Just to show how the Australian film censors policy with knives. axes and sissors was inconsistent here is an allowed pair of scissors for the film Blond Ice from 1948. Looking a little closer into this matter the on and off censoring of knives, axes, scissors, blow torches etc appears to have started to take place in the late 1950s. Again I must state as far as I can see gun images were exempt from censorship. There is a question mark surrounding Lady In The Lake but I now believe this wasn't a censorship matter but an intentional artistic daybill design change.
To further support my case that Australian censors didn't have any problems with guns and they didn't disallow a pointing gun in Robert Momtgomery's hand in Lady In The Lake I have posted an image from another daybill image from 1947 the same year of release. The Invisible Wall shows a gun being held at a man's head which was more likely to have been censored than the gun that was originally held in Robert Montgomery's hand on the U.S. posters. As previously stated I believe the pointing finger was an artistic decision to point at the person viewing the poster.
Justine ( 1969 ). A knife allowed and a pretty scary one at that. Regarding Australian censorship on knives it is hard to understand their logic back then.
On the 29th of September of this year I posted the above daybill image of the 1958 film The Hot Angel and spoke of my surprise in the allowing by the Australian censor of the knife threatening image to be used on the poster. I have just noticed the same image on the Australian one sheet has had the blade of the switchblade removed. The complete one sheet image wasn't used as it was very dark in appearance and the enlarged section I have included shows the point I am making in better light. The daybill allowed but the same image on the one sheer censored so someone explain this one to me?
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?
Halloween - US posters don't show a person, just the knife.
In Australia and the U.S.A. posters featuring a friendly Tom And Jerry seemed to present to us an amicable relationship happening between Tom and Jerry similar to image 1 which is probably from the 1950s but may be 1940s. Image 2 from the 1970s with a wink done tongue in cheek regarding the violence to follow and this is it seems as far as any confrontation between the two was usually depicted in Australia. In the U.S. the majority of posters were free of intended violence between the two but there were a few with minor intended violent depicted but with nothing like some of images that appeared on some foreign posters. The remaining four images from foreign countries presents mainly a cranky savage looking Tom hell bent in causing maximum damage to Jerry not only using an axe but also an iron, dynamite , traps. a pistol and even Tom holding Jerry between a sandwich. Interestingly the Argentinean and Yugoslavian poster depict a combination of violence with song and dance and happiness on the same posters but with the French and Italian posters they decided to go for 100% violence.
The 1970s with the introduction of the R certificate certainly changed the guidelines to how the censors looked at each film coming into Australia and the approach to the way advertising material was reviewed and sometimes censored and altered from the original material provided to them. By the start of the 1980s film poster images which in no way would have been allowed the 1970s and before began to be allowed for public exhibition and two of the more graphic examples cleared by the Australian censor in 1972 are shown above..
Comments
Coming soon is a axe wielding rodent but was never in Australia or America.
now I'm curious...
That was my intention.
Anyone have an ideas ?
Good.
Doesn't look very threatening. You'll have to do better than that..
Image 2 - Australia
Image 3 - Argentina
Image 4 - Yugoslavia
Image 5 - France
Image 6 - Italy
In Australia and the U.S.A. posters featuring a friendly Tom And Jerry seemed to present to us an amicable relationship happening between Tom and Jerry similar to image 1 which is probably from the 1950s but may be 1940s. Image 2 from the 1970s with a wink done tongue in cheek regarding the violence to follow and this is it seems as far as any confrontation between the two was usually depicted in Australia. In the U.S. the majority of posters were free of intended violence between the two but there were a few with minor intended violent depicted but with nothing like some of images that appeared on some foreign posters. The remaining four images from foreign countries presents mainly a cranky savage looking Tom hell bent in causing maximum damage to Jerry not only using an axe but also an iron, dynamite , traps. a pistol and even Tom holding Jerry between a sandwich. Interestingly the Argentinean and Yugoslavian poster depict a combination of violence with song and dance and happiness on the same posters but with the French and Italian posters they decided to go for 100% violence.