Search Results

This chapter traces the origins of film censorship in Great Britain, in particular the development of the British Board of Film Censors, which was managed by Joseph Brooke Wilkinson over the years Alfred Hitchcock was directing films in England. The chapter cites examples of the Board’s general impact on film production in the UK and on Hitchcock in particular. In comparison with American film censorship, with its emphasis on sex and violence, British censors proved to be more interested in social and political issues. Their concern for worker strikes caused them to ban the classic Battleship Potemkin for over twenty years.

This chapter describes in detail the video nasty affair. This started with complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and the British Videogram Association (BVA) and members of the public about the gruesome nature of the advertising for certain cassettes. The British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) and the BVA were establishing a working party to prepare a classification strategy for videos similar to that used in cinemas. Gareth Wardell introduced a Bill under the ten-minute rule ‘to prohibit the rental of video cassettes of adult category to children and young persons’. Graham Bright reviewed the main features of his Bill to the press. It then explores some of the implications of the proposed legislation. Opposition to the media hysteria and the ill-conceived legislation rushed through parliament has been almost non-existent, and the outrage stoked up over ‘video nasties’ is bound to spill over into other areas of expression.

The most obvious reason why the Video Recordings Bill is undesirable is that the so-called ‘video nasties’ have already been deemed illegal under the Obscene Publications Act (OPA) and disappeared. In its statutory role, the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) will become a large quango accountable to no one but the Secretary of State. It is impossible not to see the Bill as part and parcel of a multi-fronted attack on civil liberties in Britain. Sir Bernard Braine has continuously tried to hijack the Bill on its passage through the Committee Stage. The chapter then deals with some of the wider knock-on effects of the Video Recordings Bill, such as its effects on film censorship and on television. It is mentioned that the Video Recordings Bill cannot be divorced from the wider ideological climate.

In Frenzy, Hitchcock took full advantage of the demise of the Production Code, filling the screen with coarse language, nudity, and a graphic rape scene. Hitchcock argued that the harrowing, explicit rape scene was necessary to show the repulsive nature of the killer. Having shocked the audience with one such scene, he was able to let other instances of the rapist’s work pass with only a suggestion of his crimes. Freedom from the Production Code did not necessarily mean freedom from censorship. Hitchcock still had to satisfy the British Board of Film Censors and produce a version suitable for TV viewing. The film was shot in London and cast with highly regarded professionals whose names were not well known in Hollywood. The critical and public reaction was almost universally positive, although a few critics expressed qualms about the explicit rape scene. Freed from most past restrictions, the director made the movie he wanted to make, from a story he selected personally, with a talented and cooperative screenwriter and a thoroughly professional cast of his own choosing. Frenzy belongs on any list of Hitchcock’s finest accomplishments.

This chapter examines the seven thrillers created by Hitchcock in Britain just before he left for America: The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, Secret Agent, Sabotage, Young and Innocent, The Lady Vanishes, and Jamaica Inn. These thrillers established his international reputation and helped build a demand for his services among American studios. The chapter explores the influence of the British Board of Film Censors on these films as well as the reaction of the Production Code Administration, which reviewed each of the films in the light of its own criteria before permitting US distribution. At first, American censors simply scissored ‘objectionable’ scenes, but toward the end of Hitchcock’s British tenure, they involved themselves in decisions made at every stage of the production process.