Monday, 28 March 2011

History of the BBFC; 1912-1949

1912-1949
- In the past, the BBFC did not have any written rules or code of practice like the Motion Picture Production Code
- Policy evolved along practical lines, whilst seeking to reflect public attitudes

1916
- T.P. O'Connor was appointed President of the BBFC
- One of his first tasks was to give evidence to the Cinema Commission of Inquiry, set up by the National COuncil of Public Morals in 1916
- He summarised the Board's Policy by listing forty-three grounds for deletion laid down for the guidance of examiners:
  1. Indecorous, ambiguous and irreverent titles and subtitles
  2. Cruelty to animals
  3. The irreverent treatment of sacred subjects
  4. Drunken scenes carried to excess
  5. Vulgar accessories in the staging
  6. The modus operandi of criminals
  7. Cruelty to young infants and excessive cruelty and torture to adults, especially women
  8. Unnecessary exhibition of under-clothing
  9. The exhibition of profuse bleeding
  10. Nude figures
  11. Offensive vulgarity, and impropriety in conduct and dress
  12. Indecorous dancing
  13. Excessively passionate love scenes
  14. Bathing scenes passing the limits of propriety
  15. Reference to controversial politics
  16. Relations of capital and labour
  17. Scenes tending to disparage public characters and institutions
  18. Realistic horrors of warfare
  19. Scenes and incidents calculated to afford information to the enemy
  20. Incidents having a tendency to disparage our Allies
  21. Scenes holding up the King's uniform to contempt or ridicule
  22. Subjects dealing with India, in which British Officers are seen in an odious light, and otherwise attempting to suggest the disloyalty of British Officers, 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 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
  35. Illicit relationships
  36. Prostitution and procuration
  37. Incidents indicating the actual perpetration of criminal assaults on women
  38. Scenes depicting the effect of venereal disease, 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
The Years Between The Wars
- During this period the kind of material that caused concern included horror and gangster films, as well as those that dealt with aspects of sexuality
- Some councils were beginning to bar children from films classified 'A', even when they had been cut by the BBFC to achieve a certificate

Frankenstein (1931) - The London County Council and Manchester City Council banned children from seeing Frankenstein, despite a scene in which the monster drowns a small girl being cut. In response to such material, the adisory category 'H' (for horror) was agreed in 1932, to indicate the potential unsuitability for children of the horror theme

1948
- Arthur Watkins was appointed Secretary to the Board in 1948, under the Presidency of Sir Sidney Harris
- Many film-makers sought the Board's advice on scripts before films went into production
- Watkins and Harris formulated new terms of reference for the Board based on three principles:
  • Was the story, incident or dialogue likely to impair the moral standards of the public by extenuating vice or crime or depreciating moral standards?
  • Was it likely to give offence to reasonably minded cinema audiences?
  • What effect would it have on children
- The effect on children was of major importance since, apart from the advisory 'H' category, from which some councils already chose to bar children, there was no category that excluded children
- An 'adults only' category was increasingly seen as desirable, not only to protect children, but as an extension of the freedom of film-makers to treat adult subjects in an adult fashion

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