Maryland Censor Board

[Billy A. Anderson]

To keep the Film Detectives thread on the subject of Ed D Louie's HIM, I'm starting a special thread on the Maryland Censor Board, which is in addition of being of use in lookiing for HIM, an entire subject unto itself, with a lot of things of interest that I and other people posting here on CHFB might want to discuss.

Did a little more digging and here are the reports on file for the last decade of the board's existence:

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1970-1971

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150323e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1971-1972

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150324e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1972-1973

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150325e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1973-1974

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150326e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1974-1975

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150327e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1975-1976

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150328e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1976-1977

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150328e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1977-1978

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150330e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1978-1979

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150331e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1979-1980

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150332e.pdf

"Under the provisions of the Regulatory Programs Evaluation Act of 1978, this Board will terminate July 1, 1981." No further reports on file.

[Billy A. Anderson]

Well, Webmaster Deeky, those yearly reports of the Maryland Censor Board did not highlight as connectable URL links when I copied them to paste into this new thread.

Can our Webmaster fix it where we can click on highlighted links and get to the reports and read them?

[Deeky]

[Billy A. Anderson]

Apr 29, 2018 15:54:15 GMT -5 Billy A. Anderson said:

To keep the Film Detectives thread on the subject of Ed D Louie's HIM, I'm starting a special thread on the Maryland Censor Board, which is in addition of being of use in lookiing for HIM, an entire subject unto itself, with a lot of things of interest that I and other people posting here on CHFB might want to discuss.

Did a little more digging and here are the reports on file for the last decade of the board's existence:

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1970-1971

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150323e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1971-1972

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150324e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1972-1973

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150325e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1973-1974

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150326e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1974-1975

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150327e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1975-1976

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150328e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1976-1977

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150328e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1977-1978

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150330e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1978-1979

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150331e.pdf

Annual Report of the Maryland State Board of Censors 1979-1980

msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5300/sc5339/000113/020000/020896/unrestricted/20150332e.pdf

"Under the provisions of the Regulatory Programs Evaluation Act of 1978, this Board will terminate July 1, 1981." No further reports on file.

[Deeky]

[Billy A. Anderson]

Deeky, I don't know exactly what that emoticon in your last post is supposed to mean, but, I have gotten working links to the years that you posted the annual reports of the Maryland Censor board reports to.

So, anyone interested in the activities of that censor board can click on the link and Read and Learn.

It is incredible to me that as late as 1980, when porno was the norm all around the USA, that one state, Maryland, was still trying to keep people from seeing porno films.

At the risk of repeating myself, after the censor board was disbanded, I'm sure that Maryland movie houses became wide open to all of the porno films the censor board had prevented people from seeing.

But, of course, as one of the Censor reports noted, Maryland residents could go to the nearby District of Columbia, and see as many as 400 porno films a year, that the Maryland board would not allow them to see.

l've got what I want, a thread with links to the yearly reports of the Maryland Censor board, and I will have some comments on this ridiculous phenomenon, in the days to come.

[Marxo Grouch]

I only had time to look at the first two links, but I noticed one had a film called Sexual Practices in Sweden and one had one called Sexual Freedom in Denmark. I bring it up because I once read a Mad piece written/drawn in the early '70s in which films with strong sexual content of the time were given jokey posters that hid their explicitness in a fictional attempt to get more people to see them. The three films featured were I Am Curious (Yellow), Last Tango in Paris, both of which I knew were real movies, and something called Sexual Practices in Denmark, which I always used to wonder about whether it was real. I guess I'm still sort of wondering. Perhaps I should look at the rest of the links.

[Billy A. Anderson]

Marxo, did you also notice 14 and Under? That is certainly an eyebrow raising title!

This film was listed in the 1974-1975 Report of the Maryland Censor board,

The film wasn't approved or disapproved but was given a waiver of time limitations on June 10, 1975, and I so far have not found out if it was approved or not.

14 and Under is listed, along with an ad for the film, in the second Something Weird video catalog, and begins with a stern statement that there are not any real teenagers 14 and younger in the film, and that all of them were of legal age to be in the film, which was not even a  porno film.

Still, it was an eyebrow raising. title.  I wonder if it could have been approved by the Maryland Censors under a different title?

Something Weird eventually stopped listing films with titles that would suggest under age characters in them, films including words like "teenage," and "high school" in the titles. SWV changed the titles of some of these films that were not dropped, obviously to avoid attracting any attention from anyone looking for an opportunity to accuse them of having illegal content, even when the films were not actual porno films.