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

Page 12* tOwrltten law and frontier justice can only be frowned upon by tne law respecting and dramatically capable actor, and. producer, and the national Foard is apposed to the presentation altogether.. The Board' s Attitude Toward Crime.. The Rational Board has no objection to crimes as such, far it realizes that it should not attempt to eliminate evil from the pictures, since, broadly speaking, that would be to destroy the drama* Serious drama, as distinguished from comedy , farce, and burlesque almost always depicts a struggle between the forces of good on the one hand and the forces of evil on the other, and to eliminate either one of these elements would be very largely to eliminate the drama itself* Usually the forces of evil are represented by tjae villain who commits crime and seeks his ends through violence* Accordingly the question for the. National Board is: not whether it will permit the committal of crime in pictures, but rather what are the notives and results of the crimes, and the manner in which they are performed* Tne Board objects to the display of crime being suggestive, instructive, and grewsome; and it insists upon a sane balancing of the picture as a whole so that the final effect of the picture will be good or, at worst, harmless* The portrayal of crime should not degenerate into pandering to a morbid appetite, but should seek ends which are legitimate for the drama* Clear exposition of crimes which involve tricks, skill or unusual ingenuity is not permitted* Crime has, of course, a strong dramatic value, but crime for crimes sake has none* The Hotives and The Basults of" Crime As Shown in Eotion Pictures* Btrery film presents special problems, but there are certain truths concerning all, and in the case of films depicting crime two of the principal points to be borne in mind by the censor are the motives and the results of the crime or crimes^depicted* An adequate motive for comitting a crime is always desirable in a picture, and in some cases is a sine qua noa* The importance of discovering the motive for any crime in photoplays lies in the fact that the Board will insist on punishment of the criminal, when his crime might be considered by the £oung and impressionable spectator as an excusable act* m other cases, it* is desirable that the criminal be punished in some way, but the Board does not always insist upon this* Moreover careful discrimination must be made between the merits of the motive and the suggestions lurking in it as an excuse for the crime* for. under no conditions, will the Board pass a picture where apparent approval is given of any cause for crime,' though on the other hand it must be adequate in the mind of the criminal to cause him to perpetrate the crime* The results of the crimes must be in the long run disastrous to the criminal, so that the impression carried is that crime will inevitably find one out, soon or late, and bring on a catastrophe which causes the temporary gain from the crime to sink into insignificance* The result should ^spring logically and convincingly from the crime, and the results should "take area*' sonable proportion of the 'film* The motives, incidents, and results are always considered in censoring these pictures* Crimes or Violence Against property and persons* Crimes of violence may be roughly divided into crimes against property and those against persons* Possibly theft, fraud, forgery, burglary,