The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-12-07
That Is Just What Kansas
Movie Review Reads Like.
CensOrs Find Some Real Shock
ing Things in Reels.
NO NIGHT WHOOP-E-LA STUFF
And Closeup of a Girl in Bath
ing Suit Is Awful.
kissing, Kicking and Caressing
Must Not Go Too Far.

If you are a movie ran IN Kansas
you will never know what you nave
missed until you have seen the report
made by the Kansas state board or
review, that august triumvirate Whlch
sits in the seats of judgment In the
old city hall of Kansas City, Kan.
The board has just issued Its report
on films examined during a perloo
ending November 1. Hundreds or PIC
lures have passed under the rod,
and only a few of them nave gone
forth to their destination untouched
by the blue pencil. A number OF tneHi
have been slaughtered outright, being,
in the opinion of the judges, UNFIT TO
live: others have undergone major
operations, and wholesale dismember-
ment and still others are released AFTER
a little denaturiZing and fumlgatlng.
There is one thing the czars or the
Kansas review board won't tolerate for
a moment, and that is the sight OF
girls and women smoking cigarettes.
The producers may just as wen save
express charges on the film footage
that they send to Kansas, depicting
cabaret maidens with the cork-tipped
coffin nails between rosy fingers or
scarlet lips.
on the other hand, the review board
has its favorites among the films, ana
they unhesitatingly point them ou\
with little stars, as pictures suitable
for display for the family night pro-
grams The pictures so designated
number the Burton Holmes Travel
mixtures "Methodized Cannibals OF the
Fiji Islands," and then there are the
Pathe news pictures. Boy Scout pic
lures and "Britain's Bulwarks,' etc.
The everlasting controversy that
RACES between the scenario writer's ana
picture producers, on oQe slde' anu
the Dramatic league and other pro-
tectors of the public taste ana morals
on the other is centered for Kansas,
in the review board office and pro-
lection room. The writers for the
film companies seem possessed or an
unshakable faith in the craving OF
the American public for the sloppy
love stuff, the revelations OF ne IN
the underworld, and the tattered,
threadbare, undraped problem drama
that goes out of it's way to call a
spade a d-zn spade.
Underwear, Never More!
Out of a few hundred films cen
sored is developed the certainty that
in Kansas babies underwear may not
be held up in the picture for puohc
review At least a half dozen such
eliminations occur in the report. The
censorship of moving pictures in Kan
saS must have run up the percentage
of lost motion enormously in the
world by the elimination of hundreds
of perfectly, thrilling embraces every
week. In the revival of the old
scandal about Caesar and Cleopatra,
in which Theda Bara doesn't care
what she does, some cut-outs are or
dered that ought to have packed every
picture house in Kansas for two SHOWS
a day for two weeks, assuming that
the public bankers for the kind of eX-
posures that the producers are ready
to furnish. An enumeration IN the
report is made of the departments or
Cleos person that must be left to the
Imagination in Kansas. Poor Theda
fer11 nj
CITY is about to make her appear like
a modest, blushing violet, and is on
the eve of taking away her vampire
distinctions.
Mary McLane's Men Who Have
Made Love to Me" also got knitting.
The heroine is forbidden to say. for
instance, by Jove, you're just like
me-" and another subtitle in the
drama that has been pulled up by the
roots reads: Into my life has come
six love affairs. damnably real" No
swearing allowed by women in our
picture houses. Billy West and Fatty
Arbuckle are deprived of the joy of
making public their favoritc pastime
of kicking one another and of apply
ing shingle when convenient loca-
ton appeared in too tempting proni-
hence. Another thing that is sure:
Charlie Chaplin is forbidden in this
state to divest himself publicly of his
trousers. and neither is any film ac-
tress going to be allowed to frisk
about Kansas picture screen with
the rear breadth of her skirt missing.
No Open Season on kissing.
kissing, in reasonable amounts, is
allowed, if it is done in an orthodox
fashion. One picture suffered a slash
ing because of some sportive and in
discriminate kissing below the chin.
Moreover, Red Cross nurse is. not to
be represented in the movies as kiss
ing a soldier. Otherwise, this is a
fairly open season on kissing.
The dream of the movie actors life
is to get lot of closeups. Same thing
1s true about the actresses. Close
ups OF actresses are wasted in Kansas
If the girls appear before the camera
in bathing suits. The Kansas board
will not have a near revelation of
scantily-clad bathers.
The scenario artists have no end of