Night of Fear  

Dir Terry Bourke / 1972 / Australia

The R rating had only been introduced for a year when the Censorship Board banned this in late 1972. The makers went to the Appeal Board, and in November 1972 it was awarded an R rating. It went on to open at the Penthouse Theatre in King Cross in March 1973. 

It remained pretty much unseen in Australia until 2005 when Umbrella Entertainment released the film on DVD. This involved going back to the Classification Board, who, in an example of how the guidelines change, awarded it, and the companion feature INN OF THE DAMNED an M (Medium Level Violence, Horror Theme, Low Level Sex Scene) rating in January 2005. The film runs 50min 49sec. 

The DVD is well worth tracking down as it contains a number of extras of interest. A commentary track moderated by Mark Hartley with the Producer, Rod Hay, and actress Carla Hoogeveen shines some light on the problems that the film had with the censors.

15min 30sec (in reference to Carla Hoogeveen's sex scene)
Rod Hay: But even looking at that relatively tame scene, that scene still provoked the censors to come back and say, right, sorry this film is banned.

We of course went up in arms, and we approached Stanley Hawes, I think his name was, who was head of the censor board, and he said no, that film is banned for the following reasons, which included that particular scene. Which we could not even regard as being risqué quiet frankly. I mean today you would get worse scenes in Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse. But that scene, coupled with a couple of other scenes with rats which they regarded as being fairly confrontational and brutal. They said, sorry, that film is not going to play in an Australian cinema.

Mark Hartly: It was the overall mood though wasn't it? It wasn't like you could cut two scenes and it would be fine. It was the fact that it had a relentless kind of terror.

Rod Hay : Absolutely.
........when we went to compete against the censor, because people thought, Oh, once we got banned, that's it, they'll shut up. It's too difficult anyway, cause they can't get into cinemas, and we said, no. Especially me, because I'd put money into this program and I thought the only way I'm going to retrieve that money is to make sure that we not only make our point, but we do actually get a release which will allow us to get funds back in the kitty for the next film we were planning. So it meant we were part of a pioneering brigade that were out there to knock on independent doors, because we could not get into theatre chains like Hoyts or Greater Union or Roadshow, and we finished up going to the Penthouse Theatre in the Cross. And from then on we got, well before we did that of course, we then had to go to the Appeals Board to get the Appeals Board to look at what our reasoning was for why they should approve the screening of this film. And at that stage we'd compiled a list of films which included films like, what was that film that Russell made now, Ken Russell?

Mark Hartley: THE DEVILS.

Rod Hay: THE DEVILS. Another was EL DIALBLO, a Mexican film which was very graphic. And there was another film on top of that which I forget now, but we used four or five of these. And we walked into the Censor Board based on the premise that shock is probably nine tenths of perception, and getting people to sort of fall over in support of you.

.......let me tell you what we did when we walked through the door of the Censor Board. We concocted this idea that we would bring in there, a four foot board, which was about two feet long, and about four feet high. And we had on it the prejudice that was now being made against Australian films, and these other films had been allowed censorship clearance, and they had all the elements in them, and how could they allow a film, or disallow a film that has not a tenth of what these films have. So by the time we got in there we had Caroline Jones, who we demanded replaced Stanley Hawes as the Chairman of the Appeals Board. They looked at it, and they said, well, we can see the commitment you've made. We'll look at the film. And within a minute of having seen the film, they said okay, film approved, and we're out and running.

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