Motion picture censors' and reviewers' manual: a handbook (1934)

Page 7* of this character is making itself known so that this offense against good taste and sense will be righted in the not distant future* Certain types of drama require such scenes to give them realism and local color, and to these in moderation the National Board can rationally take no exceptions. Such scenes must be used with discretion and made of significance in the drama. Scenes of this type are discouraged by the National Board* and if.it need be, condemned. Occasionally producers essay to Use drunkenness as a source of amusement, especially as farce or burlesque* m general, the Board has condemned this* If, however, the farce and ridiculousness of the situation so. far outshadow the intoxication that the latter is forgotten, pictures have sometimes been passed even though intoxication was the basis of the amusement. Few producers and actors can handle the subject inoffensively, and the tendency of the Board is more and more to eliminate such scenes altogether . Vulgarity m Pictures * Exasperating though vulgarity is in photoplays, the National Board considers that this question is not one properly handled by censorship methods providing morals be not outraged* The Board makes a constructive report to the producers each week on all films, and these comments, of course, give the attitude of the Board on questions of vulgarity in specific pictures* These reports, together with the occasional bulletins issued by the Board to the producers, are gradually correcting this offense against good sense and decency*. The real difficulty is that the poorer type of producer mistakes vulgarity for wit* When the general public makes known at the theatres in unmistakable terms its disgust at the exploiting of vulgarity, we may look for a reversal of policy on the part of these manufacturers who now, in picturing vulgarity, cater to what they profess to believe the public wants* This reform is being accelerated by the fact that all manufacturer es are now making an effort to produce pictures which will appeal to the cultured portion of the public as well as the less cultured* Vulgarity which is divorced from immorality is not a legitimate subject for censDrship other than that of the slow working of public opinion; and unless the vulgarity closely borders on immorality or indecency, the National Board feels compelled to ignore it* The same is true of inanity also* prolonged Passionate Love Scenes* One of the reforms established by the National Board has been the curtailment of prolonged love scenes* Even now -some of the love scenes in motion picture dramas are sickishly sentimental and not the expression or a compelling emotion* But evil suggestion has been eliminated* though the effect of some of the present love scenes on the better class of audience is often unpleasant. ' If these experiences are treated truthfully, sympathetically, and artistically, there is no objection to their being shown* Such is frequently not the case* The National Board believes that it is one of the purposes of censorship to keep out of the mire the great experiences of humanity so that they may be not cheapened to the extent of losing their significance* To this extent, the National Board is responsible for taste in the pictures, though it only steps in when there is unquestioned need for its doing so* For the most part, the National Board assumes no responsibility for the taste, as such, displayed in the picture* A gradual raising of the standards on this type of photoplay is to be expected through