BD 32 Island of Lost Souls

[MichaelB]

BBFC anniversary: How banned horror film Island of Lost Souls got a PG rating

Fascinating article, but then again censorship as a whole often is. It seems preposterous to consider what used to be deemed unsuitable for viewing.

...and indeed what material is now considered stronger meat than it was originally.

About twenty years or so ago, Jerry Sadowitz made a programme for Channel 4 about the history of swearing on TV, which was mostly a history of steady liberalisation, until near the end when he concluded with a clip from Till Death Us Do Part featuring Warren Mitchell's Alf Garnett ranting about "coons" - mainstream primetime entertainment in the mid-1960s, pretty much unbroadcastable now except with the footnotes that Sadowitz provided.

The booklet accompanying the BFI's The Devils is also fascinating on the subject of which cuts were requested by the BBFC alone, and which were requested specifically by Warner Bros. The former had a problem with extreme graphic detail in the plague and immolation sequences, whereas it was only the latter who had a major issue with sex and religion being explicitly linked.

[colinr0380]

Remember that the value of your obscenities can go up as well as down! I'm fascinated by the reclassification of material - a big one in the early DVD era was the re-rating of The Terminator from an 18 down to a 15. Plus in its own way the Brendan Fraser film The Mummy was groundbreaking as it was one of the first films allowed to be released on home video in different versions with different ratings (that was previously frowned upon as somehow confusing consumers) - so the VHS release was the cut 12 rated version and the DVD release was uncut 15. The issue with The Mummy? The five or six second sequence in which Fraser is being hanged at the beginning of the film.

A nice article, though I do take issue with this statement on Island of Lost Souls:

"Some films manage to pack a real punch after a very long time, and other films just don't - and I think this is in the latter category," says Cooke.

Obviously Cooke hasn't seen any of the poorer Dr Moreau films!

The line up of the films in the series is interesting, especially No Orchids For Miss Blandish, highly influenced by American gangster and noir films, which apparently caused quite a scandal in its day and led to the director of the BBFC at the time resigning! Enter The Dragon appears to be used as a representative of a whole swathe of kung fu films that had sequences with nunchakus and/or throwing stars removed from them due to fears that fans would be inspired to make their own versions of the weapons (presumably the phasing out of toilets with pull chains helped in allaying that fear!). And it is quite amusing that the film Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist has now been passed with a caution of "imitable techniques"! Wasn't the one scene edited from the previous releases the notorious one in which Mr Flanagan nails his penis to a block of wood? I wonder how many people would really be inspired to imitate that, aside from the Jackass folks and their ilk!

[Jonathan S]

The issue with The Mummy? The five or six second sequence in which Fraser is being hanged at the beginning of the film.

Up to the early 1980s UK TV used to cut the entire comedy hanging sequence from Laurel & Hardy's pre-Code The Devil's Brother (Fra Diavolo). Stan is instructed to hang Ollie but naturally bungles it. I presume there were fears children would imitate it. Other scenes that used to be cut from L&H films include the notorious and once believed-lost "kettles" sequence from Pack Up Your Troubles - they pour boiling water on their attackers - and a moment in Our Relations where they insert and crunch a lightbulb in Jimmy Finlayson's mouth.

All have been passed intact with U certs in recent years, though I see The Devil's Brother (a Cornerstone release, so almost certainly "unofficial") has the "Consumer advice: contains hanging scene".

[zedz]

About twenty years or so ago, Jerry Sadowitz made a programme for Channel 4 about the history of swearing on TV, which was mostly a history of steady liberalisation, until near the end when he concluded with a clip from Till Death Us Do Part featuring Warren Mitchell's Alf Garnett ranting about "coons" - mainstream primetime entertainment in the mid-1960s, pretty much unbroadcastable now except with the footnotes that Sadowitz provided.

And even Alf Garnett was pretty mild compared to the likes of Frampton Row or (shudder) Kiddystare.

[antnield]

Sight and Sound.

[manicsounds]

dvdbeaver

blu-ray.com