180   Children, Cinema and Censorship
disloyalty of Native States or bringing into disrepute British prestige in the Empire.
23. The exploitation of tragic incidents of the war.
24. Gruesome murders and strangulation scenes.
25. Executions.
26. The effects of vitriol throwing.
27. The drug habit, e.g. opium, morphia, cocaine, etc.
28. Subjects dealing with White Slave traffic.
29. Subjects dealing with the premeditated seduction of girls.
30. 'First night' scenes.
31. Scenes suggestive of immorality.
32. Indelicate sexual situations.
33. Situations accentuating delicate marital relations.
34. Men and women in bed together. 3 5.  Illicit sexual relationships.
36. Prostitution and procuration.
37. Incidents indicating the actual perpetration of criminal assaults on women.
38. Scenes depicting the effect of venereal diseases, inherited or acquired.
39. Incidents suggestive of incestuous relations.
40. Themes and references relative to 'race suicide*.
41. Confinements.
42. Scenes laid in disorderly houses.
43. Materialization of the conventional figure of Christ.
Source: National Council of Public Morals, The Cinema: Its Present Position and Future Possibilities (London, 1917).
Appendix 2
BBFC Codified Grounds for Censorship, 1926
Religious
The materialised figure of Christ. Irreverent quotations of religious texts.
Travesties of familiar Biblical quotations and well-known hymns. Titles to which objection would be taken by religious organisations.
5. Travesty and mockery of religious services.
6. Holy vessels amidst incongruous surroundings, or shown used in a way which would be looked upon as desecration.
7. Comic treatment of incidents connected with death.
8. Painful insistence of realism in death bed scenes.
Political
1. Lampoons of the institution of monarchy.
2.
3-
4-
Propaganda against monarchy and attacks on royal dynasties. Unauthorised use of royal and university arms. Themes which are likely to wound the just susceptibilities of our allies.
White men in state of degradation amidst native surroundings. American law officers making arrests in this country. Inflammatory sub-titles and Bolshevist propaganda. Equivocal situations between white girls and men of other races.
Military
1. Officers in British regiments shown in a disgraceful light.
2. Horrors in warfare and realistic scenes of massacre.
182   Children, Cinema and Censorship
Social
i.
4-
J-6.
7-
10.
11.
12.
14.
l6.
r7-
l9-
20.
21.
The improper use of the names of well-known British institutions.
Incidents which reflect a mistaken conception of the police forces
in this country in the administration of justice.
Sub-titles in the nature of swearing, and expressions regarded as
objectionable in this country.
Painful hospital scenes.
Scenes in lunatic asylums and particularly in padded cells. Workhouse officials shown in an offensive light. Girls and women in a state of intoxication. Orgy scenes.
Subjects which are suitable only for scientific or professional audiences.
Suggestive, indecorous and semi-nude dancing.
Nude and semi-nude figures, both in actuality and shadowgraph.
Girls' clothes pulled off, leaving them in scanty undergarments.
Men leering at exposure of women's undergarments.
Abortion.
Criminal assault on girls.
Scenes in and connected with houses of ill repute.
Bargain cast for a human life which is to be terminated by
murder.
Marital infidelity and collusive divorce.
Children following the example of a drunken and dissolute father.
Dangerous mischief easily imitated by children. Subjects dealing with venereal disease.
Questions of Sex
1. The use of the phrase csex-appeal' in sub-titles.
2. Themes indicative of habitual immorality. Women in alluring or provocative attitudes. Procuration.
Degrading exhibitions of animal passion. Passionate and unrestrained embraces.
Incidents intended to show clearly that an outrage has been perpetrated. Lecherous old men.
-
Appendices 1
White slave traffic.
Innuendoes with a direct indecent tendency. Indecorous bathroom scenes.
Extenuation of a woman sacrificing her honour for money on the
plea of some laudable object.
Female vamps.
Indecent wall decorations.
Men and women in bed together.
Crime
1. Hanging, realistic or comic.
2. Executions and incidents connected therewith.
3. Objectionable prison scenes.
4. Methods of crime open to imitation.
5. Stories in which the criminal element is predominant.
6. Crime committed and condoned for an ostensibly good reason.
7. 'Crook' films in which sympathy is enlisted for the criminals.
8. 'Third degree' scenes.
9. Opium dens.
10. Scenes of, traffic in and distribution of illicit drugs.
11. The drugging and ruining of young girls.
12. Attempted suicide by asphyxiation.
13. Breaking bottles on men's heads.
Cruelty
1. Cruel treatment of children.
2. Cruelty to animals.
3. Brutal fights carried to excess, including gouging of eyes, clawing of faces and throttling.
4. Knuckle fights.
j. Girls and women fighting. 6.    Realistic scenes of torture.
Source: BBFC Annual Report 1926, pp. 5-8.
Appendix 3
List of 'Don'ts and Be Carefuls*, adopted by California Association for guidance of producers, 8 June 1927
Resolved, That those things which are included in the following list shall not appear in pictures produced by the members of this Association, irrespective of the manner in which they are treated:
i.
Pointed profanity - by either title or lip - this includes the words 'God', 'Lord', 'Jesus', 'Christ* (unless they be used reverently in connection with proper religious ceremonies), 'hell5, 'damn', 'Gawd', and every other profane and vulgar expression however it may be spelled;
Any licentious or suggestive nudity - in fact or in silhouette; and any lecherous or licentious notice thereof by other characters in the picture;
The illegal traffic in drugs; Any inference of sex perversion; White slavery;
Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races);
Sex hygiene and venereal diseases; Scenes of actual childbirth - in fact or in silhouette; Children's sex organs; Ridicule of the clergy; Willful offense to any nation, race or creed:
And be it further Resolved, That special care be exercised in the manner in which the following subjects are treated, to the end that
3-
4-
5-6.
9-
10.
n.
Appendices
vulgarity and suggestiveness may be eliminated and that good taste may be emphasized:
1. The use of the flag;
2. International relations (avoiding picturizing in an unfavorable light another country's religion, history, institutions, prominent people, and citizenry);
3. Arson;
4. The use of firearms;
j. Theft, robbery, safe-cracking, and dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, etc. (having in mind the effect which a too-detailed description of these may have upon the moron);
6. Brutality and possible gruesomeness;
7. Technique of committing murder by whatever method;
8. Methods of smuggling;
9. Third-degree methods;
10. Actual hangings or electrocutions as legal punishment for crime;
11. Sympathy for criminals;
12. Attitude toward public characters and institutions;
13. Sedition;
14. Apparent cruelty to children and animals;
15. Branding of people or animals;
16. The sale of women, or of a woman selling her virtue;
17. Rape or attempted rape;
18. First night scenes;
19. Man and woman in bed together;
20. Deliberate seduction of girls;
21. The institution of marriage;
22. Surgical operations;
23. The use of drugs;
24. Titles or scenes having to do with the law enforcement or law-enforcing officers;
25. Excessive or lustful kissing, particularly when one character or the other is a 'heavy":
Resolved, That the execution of the purposes of this resolution is a fair trade practice.
Source: Raymond Moley, The Hays Office (New York, 1945), pp. 240-41.
r i
Appendix 4
Films classified as 'Horrific' or certified 'H' by the BBFC
1933-40
1933 The Ghoul
The Invisible Man King Kong Vampire (Vampyr) The Vampire Bat
1934 The House of Doom The Medium
The Ninth Guest The Son of Kong The Tell Tale Heart
193 y   The Bride of Frankenstein The Hands of Orlac The Mark of the Vampire The Night on the Lonely Mountain The Raven
The Werewolf of London
1936 The Devil Doll
The Man Who Changed His Mind
1937 The Thirteenth Chair
Appendices II
1939
The Cat and the Canary (Cut 1943 version was 'A')
Boy Slaves
A Child is Bom
The Dark Eyes of London
The Gorilla
Hell's Kitchen
The Man They Could Not Hang The Monster Walks
On Borrowed Time ('A' from July 1945) The Return of Doctor X The Son of Frankenstein
1940 NONE
Source: James C. Robertson, The British Board of Film Censors: Film Censorship in Britain, 1896-1950 (London, 1985), p. 183.
193 8   / Accuse (J'Accuse)