'CUTTING THE CACKLE’

Hokitika Guardian, 21 November 1929, Page 3

'CUTTING THE CACKLE’

PROBLEMS OK TALKIE CENSORING.

MOW THE CENSOR WORKS

(Dominion.)

1 was scaled in a kineina so utterly exclusive, tliere were only six seats. It' was dark, and the whirr of tiie machinery close behind filled Hie darkness, with its gentle purring. On the miniature screen, pcrliup'eight feet away, a. man poured out. his intangible one dimensional drama. His ever-increasing family, thanks to the ta.lkie portion of the film, poured out its tale of woe from a sjxit, judging by the sound, some ten feet or so outside the draped window of forty feet above Courtenay Place. 'lhc young man, a budding editor, unfolded quite prettily, tbe old, old triangular story concerning his lack of judgment in the selection’of a wife. That, however, does not matter, for when the film is released, you may see it for yourself-—its name—well. . . .

Anyway, all conies beautifully right in the last hundred feet of film.

THE CENSOR TAKES NOTES

. It is but-one of many filmland: stor ies unfolded expressly in. tliis'theatreette, so that the film censor may cen--sor it. He sits behind me. At the end of every reek lie switches 011 a little shaded light .and makes notes. 'This was iinpxpifcjteQi,, il: had 1 thought censoring was i morei-dramatic.' When ipUjoGtionable j ..crept 1 on to our little scriigiirl imagined Tip would jump .up all quivering a.iuT shout , “Halfe-cgt that out’’ 011 the “off with this head-’* principle of the Duchess—but no, he takes notes.

111. spite of the fact that he mustsee at least four or five screenings daily now and then, he chuckles. “Understand,’’ says our young man. in 'beautiful sepulchral “talkie” tones, so suited to the occasion, “I want my own home.” His father-in-law lias asked him to board with the family and live 011. the top floor. “Re a mug if lie doesn’t get it,” the cenjsori icliiuckilns. 1 ;“H|f s ' very pAjtiptt*i.lohnnjo.”;; Sp lie was, • lgft that*, irrelevant.'. At (last 'ijn. t|ie liiolir/.'of time before the'last 1 few: feet ofr iajk-. ie unravels its plot ,on the white spi’een oor young man,; now,,of- course.famous, catches the boat to England. His wife, a horrible little fool, is left sobbing on her mother’s . shoulders, sobbing in ease slio won’t get a big; enough allowance, j .'

The reel is spent, the disembodied voices cease, the lights flick on, filling our unreal little world with drab realities.

QUITE DIFFERENT WORK. “A nice clean little picture,” said the censor. . It was, I quite,;agreed. He turned to met with a quiet smile. “Quite different from censoring silent.,stuff,” lie said. “Wliat with keeping your eye on. the action , and your, ear on ’.he sound, I can tell you, you’ve got to be pretty alert not to miss ..something in a long film.” He explained his problems; problems peculiar to this new marvel of science. “No,’’ he.said, “you can’t censor as you go along, i see the show right through. What you may consider objectionable at the beginning may be explain-, ml harmlessly away a little later on. 1 take notes of what 1 wish to he cut, but every time I make a. note it does not mean necessarily that I am on the war-path. This film—what do T think of it? Well, there’s nothing io be cut; quite clean. In every si pale film it would be possible to read into it all manner of nasty things. One must he reasonable though.

BUTHLFSSXFSS OF CENSORING

“\s it is, film censorin'' is fur more ruthless than in the case of hooks. It has to be. You don’t read books in public to all and sundry. If one were to cut out everythin'' that ini'dit be construed nastily, there certainly would he lew famous books in the world, and very few films. Why, even iii real life, perfectly innocent situations may be, ahd sometimes are read the wrong way. But the “talkies” have certainly brought up difficult problems for me. For instance, words which I am told are quite innocent in the States, sometimes have most objectionable meanings, double entendres, or insinuations here. He quoted some. “These have to be cut out ruthlessly.’> The actual cutting is a most complicated job. Roughly then* are two system of talkies in general use. In one system the actual talk is imprisoned in a series of varying shadows on the edge of the film itself. _ In this system the spoken word is about nineteen pictures ahead of the corresponding action. The objectionable word or sentence can thus he tracked down after a little practise and exterminated. An alert audience might notice a certain lack of continuity, but generally these obliterations pass unnoticed. Wlien action is cut out, it is necessary, of course, to cut out the spoken word as well. In the other system discs similar to gramophone records are interlinked with the notion. The film itself does not carry the light and shades from which words can he made. “The disc sys-

tem,” explained the tensor, “is really a far more difficult problem. Quite a little cutting generally means the whole thing being scrapped. “Not only is it difficult to track

down the offending words, but othei problems crop up. For one thing, the records wear rapidly. For tins reason, there may ho as many as fifty copies of each disc. it is impossible to insure that every single copy has been properly expurgated.’

CUV UNO 18 A N ART. “At present, of course, all the cutting is done by the importers, who make their own arrangements. Wliei tin get our on n official outfit—whenever that may he—we shall both con .or and do the. required cutting, as well. But the job is ail art. To: can’t just deprive the hero of al, spectli in those parts where tlu action is ail right, and the spoken words objectionable.'-’ J thought ol the poor hero at a critical moment, i.,iCue .lonsiy struck dumb hv the hand ol the cciiMir.

“Yes’” he remarked, “we just have to lie ruthless at times. It was J who hail lied ‘Alibi’—a crook play that gave away far too many hints for would-be burglars. It was one of the first talkies, and there was an outcry at the time. I see, though,” lie said, it has even been banned in many par Ls. of the limited States itself.’’

“Some people seem, to think that all Yankoc-ism should be cut out. They told me that in ‘Black Watch' .nere was far too much of it. As ;

matter of fact, I thought that quite a go d film. One cannot cut ‘Yankee idi' sine.rasios of intonation just because, of., the dialect itself without some other good reason. As a matter of frejt; the speech is (becoming better and - better. . Only- yesterday 1 was-censoring- a film in which a,wellknown; star was obviously making desperate efforts to speak good Engli.slj_he thought ; before every, sentence and.many words. It is. an encouragitig sign—.and just a little amusing—a distinct improvement on liis previous efforts.”