NOT SUITABLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 744, 17 August 1929, Page 27

NOT SUITABLE

British Censors Ban Forty Films CRIME AND NUDITY Iu the report of the British Board Film Censors, just published, it is revealed that the Board is exercising its powers to good purpose, and wherever producers have overstepped the bounds of decency and good taste, they have found that, thanks to the hoard’s activities, their money was wasted and their enterprise abortive.

Although the attitude of the censors should now be well known, the Board states that during the year no fewer than 345 films were submitted to which exception was taken by the examiners. Among the objectionable features were:—

Fainful scenes of lunacy. Intimate biological studies unsuitable for general exhibition. Suggestive and indecorous dancing. Nude and semi-nude figures. Contract and companionate marriages. “Orgy” scenes. Scenes in and connected with houses of ill-repute. White Slave traffic. Vampit g. Deliberate preparations for suicide. Executions, and incidents connected therewith. Cruelty to animals. Bull fights. Torture scenes. “Crook” films in which sympathy is enlisted for the criminals. Films were sent to the censors in which there were references to the Prince of Wales, travesties and mockery of Biblical characters, and comic treatment, of incidents connected with death. After amendment, and in some cases very drastic alterations, 305 of the films to which objection had been taken were granted the board’s certificate. The board issues a warning to producers on the increasing production of crime films, which are given a certificate only with important reservations. The talkies have provided the board with a new problem. Where acting is synchronised with dialogue or music, “to delete even a foot upsets the continuity of the whole of the reel.” The board hopes that pr oducers will avoid the introduction into their films of words or incidents likely to be unacceptable.