Coming To This Theatre...

When you see a film a week or so after having seen the trailer, you wonder at the brilliance of the job done by the man who made the trailer in his success at suggesting more than the parent film delivers. It is obvious that being blatant advertising rather than sober information, the trailer is going to inflate its effects to excess in its attempts to sell. Hence the use of out-of-context scenes of violence, sex and glamour to whet the viewer's jaded appetite.

When the trailer of a restricted feature is shown in a programme which may consist mostly of (G) certificate material, the short cannot be treated to the privilege of the same grading as its parent— obviously. Trailers are therefore cut down to the (G) level; though that is not to say that they may not be banned altogether.

In 1957 for example, 195 excisions were made in 122 trailers (compared with 127 cuts in 98 trailers in 1956) provoking the Censor to comment wryly at the time that these figures must constitute. .." almost certainly an all-time record." But the next year, 1958's total was 308 cuts in 171 trailers and prompted his remark that this was". . an all-time record." This record was untouched by the 1959 figures (266 cuts in 156 trailers) hut surpassed in I960—492 excisions in 212 trailers. The Censor's remarks this time are unrecorded.

If this trend continues, one sees the possibility of no trailers whatever getting through unscathed, for in the 1961 Annual Report occurs the remark, "Trailers, as usual, required the heaviest cutting to qualify for (G) certificates."