THE FILM CENSOR

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 73, 29 March 1937, Page 8

THE FILM CENSOR

NOT A PICTURE FAN

MAN WHO SEES EVERYTHING

PURGING THE SCREEN

A quiet evening at the pictures is about the last thing you want to suggest to a film censor if you want the party to remain friendly. It is the sort of thing that is liable to make him wince and turn pale and show you the door. And why not? After all, a film censor is entitled to feel a little sensitive about a thing like that. Life for. him is just one good, bad, or indifferent picture after another good, bad, or indifferent picture, and a night out at one of the local theatres by way of relaxation isn't his idea of a good time. He sees more pictures than even the most rabid picture fan in the country could possibly see, and the Clark Gables and the Greta Garboes and the Jimmy Durantes and all the rest of the dazzling company, so far^ as he is concerned, are not creatures to be admired and glorified. They are just part of his job. And so long as they behave themselves on the screen he is quite satisfied.

Mr. W. A. Tanner admits that he is not keen about going to the pictures, in the accepted sense of the term. He "goes" to the pictures five days a week. He is the man whose name you see signed on the certificate attached to every picture, large or small, that flashes on-the screen. He has his own picture show —a one-man picture show, on the fourth floor of a tall building in Courtenay Place. And every picture that comes into the country is first of all released in this private projectionroom, with its specially constructed screen and heavily curtained sides.

At a small table, with a shaded red reading lamp bent over it, sits Mr. Tanner, with an open book in front of him and a pencil in his hand, keeping a critical eye on the picture as it is recorded on the screen at the far end of the room. Next to him sits a "Post" reporter, and on the screen Ronald Colman and company "perform for the benefit of a small, but—at least, so far as one of them is concerned—a highly critical audience. • ■ The reading lamp is not alight the whole time. At various intervals, Mr. Tanner reaches behind him. and flashes the red light for a moment as he makes some note in the diary in front of him. This is a twelve-thousand-foof film, and as this flashing on of the light and the scribbling of notes proceed, the curiosity of the newspaperman reaches almost bursting point. Everybody in the picture has behaved properly. Mr. Tanner leans over, and explains. A REGULAR CHECK. "If you keep a close eye on the picture you will see every now and again a black or white dot in the corner," he remarks. "That occurs about every eight hundred feet, and marks the end of a section. I make, a note of it as it passes, as it makes it much easier for me to check up on any cutting that is necessary when I know which section requires to be cut, particularly in a long picture like this one." On goes the picture—a good picture, too. The red lamp flashes at intervals. Ronald Colman decides to fall in love with the charming heroine, and he does his courting like a gentleman. He does a little vigorous work with: his fists. There are some really first-class shots of mountain photography. Thencomes the moment of the Big Decision. And everything ends "nicely.

"Well, that's that," remarks Mr. Tanner, as he switches-on the white.light and swings back the curtains. ' "Quite an interesting picture." That, coming from a man who sees from 11 to 12 feature pictures a week, in addition to a whole host of smaller pictures and "trailers" —amounting to some 1200 a year—would appear ':t0 be commendation indeed. .■'.-.

"No, there was nothing to cut in that picture," he remarked. "As a matter of fact, I haven't had to do much lately, and so far this year I have not had to reject any. You see, what we do is to send small portions of the excised film back to'the producers— either that, or a description of them, and they get to know what we want and what we don't want. And the result is that we don't have much trouble now."

The censor is equipped with very wide powers under the Act.; He is, in fact, the guardian of the public welfare so far as the film industry is concerned, and if he thinks the public should not see a certain film, or portion of a film—well, they don't see it, and that is all there'is to it. But, as he says himself, he has a wide discretion, and he does not try to place too narrow an interpretation upon it.

"You know, a lot is blamed on to the pictures," he remarked. "If a boy or a girl is caught in any misdemeanour, it is often blamed on to the pictures. The children themselves will say, by way of excuse, that they 'saw it in the pictures.' One is entitled to ask whether there were any bad boys or girls before the pictures were thought of." / EFFECT OF LITERATURE. Mr. Tanner thinks that undesirable literature, over which children were prone to pore, had more bad.influence than a picture, which, after all, was more or less ephemeral in its effect. It is Mr. Tanner's experience that these types of picture are a very small proportion of the totai output. A comprehensive survey in England recently disclosed that only 4 per cent, of the pictures viewed were below the; code. "I realise," he said, "that 90 per cent, of the people go to the pictures for entertainment only."

Touching" on the question of rejections, Mr. Tanner said he had had it thrown at him about the number of gangster, pictures that were shown. "I cannot regulate the number of gangster pictures made," he stated, "and I would like to point out that we have had gangsters for hundreds of years. Even Shakespeare knew about them and incorporated them in his 'Romeo and Juliet.'"

Mr. Tanner said that all suggestive matter in a film was excised, but there were times when an indifferent artist might make a crudity of a scene which could be handled by a finished artist in an attractive and artistic manner.

The job of cutting a film, he explained," required considerable care and technical knowledge. Sound travelled more slowly than light, and as a rule the sound tracks were some 15 or 16 inches ahead of the corresponding picture, and in making a cut in a film this had to be taken into account. Otherwise, some- rather curious synchronised effects were liable to develop. :