Nightmare was originally released in the U.K. and the U.S.A. in 1964. It apparently was banned in Australia around that time. On the 1/ 9/1972 it was passed for public exhibition in Australia. After eight years the Australian artwork for this release was copied from Macabre ( 1958 ) and the extra image of the extra man looks a little like Anton Diffring possibly from The Man Who Could Cheat Death ( 1959 ) but more from the U.S. lobby card than the daybill image. If not copied from this film at least from another different film than Nightmare. There is also the image of the house on the bottom right hand corner which could have come from the imagination of the poster artist. None of the poster artwork on the Australian daybill came from the original U.S. or U.K. artwork. The distributor of Nightmare being U.I.P. would have had all the artwork from Universal and Paramount to has access to as it certainly appears after eight years all original artwork for Nightmare was no longer available so they had to produce something and what we see is what they came up with. I have wondered for many years why this poster lacked apart from the title no actors or other credits appearing on the poster. The Australian poster artist even thought up ;;suspense thriller...'' along with '' when your ''Nightmare'' become a reality!''. To sum up the only thing on the Australian daybill that ties in with the original U.S. and U.K. poster artwork is the title word Nightmare. If I owned an Australian daybill of Nightmare I would certainly feel cheated.
1. The ape has been zoomed in to remove his head. Either deemed to be too much of a spoiler alert or too offensive? 2. The gentleman's eyes have been covered / filled in. 3. The legs have been completely substituted with (what I'm assuming) is another image from the film.
Why the changes? None of them really change the tone of the poster, yet all are deliberate changes. You have to wonder which part/s were considered to scary / shocking.
A real mish-mash of a daybill - tagline from the pressbook, face from the one sheet, arm from the insert and girl from...somewhere.
This image is from the front page of the U.S. pressbook. The garter with the flower on the Australian daybill is similar to this image.The U.S. insert appears to have the same type of garter although on the other leg but the U.S. one sheet it is just a plain garter. 'My thoughts are the Australian censor objected to the wording on the one sheet and insert, the positioning of the girl's legs and the throwing of acid on the one sheet so the milder tagline from the pressbook was decided upon and a new less provocative positioning of the girl's body image was used and the throwing of acid not used at all.
The Tell Tale Heart is a British film of 1960 that was released in Australia in 1964. How did this image from the daybill get by the Australian censor?
A B The above images are from A the U.S. insert and B the Australian daybill. The film is titled Calling Dr. Death from 1943 featuring Lon Chaney. The film was retitled Under The Doctor's Spell when released in Australia. It was the first Inner Sanctum Mystery from six that Universal made. Along with the title change in Australia they decided to make Lon Chaney as Dr. Death a happy person and removed his moustache.
The Hot Angel ( 1958 ). One wouldn't be blamed for scratching their heads in bewilderment when trying to work out Australian film censorship. The Games featured earlier from 1967 had the original overseas knife image removed but The Tell Tale Heart poster from the earlier 1964 Australian release was allowed to have a knife featured.
I believe either some advertising material was overlooked and not viewed by the Censorship people at all or whoever looked at the material at the time didn't look at it to any great extent. The Hot Angel ( 1958 ) which was most likely released in Australia in early 1959 has what I find to be very unusual in that the poster has two things that are very at odds with the image and the classification. Firstly a very threatening switchblade was allowed and as such why was a For General Exhibition censorship rating given to this film ? Through my research and helped along by this thread it certainly points out a lack of applying the censorship guidelines on a uniform basis over the years.
And the exception that proves the rule! I'm not 100%, but it looks like the Aussie artist has removed a fairly basic scene of two divers and replaced it with a knife...well at least something that looks pretty knifey!
Twisted Nerve ( 1968 ). Here is another example where a pair of scissors being held in a threatening position is o.k. but the year before in Games the knife had to go. You try and work out the reasoning behind this and all the other examples that have come to light on this thread of knives, axes etc. being censored or being allowed to remain ?
Thanks! Kinda figured that if I started the thread I better have some pics to back it up. I just shake my head at the logic of some of the edits - who did they think they were fooling? It's like beeping the f word on TV - we all know what was said!
The Terror Of The Tongs ( 1961 ). Another tame Australian daybill with two threatening images showing weapons missing and a milder tagline substituted.
The Brain / Vengeance ( 1962 ) The above film was the third film made of Carl Siodmak's novel Donovan's Brain ( 1942 ). The previous two entries being The Lady And The Monster ( 1944 ) and Donovan's Brain ( 1953 ). Again another tame Australian poster design. I must comment though for a Robert Burton designed poster the artwork is very good and the likenesses of all the actors accurate. One of Burton's better efforts.
Lady In The Lake ( 1947 ). No insert found but a gun is being held by Robert Montgomery on the U.S. one sheet and other U.S. posters along with posters from Belgium, Argentina & Japan in various designs but all with a gun featured..
The question is was the poster censored or did a bright spark in Australia come up with the finger being pointed at ''you'' with this being the intended viewing audience. Up till now I had thought this was the case but now I wonder was is it a case of Australian censorship or just an Australian idea to sell the film ?
Looking forward to hearing what others think was the case.
Has to be Aussie censorship, albeit a decent effort to alter art rather than simply erase an image.
You may be right but I am not convinced this was the case here. I have dozens of examples from the 1940s were the prominent display of a pointing gun or holding of a gun appear on daybills. From the same year as Lady In The Lake three examples of gun holding are Fear In The Night, Dark Passage and The Web. The Australian Film censors didn't seem to object to guns being displayed during this period or any period when I think about it. Over the years censoring of knives, scissors, blow torches, etc yes but guns no. What I would like to see are some examples of gun censorship on Australian daybills so bring them on please.
Here is an example from 1949 of The Clay Pigeon showing the hero holding a gun and the leading lady being threatened by the villain. If there was going to be any censorship by the Australian censor I would have thought the bottom image would have been the one. Unless any examples of gun censorship can be presented here I believe that there is a good chance the Lady In The Lake image wasn't altered for censorship reasons but possibly for artistic reasons.
Has to be Aussie censorship, albeit a decent effort to alter art rather than simply erase an image.
You may be right but I am not convinced this was the case here. I have dozens of examples from the 1940s were the prominent display of a pointing gun or holding of a gun appear on daybills. From the same year as Lady In The Lake three examples of gun holding are Fear In The Night, Dark Passage and The Web. The Australian Film censors didn't seem to object to guns being displayed during this period or any period when I think about it. Over the years censoring of knives, scissors, blow torches, etc yes but guns no. What I would like to see are some examples of gun censorship on Australian daybills so bring them on please.
This is a daybill poster of Spellbound from two years before Lady In The Lake showing a razor which to me looks more disturbing than a gun. So seeing they allowed this image I cannot imagine them disallowing the gun in Lady In The Lake. Also The Web from 1947 the same year as Lady In The Lake has two, not one but two images of men holding guns and this was allowed. The Australian censor never seemed to have a problem with gun images at any time so to me the pointed finger has a good chance of it being a planned strategic image rather than a substitution at the direction of the Australian censor.
These sorts of examples highlight the random nature of Aussie censorship. It would've been so simple to leave the razor off the poster and not have really affected the art. I think this is where the gun query lies - just because one gun makes it past the censors, doesn't mean the next one will.
Let's face it - why allow a razor in the 40s and not on a poster in the 60s?
Razor, axes, etc is a different discussion. Here I am mainly discussing guns. Two points I will make. There were different chief censors in the 1940s and the 1960s so guidelines could have be different regarding gun images. In regards to your razor comment the allowing or censoring of knives, axes , etc was certainly all over the place but censorship or should I say lack of censorship was uniform in that guns were allowed on film posters. As I mentioned previously Lady In The Lake is the only example of an alteration to an American image regarding a gun I have seen to date and I have seen thousands of images an I d have never seen a gun image altered but I will be happy to see one if someone would like to show us one..
Here is a question for someone to answer. This would be unusual but are there any examples where a threatening knife being held in a persons hand appears on an Australian daybill but the knife image doesn't appear at all on the U.S. insert or other posters of the same title?
Here is a question for someone to answer. This would be unusual but are there any examples where a threatening knife being held in a persons hand appears on an Australian daybill but the knife image doesn't appear at all on the U.S. insert or other posters of the same title?
You have probably quessed that I have found an example and if you did you would be correct. I will share it with you later on but in the meantime please submit any examples you may have be it the one I have or any others.
The Unknown Man an MGM crime, drama , film noir 1951 film has an interesting daybill poster. It has an image of the actor Keith Brasselle menacingly holding a knife in his hand which was allowed to remain by the Australian censor at the time of it's release. The American insert and other U.S. posters do not contain this image but only have a very small image of Keith Brasselle's head. Interestingly a Finnish poster carries this knife image along with Walter Pigeon holding and examining a knife in his hand. I find it unusual there is no knife image on the U.S. posters but are used on Australian and Finnish posters.
Comments
Duplication deleted.
Three things:
1. The ape has been zoomed in to remove his head. Either deemed to be too much of a spoiler alert or too offensive?
2. The gentleman's eyes have been covered / filled in.
3. The legs have been completely substituted with (what I'm assuming) is another image from the film.
Why the changes? None of them really change the tone of the poster, yet all are deliberate changes. You have to wonder which part/s were considered to scary / shocking.
A real mish-mash of a daybill - tagline from the pressbook, face from the one sheet, arm from the insert and girl from...somewhere.
I believe either some advertising material was overlooked and not viewed by the Censorship people at all or whoever looked at the material at the time didn't look at it to any great extent. The Hot Angel ( 1958 ) which was most likely released in Australia in early 1959 has what I find to be very unusual in that the poster has two things that are very at odds with the image and the classification. Firstly a very threatening switchblade was allowed and as such why was a For General Exhibition censorship rating given to this film ? Through my research and helped along by this thread it certainly points out a lack of applying the censorship guidelines on a uniform basis over the years.
Did you pick it? No blood on the pillow and the artist has attempted to provide the corpse on the bed with some sort of a head.
Just cut it out and leave a big white space!
The question is was the poster censored or did a bright spark in Australia come up with the finger being pointed at ''you'' with this being the intended viewing audience. Up till now I had thought this was the case but now I wonder was is it a case of Australian censorship or just an Australian idea to sell the film ?
Looking forward to hearing what others think was the case.
You may be right but I am not convinced this was the case here. I have dozens of examples from the 1940s were the prominent display of a pointing gun or holding of a gun appear on daybills. From the same year as Lady In The Lake three examples of gun holding are Fear In The Night, Dark Passage and The Web. The Australian Film censors didn't seem to object to guns being displayed during this period or any period when I think about it. Over the years censoring of knives, scissors, blow torches, etc yes but guns no. What I would like to see are some examples of gun censorship on Australian daybills so bring them on please.
These sorts of examples highlight the random nature of Aussie censorship. It would've been so simple to leave the razor off the poster and not have really affected the art. I think this is where the gun query lies - just because one gun makes it past the censors, doesn't mean the next one will.
Let's face it - why allow a razor in the 40s and not on a poster in the 60s?
Here is a question for someone to answer. This would be unusual but are there any examples where a threatening knife being held in a persons hand appears on an Australian daybill but the knife image doesn't appear at all on the U.S. insert or other posters of the same title?
You have probably quessed that I have found an example and if you did you would be correct. I will share it with you later on but in the meantime please submit any examples you may have be it the one I have or any others.