Faced with the reality of censorship and a confounding array of local standards, members of the film industry formed the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC, much later called the British Board of Film Classification) to impose a “voluntary” scheme of film censorship. No film would be passed unless it was “clean and wholesome and absolutely above suspicion,” a broad standard that covered subcategories for sex, politics, violence, and derogatory representations of the armed forces and the empire.17
