The most important censorship news this month concerns the screening of The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea at the Plaza. The film opened on 1 October with five fairly substantial cuts amounting to about four minutes of running time having been imposed by the censor's office. On the morning of Thursday 7th, the manager was instructed to return the cut print to the censor's office, where it would be replaced by an uncut print. The manager informed Sequence that the censor had had about twelve complaints about the amount of censorship the film had undergone.

The Evening Post reported that five cuts in the film had been reinstated by the censor (Mr Doug McIntosh) following a review of the film. Mr McIntosh added that he was 'sticking his neck out' in making the decision. The reinstated scenes are: a sequence in which the widow, watched by her son, masturbates in front of her late husband's portrait; a scene in which three 12-year-old boys look at a book of coital positions; and three bedroom scenes with the principal actors Sarah Miles and Kris Kristofferson.

'For a number of reasons we decided to review the film, and after seeing it decided to pass it without cuts - it was a doubtful one, in terms of the Act, at the start', Mr McIntosh said. 'We had to determine whether the scenes in their context were contrary to public order and decency, and we came to the conclusion that they were not'. Mr McIntosh added that he was on annual leave when the film was first censored in July.

Mr McIntosh described the film as a 'serious' love story and said its content was unlikely to greatly offend people. 'However, there is still a little bit of doubt, specially in regard to the pictures looked at by the schoolboys'. He added that the decision taken was based on the law and not on the artistic merit of the film - legal advice had been taken before reinstating the cuts.

The decision, the Evening Post concluded, could be regarded as a change in the policy of the censor's office towards a more enlightened attitude to sex in films. 'Views change and I think it's good that they do so', Mr McIntosh said.

Brigid Hampton, in reviewing the film a few days later in the Evening Post, said the reinstated cuts don't make a great deal of difference in contributing to or detracting from the main body of the film which is hardly the glowing epic the ads would have us believe.

- Sequence, November 1976.