BANNED FILM SCENES

Hokitika Guardian, 29 August 1931, Page 3

BANNED FILM SCENES

WORK OF TfiE CENSOR, ■LENIENCE IN LOVE-MAKING. Last year .nearly 200 films did not reach the cinema, because they failed to pass the tests of examiners whose difficult and unenviable business it is to decide what is and what is not suitable for people to see and hear. The yeai before considerably more than 200 films were ‘‘tabooed” #for the same reason, writes John B. Myers in “The Film Weekly.” ’When it is known that a film has failed to pass the censor, it is generally and often quite erroneously, that its rejection is due to too daring love scenes. Unfortunately for film producers, there are countless other anu less exciting situations than hectic love Scenes to be avoided if his film is tu pass the censor. In the case of last year’s films, the following were among the reasons for rejection: Travesties of religious rites, which might offend certain sections of the community ; references to royalty ; British officers shown in an unfavourable light; political propaganda ; too much shooting; intoxication; and cruelty. Not one of the above, it will be noticed, has anything to do with the bedroom scenes inseparable from censorship in the public mind.

Plenty of, latitude is allowed in' the matter of screen love-making, despite the. ban against “companionate marriage,” “free love,” immodest or immoral scenes and “vamping.” Film producers do not. seem to. faKei much notice of the injunction to ayoid “vamping,’’ nor is the” censor very strict on this subject if. we,are to believe our eyes.

NO “VULGAR NOISES.” Since the talkies the censor has had to ke s p his ears as well as his eyes open, and one of his. latest injunctions is against “vulgar noises arid harsh screams.” This, 1 am not sorry to note, j will at least deal a death-blow to the | vulgar but eloquent “raspberry,” so beloved of certain screen comedians and so avidly copied by enterprising boys.-| Although there is also. a long list of words and phrases which must never sully the .ears of the film-goers, many ol ' these are - neither blasphemous nor j obsencei For instance, one of the latest 1 phrases to be deleted from talkie dia- j logue is the well known “O Death, win re j is thy sting ?” Heart-breaking groans ' and the cries of wounded soldiers are other censored sounds.

. A film producer in England is given a list of what is forbidden, and if he violates these instructions he knows what,to expect. His art lies, apparently, in sailing as close to the winds of censorship as possible. r _ In America, however, where certain States have their own censorship laws, grey-hair .is far more common amongst producers. Many. of these purely local censo.rshjp rulings, seem patently . absurd, such as the' one which forbids the showing of real, money or banknotes on the screen RELIGION AND CRIME. Some censors are particularly careful that nothing shall offend even the most delicate religious susceptibilities of anyone. For this reason , scenes depicting divinity or life after death are forbidden, a recent instance being the banning in England of the film version of Sutton Vahe’s “Outward Bound.” There is even an ■ excellent clause forbidding the Salvation, Army from being shown in an unfavourable light.

For every little thing that prevents a film, passing the censor there are a hundred that will prevent it getting the certificate that makes it . suitable for children to see. Other-items in the. long list of 1931 “taboos” include the showing of an intoxicated woman, wounds, cruelty to animals, crimes which may be imitated, criminals likely to gain the sympathy of the audience, hanging 01 executions either serious or comic ( !), torture scenes and., gangsters heroes: Bullets and blood are. also to be strictly ■ rationed in the future; Indeed, a study ’’of the official film censorship rules mak s one wonder how it was that only 200 films escaped being banned last year.