Steeled Dawn

So Columbia Pics President Dawn Steel thinks the film “The Beast” lacks “broad-based American appeal” (“Tough as Steel,” by Nina J. Easton, Oct. 30).

Perhaps she needs to take a look inside her calloused consciousness and admit that she has become conditioned to genocide in the 20th Century. Give me a break, Ms. Steel.

“The Killing Fields,” a chronicle of Pol Pot’s reign of terror in Cambodia, was favorably received by Hollywood and the public.

Moreover, her statement that “The Beast” was “too violent to secure a spot at the Cannes Film Festival” smacks of her heart of steel. Many valiant French people have aided the Afghan resistance since the Soviet invasion; the French press coverage of the conflict is to be commended and their nation’s interest in the subject matter is well known.

THEODORA BELTSON

Los Angeles