Example Films
Despite the plural title, this page currently only serves as the introduction to one example film: the 1915 Charlie Chaplin film Shanghaied. Since the analysis of that film was a success, this page will develop and expand as the project does. The purpose of the example films is to find uncensored versions of films that were either "approved with eliminations" or "rejected" by the Board. Then watch the film while reading the censors' comments, and it will be as if one was experiencing the censorship in real time, able to imagine what the film would look like once the censorship was complete.
Shanghaied was "approved with eliminations" in the October 1915 Bulletin. An uncensored version of the film is available at archive.org, and it can be viewed while reading the censors' requested eliminations. This allows the researcher the ability to watch the film through the censors's perspective, attempting to understand their process and decisions. The first tentative conclusion that can be gained from these example films analysis is that there is a significant amount of content in the film that one would have imagined the censors would have cut. The cuts they made were rather small, and the film would still be thoroughly enjoyable without those scenes, and with only mild interference of the plot. This requires further research, but it is possible that the censors were not as strict on films as one might think after examining the Censorship Topics and Elimination Charts. However, more research is needed before this argument can be made. For now, Shanghaied serves as a great opportunity to watch a film the way the Board of Censors did over a hundred years ago.