Readers of a milksop disposition, look away now! From the archives, Frank once again besmirches the pages of The Dabbler with pure unbridled filth…
According to John Trevelyan in What The Censor Saw (1973), the following list includes some of the disgusting and morally repugnant subjects rightly banned by the British Board of Film Censors during the first twenty years of its existence:
1913
Indecorous dancing.
Native customs in foreign lands abhorrent to British ideas.
1914
Incidents injurious to the reputation of Governmental Departments.
Unnecessary exhibitions of feminine underclothing.
The effects of vitriol throwing.
Stories tinctured with salacious wit.
Sensual exposition of eugenic doctrines.
1919
Criminal poisoning by dissemination of germs.
Excessive revolver shooting.
Animals gnawing men and children.
Clutching hands.
1925
Libels on the British nursing profession.
Bolshevik propaganda.
Abdominal contortions in dancing.
1926
Employee selling his wife to employer to cover defalcations.
Severed human heads.
Degrading exhibitions of animal passion.
Indecent wall decorations.
Dangerous mischief, easily imitated by children.
Lecherous old men.
Themes which are likely to wound the just susceptibilities of our Allies.
Comic hanging.
Breaking bottles on men’s heads.
1931
Marriages within the prohibitive degree.
Girls’ clothes pulled off.
The Salvation Army shown in an unfavourable light.
“Sensual exposition of eugenic doctrines”
just trying to imagine what that would look like?
Much (even all) of this came from the ‘Green Book’ wherein the BBC listed the unspeakable. This volume, which was not abandoned until the 1960s, also offered the admonition: ‘If in doubt – cut it out!’.
‘The Green Book’ – That would be a good name for one of your tomes, Jonathon..
Sanctimonious killjoys they may have been, but what vocabulary!
Have you ever enjoyed a story that wasn’t “tinctured with salacious wit”?
Of course, in 1919, animals gnawing on women was perfectly acceptable.
Clutching hands
I’ve always hated clutching hands.