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13
Film Censors
In all the story of films, there is no man so much attacked as a film censor — whatever the country in which he xvorks. Systems and rules differ all over the le'orld ; our contributor here studies the methods used in Great Britain and in America.
by John K. Newnham
"T^IOIS are the world's most strictly censored form of entertainment. * Theatre censorship is far more lax. Wireless programmes are left entirely to the discretion of the broadcasting companies. Books may be published with very little fear of police orders for withdrawal.
But every film that is generally released has to be passed by a board of censors, whatever the country, whatever the type of film.
There are no hard and fast rules governing film censorship. They vary in every country ; in America they vary in every state. Even one censor may appear to vary his views from time to time, passing one picture, yet refusing to pass another dealing with the same subject.
There can be no fixed rules, for the simple reason that so much depends on the way in which a subject is handled. Nowadays, film directors are getting more and more adept in making daring scenes with such ingenuity that they get past the censor.
So far as England is concerned, the British Board of Film Censors is the only actual censorship board, though local authorities also have the power of rejecting pictures or passing those not given a certificate by the censor.
The British censorship board is an entirely independent and impartial unit, although it was formed by the film industry itself. That was in 1913.
No members of the film trade are permitted to work for this board. The examiners who view the pictures must never have worked for a film company nor must they be related to any such member. These precautions are necessary in order that there shall be no risk of prejudice or favouritism on the part of the men seeing the films.
Moreover, the board is self-supporting. A nominal price is charged for viewing every film, and the fee works out at £2 per thousand feet for general films (cheaper for short travel pictures).
The average feature film is about 6,000 feet in length. About six million feet of film is handed over to the censor for viewing every year. To be precise, in 1931 (the latest statistics compiled up to the moment), the total footage of film submitted amounted to 5,585,908, comprising 1,951 subjects. The previous j'ear, 1930, the amount of footage was even more, totalling 7,209,306 feet, covering 2,275 subjects.
Thus the censors are not directly dependent on the trade for their wages.