(2) That under no circumstances whatever would nudity be permitted.
The Examiners judged upon the broad principle that nothing should be passed which in their opinion would demoralize an audience. They laid down forty-three reasons for refusing to pass films.
The question is often asked in the public Press, and occasionally in Parliament, “What has become of the censor? Why does he not exercise his powers of suppression? Is there such an office?” This question is becoming increasingly urgent and acute.
There has been a tendency for the last two years to allow to filter through on to the public market films distasteful to modest vision. The so-called comic films are becoming more and more suggestive. We are aware that the modern tendency in female attire is to lower the neck and shorten the skirt. There is beauty in a painted nude figure, showing the perfect formation of limbs; this is from the standpoint of art.
It is the prevailing fashion in modern American “comedy films” for “bathing belles” to figure largely, and this is unnecessary unless the film actually depicts seaside life, surf-bathing, or is advertising a standard bathing costume approved of by the exponents of the “modiste” costume. There are also passages in these films which call for the excision of certain portions.
A flagrant breach of “censorship” is occasioned by allowing a film of the following nature to appear upon the open market. This depicts a Chinaman who runs an opium den, and who is also a money-lender. The story goes that he has designs upon a pretty English girl. To become acquainted, he advances money to her father, followed by further loans, which are used as a lever; for the father finally forces his pretty daughter to marry the Chinaman.
The scene changes to the girl’s bedroom, where the pretty wife, clad in a diaphanous nightdress, has a terrific struggle with the Chinaman.
Only one conclusion is possible, and there is no moral attached to the picture, which only produces a feeling of disgust—that the paternal human nature should have been so shown as actually existing between father and daughter.
Juvenile Crime.
Crime films are another section which should not escape the critical eye of the censor. It has been suggested that in some cases acts of crime by juveniles have been incited by seeing similar scenes enacted upon the screen. They have endeavoured to imitate and emulate the pictorial crime creator, who was lucky enough to evade the long arm of the law, by which they themselves were caught.