To protect children (and adults) from the threat of ‘sexual adultism’, agitation and disturbances in the nervous system, the Centro Cattolico published an annual guide and weekly gradings of all films. There were seven grades: ‘For All Audiences’, ‘For All (With Reservations)’, ‘Adults’, ‘Mature Adults’, ‘Adults (With Reservations)’, ‘Not Recommended’ and ‘Banned (escluso)’. Some of the gradings awarded to particular films are noted in the filmographies in the second part of this book.
After the revelation, I was left with the impossibility of deciding whether to deny the worth of his teaching or close my eyes to the evil of his actions, or (this seemed impossible) to grasp the monstrous combination of both, alive in the same person. To give a shape to my question I wrote a novel, News from a Foreign Country Came.
But on what authority have I acted? Authorship. This is tricky. On one occasion during these negotiations, Steve demonstrated to me that because of the insertion of a commercial break where none existed in the British film, two of the scenes worked better when they were transposed. As the author of the pages in question I felt i had the right to agree or disagree, and I agreed. But, of course, the pages were no longer pages but bits of film, which, as everybody knows, is a director’s medium.
And I was just about to do the stretch of corridor leading to the stairs in a split second under the record time for the course, when something brought me up with a sudden jerk. One moment, I was all dash and fire and speed; the nest, an irresistible force had checked me in my stride and was holding me straining at the leash, as it were.
The most awesome powers of control belong to the vampires and Browning’s attitude toward these undead poses a particularly intriguing problem. The vampires depend, for support, upon the infirm and innocent elements of society that Browning scorns. They sustain themselves through the blood of the weak whom they can possess, but are vulnerable to those with the determination to resist them. In Dracula, Dr. Van Helsing is the character who fits the pattern of the Browning hero because, as the vampire ruefully discovers, his “will is strong.”
Little Anthony was sitting on the lawn, playing with a rat. He had caught the rat down in the basement — he had made it think that it smelled cheese, the most rich-smelling and crumbly-delicious cheese a rat ever thought it smelled, and it had come out of its hole, and now Anthony had hold of it with his mind and was making it do tricks.
‘Got your rod, Tony?’ asked Rico.
Seven paragraphs from seven page seventeens from seven books I either own or have borrowed. Illustrations by Phiz.
Italian Films, by Robin Buss; A Reader on Writing, by Alberto Manguel; Squaring the Circle by Tom Stoppard (introduction); Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit by P.G. Wodehouse; The Hollywood Professionals Volume 4: Tod Browning, by Stuart Kaminsky; It’s a Good Life, by Jerome Bixby, from White Fire, edited by Alberto Manguel; Little Caesar, by W.R. Burnett;
shadowplay 