Below is a scanned copy of a  flyer handed out to cinemagoers advertising  films from March 1961. The films showing in the cinema at that time were ’Cape Fear,’ the main attraction and also  ‘Danger by my Side’. This flyer was distributed at the Bootle Gaumont Cinema and has been stored for over 50 years.

The film ‘Cape Fear’ starred Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, and was subsequently remade in 1991, starring Robert DeNiro and Nick Nolte.

The original film received an ‘X’certificate on release but it is regularly shown on television, however on the film’s DVD release it was given a 15 certificate.

This is a flyer for the 1967 film ‘A Guide for the Married Man’ which was distributed to Rank Cinema patrons, the film in fact carried an ‘X’ certificate although viewed today can be considered quite tame and only carry a PG certificate.

After the Second World War, the church and educationalists raised concerns regarding what was being shown within the children’s cinema matinees, and in the cinemas in general, highlighting Hollywood’s glamorization of immoral behavior and crime.

In 1948 a committee on Children in the Cinema was set up to examine the effect of cinema and films on young people. A document written by a local Waterloo Senior Science Master was put forward as evidence for the committee, the archive copy resides in Sefton Records Office named ‘Frank Tyrer – Children and the Cinema’ This committee and its findings help set in place the Wheare report.

The Wheare Report was published in 1950 and looked at juvenile cinema going. The report made suggestions regarding censorship of film and brought in the X certificate to replace the broader H certificate of film classification. From 1951 no children under the age of 16 were supposed to be able to see an X certificate film, but of course many of them did, as the film posters and trailers would highlight the X rating which would make the film more appealing and a challenge to the younger audience to be able to see them. The report also placed a levy of voluntary tax on each cinema ticket the “Eady Levy” which would go towards setting the Children’s Film Foundation.

The Parents View Parents of young cinema goers saw the children’s cinema matinees as a safe place where their children could go to be entertained for a few hours whilst they could get on with their chores and shopping. A lot of what was shown in the matinees was often unknown and unseen to the parents so when films especially made for children were introduced, together with tighter controls on film censorship parents could send their children to the pictures without fear of what they were watching causing delinquency as many of the moralist at the time had tried to claim.

From the early days of cinema and film production right through to today, concerns have always been raised about how what people see on the screen can affect attitudes and behaviors. Moralists and educationalist have put forward many concerns about cinema, the films and their effects.

Many of the moral issues raised came from the glamorization of Hollywood and how its actors and actresses were portrayed both on and off the screen.

The British Board of Film Censors was set up in 1913 as a form of self regulation for the industry and as a way for films to be assessed and given a censorship or category rating.

After a series of scandals in 1930’s Hollywood, coupled with the church and educationalists views on the perils of cinema on society, helped bring about several new codes of conduct for film makers to follow – The Hayes Code was introduced in 1930’s America . The introduction of this and subsequent forms of censorship of film over the years have given way in some cases for a less sensational view of the effects of the cinema.

Film classifications can be seen as an historical and cultural basis for what is going on in society a given point in time. Many films which would have carried an ‘A’ ‘X’ or ‘H’ rating during the 1930′s to the 60′s are often classified as a PG or even U rating today and would be seen as quite tame in content compared to todays films.