Tag: 100 years of censorship

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Restricted: Ontario film censorship in the 1950s

Eric Veillette

While rummaging through the Revue Cinema’s projection booth in preparation for a recent Silent Sundays screening, I found this old “Adult entertainment” sign buried under some obsolete  electronics. As we recently examined, Ontario was the first Canadian province to enact “Adult entertainment” film designations, reflecting the public’s reaction to the changing mores in Hollywood and European film-making. With their playful italics and authoritative bold type, these signs dangled underneath a theatre’s marquee or canopy — seen here at the Mavety Theatre showing The Tender Trap in 1956 — leading pre-pubescent boys to imagine what restrictive fun they were missing out on unless … Continue reading Restricted: Ontario film censorship in the 1950s

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Curves, cussing and beer: Ontario film censorship in the 1940s

Eric Veillette

Many of the obituaries published in the wake of Hollywood star Jane Russell’s death in February mentioned the heated censorship debate over her sultry appearance in The Outlaw. Produced in 1943, the film began a two-week run at Toronto’s Loew’s Yonge St. Theatre on December 5, 1946. It was also among the first films in Ontario to receive the new “Adult Entertainment” designation, restricting admittance to anyone under the age of 16. O.J. Silverthorne, Ontario’s chief censor since 1934, had certified The Outlaw in May, claiming that “with the cuts that have already been made in the U.S. and some … Continue reading Curves, cussing and beer: Ontario film censorship in the 1940s

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One hundred years of film censorship in Ontario

Eric Veillette

Since 2011 marks the centenary of the creation of the Ontario Board of Censors, we present the first in a series of articles examining film censorship in Ontario. There was a time in Ontario when film versions of Shakespeare’s greatest plays were too violent or too racy for the public good. In February 1910, one Staff Insp. Kennedy seized a print of Hamlet. The Daily Star quoted this arbiter of public morals about how how he “witnessed a moving picture show of Hamlet, written I think by Shakespeare, this week. . . .That’s all very well to say it’s a … Continue reading One hundred years of film censorship in Ontario