Experts Doctor Censored Scenes

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 762, 7 September 1929, Page 25

Experts Doctor Censored Scenes

Puff of Smoke Fills Awkward Gap in Film SOLVING A DIFFICULTY The lover sings softly at the piano. Nearby stands his sweetheart, whose eyes reflect her adoration. She takes a cigarette from a case, lights it and drifts toivard a divan. K DAINTY ankle comes into view, and gradually more of the silken-clad leg is shown until one sees a perfectly-shaped leg from an inch above the knee to the dainty foot. This is not the start of a snappy novel, but an actual scene from a “talkie,” a scene which picturegoers will not see, says the “Sydney Sun.” It has been cut out by the censor, and two men have “doctored” the film in such a way that the lover still sings his song without interruption, while his sweetheart, instead of inhaling the cigarette smoke once only, does it twice, and thus preserves the continuity of the film. Since the advent of the “talkies” a new era in cutting out scenes has come to the film world. When the silent films held sway it was quite a

simple matter for some objectionable portion to be chopped out or a title altered, but now there are two other, factors which have to be considered —synchronised music and dialogue. There are two types of talkies. In one the sound track is on the film, while in the other the music or dialogue is contained on a disc which runs in conjunction with the projection apparatus. Therefore, it can be easily imagined that it is a much more simple matter to cut the movietone (sound-track) than the disc film. When the censor’s cut is made on the movietone the film is run through again, and experts listen in for the broken portion. Sometimes there has been a decided change in the synchronised music, and additional cuts have had to be made by the importers themselves to preserve the continuity. In dialogue talkies the same rule prevails. If the censors’ cuts interfere greatly with the plot of the story, additional cuts are made to connect up. The cuts have not caused the movietone importers many hours of anxiety, but it is a different matter with the distributors of the disc talkie. If a cut is made by the censor on this class of film, it automatically interferes jvith the disc attachment, because if 60 feet of film is banned by the board, there is still the same amount of words or music on the disc which cannot be cut out. Something had to be done Ijy the disc people to overcome this, and now to keep up the synchronisation, certain scenes are duplicated, and where it is not an all-talkies the titles are lengthened. Of course, the cuts have to be done very carefully, and the replacement made correct to the fraction of an inch. Otherwise the dialogue, which may come later in the film, or some other scene, such as a shot or a motor horn, will either be half a second too early or too late. Passionate Kiss In a film not so long ago, the censors made a cut. It was where a man, in proposing to a woman, kisses her passionately on the neck. In this particular portion of the film the corresponding part on the disc was music, followed later by dialogue. The passionate kiss was chopped out and replaced with a longer title. When this picture is shown on the screen in Sydney’s theatres no one will be any the wiser that about 60 feet of film has been replaced. This “doctoring” of films is certainly done very cleverly. j However, there is one problem that the disc people have not solved. It ! is replacing a word on a disc—which i in every way resembles a huge gramo- ! phone record. j Once these discs are made nothing j can alter them, and if the censor reI jects a word—one word only—the film j is of no earthly use, and is returned to the makers in America. In the silent pictures, scenes were shot, titles put on the film, and it did not matter one iota if they were cut out or the titles altered. There j was no sound track or disc to worry j about then. j Over 100 talkies from one firm have been examined by the censors, and of these only three have had to be sent back to America because the words on the disc offended the regulations. The cutting is not nearly as great in the talkies as in the silents. In the last 20 films from this firm examined by j the board not a single cut was made. Of course there have been, some | serious cuts —particularly in a recent I picture which showed a gang war in i Chicago. Most of the war was chopped out, and to preserve the continuity the film had to be strongly doctored, i But even despite this, the expert is j the only one who can tell where a film 1 has been patched.