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Welcome to All Movie Talk! In this audio podcast, Samuel Stoddard and Stephen Keller talk about old and new movies, famous directors, historical film movements, movie trivia, and more.


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Vintage: International Distribution In 1927, Part 2

As promised last week, here is a look at the state of international distribution of movies to specific countries as of 1927, with a particular eye on foreign censorship laws. There are a lot of scans and tons of information this time, but my commentary will zero right in on the interesting bits.

International Distribution
On this first page, there's an interesting line at the end of the "Agitation" section about how Australian exhibitors got around quota laws.


International Distribution


International Distribution


International Distribution
The "Censorship" section for Belgium says that an authorization card had to be obtained by submitting a summary of the film's scenario, or story. Presumably they could view the film if they wanted, but the suggestion is that normal procedure was for certificates to be issued without the censor board ever seeing the films. This suggests to me two possibilities: one, the type of content they cared about were purely thematic, such as politically or morally subversive themes; two, that the government didn't really understand the medium of film and how mature content can appear in a movie without it being evident from the overall synopsis. Either way, it seems like this procedure gives the distributors the power to smooth over the objectionable content before it reaches the board.


International Distribution


International Distribution
The section on China is fascinating to me just because of how much things have changed since the 1920s, particularly in Shanghai and Hong Kong. The Republic of China, replacing the Qing Dynasty, had only been established in 1912, and it wouldn't be until 1949 that the People's Republic of China would be established in the wake of its involvement against Japan in World War II. Shanghai was at this time a prime city for Russian refugees (later for European refugees as well), and it was a fashionable destination for exotic travel. Culturally, it was one of the most heterogenous and unique places in the world. Hong Kong, meanwhile, was still a colony of the British Empire. It had been for three quarters of a century and would be for another three quarters of a century. Commerce in these two cities, therefore, would be quite different from the rest of China.

The interesting section here is the "General" paragraph at the end. Note the last line for an interesting remark about China's primary censorship concerns.

International Distribution
Here, note the racism at work in East Africa (Kenya), and the censorship concerns in Egypt. It seems like censor boards either operate on the principle of protecting the people or fearing the people. Egypt seems to be clearly concerned with the latter.

I'm not sure what "American adventure stuff" is. Also note the "General" paragraph at the end.


International Distribution
India's "General" section and Italy's "Censorship" section are worth a glance here.


International Distribution
Japan was a very closed nation for a very long time. Westerners didn't really know much about Japan until its abrupt and amazing reconstruction and conversion to democracy in the wake of World War II. But despite now being an open and internationally active nation for over 50 years, I think the sense of unknowability of the culture, born well beforehand, persists. The sense that Japan was an exotic, alien, mysterious culture is reflected by the American films being made in the 1930s, the Mr. Moto series for example. The Mr. Moto films are eight short mystery films starring Peter Lorre as a mysterious Japanese detective, who travels the world and solves crimes, usually conventional murder mysteries that have some kind of international import.

Like the Mr. Wong series with Boris Karloff, it can probably rightly be seen as an attempt to ride the box office coat-tails of the immensely popular Charlie Chan franchise. But Western perceptions of the far east in the early part of the century can be divined from the differences between the two series. Charlie Chan's place in the world is well-understood. He's a friend. His agenda is a known quantity. He works with the American police. He's one of us, a member of our team.

Mr. Moto, even after watching all eight films, remains a bit of an enigma. We never really know who he is, who he really works for, or what his job really is. We're pretty sure his agenda aligns with ours -- he wants to see the badguys caught, too -- but we're not convinced they align for the same reasons, or that they'll never diverge one day. And there is a real menace to Mr. Moto, despite his exceptionally polite demeanor. Very atypically for heroes in American pulp at the time, Mr. Moto has an edge to him, in one of the films outright murdering a man (badguy though the man was) because he saw through Mr. Moto's cover.

I hasten to add that the Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto films are terrible places to go to actually learn about Chinese and Japanese culture. On the contrary, they're pretty short-sighted, and the main characters were whites in makeup. But they're valuable for giving us a glimpse into how Westerners once perceived the Chinese and Japanese cultures.

Getting back to this scan, it is therefore not surprising to me that, while most other nations are shown as exhibiting 80-90% American films and only a small number of domestic productions, Japan was airing 75% Japanese films. Japan had a strong film industry early on. They were slow to convert to sound films (they made silents well into the 1930s), but their domestic film industry was prolific.

International Distribution
Note the "Censorship" and "General" sections for Mexico. I would comment more, but a number of different ways to read between the lines comes to mind here, and I'm not sure which ones would be accurate. What do you think?

International Distribution


International Distribution
I love the bit about Russian production. American film is hugely popular, but the import and censorship laws make it tough for the movies to get in. So, "Russians imitate American stars to satisfy demands of the public for American films."


International Distribution
A glance at the censorship section for Syria makes it clear who was in charge. France occupied Syria from 1920 to 1946. Similar to what we discussed last week with Britain and India, the primary concern of the Syrian censorship board is that imported media doesn't make the French look bad. It's presumably ok to make the Syrians themselves look bad.

Meanwhile, in the section on Turkey, "no Turk may be shown in pictures with a fez."


International Distribution
Finally, we come to the United Kingdom, which takes up a whole page and then some. The end of the "Agitation" section touches upon a hugely controversial practice in America and England in the late 1920s that was eventually broken up by the courts as anti-competitive. Basically, the production studios would purchase blocks of screen time from the theaters so that the other studios wouldn't be able to squeeze in and get screen time. Production of films, until the sound era hit, was quick and easy, and basically the plan of the studios was to fill the exhibition space they bought up in blocks with whatever they had ready. I've been trying to find a good way to introduce this topic in a Vintage post somewhere, but it looks like the best introduction to the issue is right here in this write-up for distribution in Britain, where it specifically discusses advance and "blind" bookings.

The courts, at least in America, would break up this practice, and production studios would respond by actually merging with theater chains and overseeing production, distribution, and exhibition as single companies. That, in turn, would be broken up by the government in 1948, heralding the end of the "studio era," which we discussed on the podcast in Episode 35.

The censorship section is interesting. Can you imagine an MPAA rating today? "Rated R for the materialized figure of Christ and scenes in a lynatic asylum."

The end of the "Production" section is also worth a look.

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