No Particular Taste

Precisely as extralegal and august as national cinema censorship in the U. S. is Britain's Board of Film Censors, a body whose president is paid $10,000 a year by the British film industry. Last month the Board's president, red-faced, intolerant Rt. Hon. Edward Shortt died. Last week the British cinema industry picked as president of the Board of Film Censors one of the most distinguished and worldly men in the realm, William George Tyrrell, Baron Tyrrell of Avon, holder of Britain's No. 1 diplomatic job, the Ambassadorship to France, from 1928 to 1934. Lord Tyrrell accepted the job because he needed the money. Lord Tyrrell knows the Continent like the palm of his hand, loves France and is distrusted by Germans. When he quit his Ambassadorship last year because of poor health, the Nazi newspaper Voelkischer Beobachter chortled, "His departure is a gain for the pacification of Europe and exorcises the baneful Versailles spirit he fostered. Lord Tyrrell was a man of yesterday who simply could not understand that a new era had dawned." Last week, on being informed of his new job, Watchdog Tyrrell said: "I go to the pictures perhaps once, perhaps twice a week. . . . Why, I saw one last night--very good, too. I have no particular taste; in fact I like most of them. There is a very good film at the Empire. Claudette Colbert in She Married Her Boss." She Married Her Boss is a Columbia product, set off by a spoiled child and a drinking party in a store window. To Britons the important thing about it is that it projects "a kissless marriage," i. e., the hero and heroine do not sleep together. It is a fair index to British taste and British censorship.

The clue to British censorship is that it tries to keep people from thinking about what might upset them. About things normally censorable it is far more tolerant than Will H. Hays. The British Board of Film Censors objects to scenes showing mental disorders, the preliminaries to childbirth, drunken women, cruelty to animals, miscegenation, police brutality, lovable criminals, the Royal Family and the U. S. expression "nerts." Furthermore the Board always tries to do what it thinks the British Foreign and Home Offices would want it to do. Thus, it prevents British citizens from seeing anything that might make them dislike nations officially friendly to Britain.

From the March of Time newsreel about Palestine, the Board last month cut all scenes showing German Nazi persecution of Jews. The official explanation was that it had all happened some time before and it was unnecessary to remind people of it. From the March of Time newsreel about Ethiopia, the Board cut all evidences of British armed force, including naval guns, marching men and officers toasting the King. From the newsreel about France's Fascist organization, the Croix de Feu, it cut all indications that the late Alexandre Stavisky was protected by grafting high officials and that the Paris riots of February 1934, resulted in some killings.

Warner Bros, officials describe the British censors as "unpredictable," but they are entirely consistent. Respect-worthy things, such as ministers and officers, must be respected, and people must not be upset or told too much. Observers last week thought Lord Tyrrell as a censor would be tolerant of social and sexual themes, intolerant of political themes. Actually he will look at comparatively few pictures. The chief work of censorship will be carried on as usual by the Board's elderly secretary, J. Brooke Wilkinson.

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