How does the 1919 manual tell a writer to handle crime, violence, death and sex on screen: what may be shown, what must only be suggested, and what conditions make it acceptable?
1919 US trade advice: the authors do not ban crime and violence but make them conditional. A crime must be essential to the story and not its purpose, must point a moral rather than serve as a spectacle, and (in the reported burglary item) the act may be shown while the method may not. Death is acceptable only when the plot needs it, and the authors claim a rescue often has more punch. Weapons are tolerated in historical and pioneer subjects but not as gun-play excess. Sex is addressed only by 'vulgarity and suggestion' (see -03) and a remark that problem plays would be too risque in pantomime; the text does not set a depiction rule for sex.
1919 US trade advice: the authors do not ban crime and violence but make them conditional. A crime must be essential to the story and not its purpose, must point a moral rather than serve as a spectacle, and (in the reported burglary item) the act may be shown while the method may not. Death is acceptable only when the plot needs it, and the authors claim a rescue often has more punch. Weapons are tolerated in historical and pioneer subjects but not as gun-play excess. Sex is addressed only by 'vulgarity and suggestion' (see -03) and a remark that problem plays would be too risque in pantomime; the text does not set a depiction rule for sex.
Curator qualifications: Crime/violence conditional (essential, not the purpose, point a moral); burglary 'fact without method'; no sex depiction rule (0 hits).
Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
Structured fields
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- [sourced_fact] 1919 US trade advice: the authors do not ban crime and violence but make them conditional. A crime must be essential to the story and not its purpose, must point a moral rather than serve as a spectacle, and (in the reported burglary item) the act may be shown while the method may not. Death is acceptable only when the plot needs it, and the authors claim a rescue often has more punch. Weapons are tolerated in historical and pioneer subjects but not as gun-play excess. Sex is addressed only by 'vulgarity and suggestion' (see -03) and a remark that problem plays would be too risque in pantomime; the text does not set a depiction rule for sex. · locator: candidate evidence excerpts source
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