shooter and shootee in same frame.....?

[rrpower]

(perfect pussy) Kelly

Awwwwwwwwwww yeah

[ChristopherF]

Dear All

Yes, the point about ‘Shooter and Shootee’ seems to have come originally from my interview with Clint Eastwood, who must have had in mind his experience on Rawhide.  So maybe it was a TV Western thing rather than a movie censorship thing. Someone should look at the old Hays Code guidelines to check. If I have unwittingly created a myth, mea culpa.

Christopher Frayling

[Groggy]

Well... Are you really Christopher Frayling? If so, welcome to SLWB! Hope you decide to stick around.

[dave jenkins]

Dear All

Yes, the point about ‘Shooter and Shootee’ seems to have come originally from my interview with Clint Eastwood, who must have had in mind his experience on Rawhide.  So maybe it was a TV Western thing rather than a movie censorship thing. Someone should look at the old Hays Code guidelines to check. If I have unwittingly created a myth, mea culpa.

Christopher Frayling

It wasn't just a TV thing, though; I seem to remember a commentary on Bonnie and Clyde that brought up the same shooter/shootee issue (B&C supposedly being the first Hollywood movie to violate the taboo). There is something in this, but it probably wasn't as strictly observed as we've been led to believe; there must have been a host of variables to consider, including distance of the action from the camera, duration of the shot, etc. Also, the Hays/Breen standards were constantly evolving; some of the things verboten in the 40s could sneak through in the 50s. But yeah, we need someone with expertise on this matter to weigh in here.

[moviesceleton]

Well... Are you really Christopher Frayling? If so, welcome to SLWB! Hope you decide to stick around.

This forum with all its trolls has made me so sceptic that I find it hard to believe this. But if in fact this is true: 

[The Firecracker]

This forum with all its trolls has made me so sceptic that I find it hard to believe this. But if in fact this is true: 

It is indeed Mr. Frayling.
Banjo checked his IP and it shows a London address and his email.

[moviesceleton]

It is indeed Mr. Frayling.
Banjo checked his IP and it shows a London address and his email.

My jaw just dropped on the floor... Way cool

[tucumcari bound]

My jaw just dropped on the floor... Way cool

Yeah, mine too. That is amazing. It's to bad he doesn't post here more often. I'm guessing he checks in from time to time though.

[Atlas2112]

Get real T_B, He's a busy man. I mean, he is a knight after all, he's probably fighting some sort of crusade.

[archangel]

hi,
there are two types of people in this world, my friend: those who THINK they know, and those who DO know.

mr frayling, you stand corrected, sir.

archangel.

[archangel]

hi guys,
i've located another example of Shooter-Shootee.

John Ford's "Wagon Master" from 1950,  so it precedes "High Noon".

saw it on TV years back, but didn't notice it then.

it's in the end shoot-out with the Cleggs. and it's a fairly quick edit.

the film's a bit dated now but it does feature Ben Johnson, Ward Bond and Harry Carey Jr - all great western actors.

look it up on youtube.

best,

archie.

[Groggy]

Come to think of it, both The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Cheyenne Autumn featured this.

[Groggy]

Is it possible this rule/guideline was enforced only within specific genres? I do remember watching White Heat not long ago, and despite a lot of killings they almost made a fetish of cutting away from shooting victims.

If you think about when the Hayes Code was first instituted, this might make sense. The '30s of course was the tail-end of Prohibition heyday of the bank robbers like Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd etc., many of whom purportedly modeled themselves on Hollywood gangsters. So perhaps the rule was in place for certain genres, say, gangster films or crime flicks in general, where a hypothetical gullible audience member might some ideas, while Westerns and period films went untouched.

Or maybe it just wasn't consistently enforced.

[dave jenkins]

Or maybe it just wasn't consistently enforced.

More than that, I don't think it was ever codified. That is, there was never an explicit rule written down on a sheet of paper somewhere. It was all a matter of Hayes (later Breen) or whoever just looking at scripts and/or films and lodging complaints as objections occurred to them. The studios could anticipate what might get noticed, and self-censor themselves. But they might let something slip through, something that the Code guys might in turn also not notice (they were, after all, reviewing a ton of product). You might be on to something, though: there may have been more attention paid to certain potential "offenses" in certain types of films than in others. For example, a gangster film might be scoured more closely for violence issues (those being expected in a gangster film) than in, say, a costume picture (which might have duels, murders, battles, what-have-you). Just speculating, though.

[Groggy]

Superb post HG!