon and so forth, I was really emotionally very strongly involved."

On the fact that High Noon has now come a classic, he said:

"Ah yes, and I'm very pleased. Of course, the important thing is I directed it, but I was not the one who made the picture because the original impulse came from two people, the writer Carl Foreman, and the head of the small company, Stanley Kramer. So I was presented with a script that was so good that I wanted to make it very much."

He expanded the comment he had made in the past that his approach to cinematography was documentary in style:

"That comes totally from (Robert) Flaherty, because I was lucky enough to be his assistant and it was a picture that was never made. He was going to make a picture in Russia and he and the Russians couldn't get together on the story. So we sat in Berlin waiting for decisions for months and sat in a hotel drinking beer and he would talk and I'd just listen. And just by listening it's like getting an invaluable lecture, not only in what the possibilities of film were, but also the idea of not compromising your own ideas. Which the companies couldn't understand because they didn't know more than that they wanted to make money. There were a lot of them who were showmen and who understood very well, who loved the movies. They loved money a little bit more, but if they loved movies you could argue with them!

To give an example: when we were going to make From Here To Eternity, the head of the studio said to me that he thought we should make it in colour because he said the old boys in New York said we could make a million dollars more at the box office. And then I tried to explain to him why it should be made in black and white, and after a long argument he gave in, which today you can't do, because you'd be arguing with a board of 10 financiers who don't know the medium and don't care about it - they just care about the profit. So it's different languages altogether. It's very difficult to come to any kind of understanding unless you've made a film that's made a lot of dollars, then of course, they listen. And if you made two or three money-making pictures you become a great hero whether or not the picture's good. Sometimes they are very good because I think marvellous pictures are still being made, particularly some Irish ones which I thought were wonderful, you know.

I admire them very much, and not only directors who are excellent, but actors - wonderful actors. And I never had a chance of making a picture in Ireland but I think that there's a great future and a kind of cinema talent among actors, directors and picture makers in Ireland. A great sense of poetry - which is what we haven't got anywhere else that I can see."