The miracle of the movies (1947)

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THE SENSELESSNESS OF CENSORSHIP 349 out of the sadist's whip and the bloodstains out of the carpet beneath the murdered body). Outside of the picture house, however, little Elmer and Irwin can revel in the tabloids and the comics, and Alfred and Ida can pore at leisure over that Sunday paper, which boasts of a circulation so huge that it obviously enters one out of every ten homes in Britain, the columns of which are devoted every week to rape and incest, to clergymen who interfere with choir boys, to old harridans who use instruments to procure abortion, and to shabby little photographers who pose nudes in their studios, to say nothing of the rest of the miserable parade of debauchees and perverts who appear in its columns every Sabbath for the beguilement of those aforesaid parents and guardians whose presence is essential at the pictures lest little Alfred or Ida gets the impression that married couples occupy the same bedroom (not the same bed — the film censor won't allow that), or that when a gun goes off someone may get killed, things which the parent or guardian is apparently expected to explain away as myths of the film makers' imaginations. The alternative for the parent or guardian is not to take the youngsters to the pictures but give them a comic to read. In fact, their daily paper probably contains several comic strips. And no censors interfere in the production of comics. Week in and week out, one notorious young lady appears in one of the most popular of all working class newspapers depicted as wearing only the scantiest of gossamer-like frillies — and to be in constant danger of losing even those ! She has no " A " or " U " certificate to worry her pretty head. In the coloured comic papers there is stuff of a sterner kind for Elmer and Alfred. Here is a hero who has discovered that the villain's strength is ascribable to the hypnotic power of his eyes. The hero easily settles that ; he puts the other's eyes out by smashing them with an iron chain. The English language receives scant respect from the creators of the comic strips, and morality is typified by the pretty secretary who sits on the boss's knee or the fiery Spanish or Mexican girl who relieves her suppressed sex instincts by sticking a knife in her unresponsive beloved. The title, comic, is sometimes baffling. The broadcasting organisations of America and Britain can likewise stage their horrific plays without fear of censorship ; the