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

Page 11* all his Western cowboy characters, for instance, according to the recipe laid down in such authorities as lurid weeklies professing to portray frontier life In the wild West.. But unless the action depicted in addition to being senseless, is als® immoral or criminal, the Board holds thart the matter should not be handled through censorship, but rather through the gradual protest of public opinion,. When; however , ^frontier justice* brings about results contrary to those which would be secured through the regular agents of the law, the National Board finds that almost always it must eliminate the action,, for under normal conditions, it will not pass pictures which show the successful balking of the law* Some latitude should: be shown perhaps to pictures of the •wild and woolly* variety where next to impossible deeds are pictured* The conditions are such that the motion, picture patron would find it practically impossible to duplicate them, and the whole action takes place in an atmosphere of rough romance* Thus it sometimes happens that the logical effect (that it is at times laudable to contravene the law) is lost, and the total effect of a picture, -namely that the forces of good triumph over the forces of evil, warrants the Board in passing it* The Board disapproves of the inanity shown in the characters armed and discharging their guns to no purpose* Such actions do nothing to advance the plot of the story and possibly in the long run have a bad effect upon the audiences, since they engender carelessness in the handling of firearms* This whole matter of weapons will soon correct itself, aided by public opinion and the increasing strictness of the National Board* Treatment of Officer Of The Law And Respect For The Law. Pictures involving the law and officers of the law require most careful handling* There is certain value at times in showing the miscarriage of justice, but this needs to be handled with discretion, and the work should be approached in a spirit of greater seriousness than simply amusement or entertainment* At the present rapid rate at which films are produced, this is a most difficult thing to accomplish, and the Board warns producers against attempting it* If, however a real moral lesson is taught by the play, the Board feels that it sould pass it* Ordinarily, however, the National Board insists upon respect for the law in action and in thought* Advisability And Punishment Following Crime* One of the things which should be avoided is the throwing of an atmosphere of romantic adventure around a criminal, especially if the time and place pictured suggest the possibility of reproducing the same or similar action, to the impressionable young people who see the picture* It is well, moreover, to show that evil doing brings its own reward, and it is usually desirable to have the catastrophe follow necessarily, logically, and in a convincing manner, and not merely have the catastrophe accidental or providential* Of course if the action is convincing, it is permissible to have retribution as an act of Divine Will or providence, but it frequently happens that the production is so crude that the Avenging Providence loses all its significance* Truth and sincerity are the sine qua non in stick cases* As a general rule, it is certainly preferable to have retribution come through the hands of the authorized officers of the law, rather than through revenge, or other unlawful or extra-leraT means* The taking of the law Into one's hands is a vicious suggLtifn.