MARGINAL COMMENTS
By •ROSE MACAULAY IT must be infinitely charming to be a Film Censor. To be paid by an industry for eliminating such parts of its productions as did not take one's fancy-- how superb an opportunity were this ! One would feel a king, a Duce, a Frillrer, a Soviet, a god. The Censor needs not to suffer, as suffer lesser mortals must, those moving pictorial annoyances that so affront the fastidious film-goer. With one snip of the scissors he can bid them begone ; nay, more, he can dictate that winch! shall take their place. Only recently (and very properly) our Censor took, it seems, a dislike to a villainous little Mexican general employed as a British spy ; the original film ended on this bad little man shooting an agreeable and patriotic German spy and having a drink. The Censor, unable to bear this, changed it, and had the wicked Mexican shot by the less wicked German instead. That is the way, no doubt he thought, that storks should end. This ingenuous preference for romantic justice annoyed some film critics, less romantic and less just ; but it was, at least, comprehensible. Certain more recent exercises of the censorial prerogative on an American film have, on the other hand, puzzled many people, including the League of Nations Union. In this film, the Censor took against a photograph of Signor Mussolini standing near Mr. Ramsay MacDonald at Stresa ; this seems to me natural enough, as we feel, in these days, somewhat chilly towards this Italian dictator. Some of the other cuts are perhaps less easy to understand, and induced (it is said) Lord Cecil to remark, `, The ways of censors are indeed inscrutable." But no more in- scrutable, surely, than the other workings of human caprice. We like this, we take against that, and who shall explain it ? Close observation of film censors shows us that, like dogs (and. indeed, like human beings) they are guided rather by instinct than by reason. Like us, they love, they hate, they admire, they feel disgust, at those odd and animated contrivances that unroll and move and prattle before their eyes ; and (unlike us, alas) on these simple emotions they act. Theirs not to reason why, still less to tell us why.
We who are not censors are bound to feel that these privileged beings neglect and waste their unrivalled opportunities. Were the film industry ever good enough to appoint me their Censor, what would I not delete ? In fact, what would be left ? First would vanish that sad wag, the commentator, whose patter englooms so many otherwise innocuous .scenes. The .Goldwyn too, would go, so. that we could take our Cantor neat ; here, I believe, I should meet with universal applause ; I have never yet known anyone to find these Girls amusing. Then, Lord Fauntleroy, I am. told, but can scarcely (as Herodotus would say) credit it, appears with short hair ; this is as if Holmes should appear in a top hat,. or Watson clean-shaven. Were I Censor, this insufferable but notorious child should revert to 16;ig curls, velvet suit, and lace collar, and serve him right.
But when I begin to think of all those beings who would be slain and cut to ribbons by my scissors, all those speeches. which. would choke in their foolish throats, all those scenes which would vanish into thin air at the wave of my wand, were I the Film Censor, I grow too puffed up with these intoxicating fancies to continue. The present Censor is doubtless troublesome, capricious, inscrutable ; but, should the Trade appoint me, it would then know what caprice, what, inscrutability, what trouble, can be. And why should it stop at films ? Why .should not authors, journalists, musicians, artists, appoint .ernsors t4;;; regulate their industries, all, of which require much firm scissor-work? Unlike John Milton, I am all against the liberty of unlicensed and unbridled arts.
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