Remember the commotion about “video nasties” in the early 1980s and the debate about whether films could affect behaviour? Well, there’s nothing new under the sun, and all that.
In this article from a 1937 copy of The Mirror, a young Gosport lad was so affected by romantic thoughts after watching Romeo and Juliet that, after leaving the cinema, he immediately broke into the bedroom of what he claimed was “the first person that came into his mind”. This person being a rather startled Mrs Ivy Maud Bishop. The understanding Judge handed down a quite amusing punishment for this crime – “He was put on probation for twelve months on condition that he does not go to the pictures more than once a week.”
