(Image: Freelance)
FILM censorship is a tricky subject. One person's horror classic is another's violent garbage - but who decides what the public can see?
This month in 1979 Bradford was split by a row over a horror film and the right of people to make up their own minds about what they should see.
The Hills of Eyes was an American-made terror tale showing one family's fight for survival against a group of violent cannibals.
The film was directed by Wes Craven and was the follow-up to The Last House on the Left, a revenge thriller which had been banned outright by the national British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) in 1974.
But the UK censor had given Hills an X-certificate which meant it could be screened on UK cinema screens.
However, some councils - including Bradford - had their own regional censorship boards (part of the Bradford Environmental Health panel) which could, and often did, overrule the BBFC.
In 1976, a row over Bradford's decision to prevent cinemas showing the sex film Emmanuelle had led to questions in Parliament.
Ironically, the Classsic Cinema in Keighley had shown Emmanuelle a year earlier unbeknown to the regional censorship board. Nevertheless, Sylvia Kristel's soft-core sex epic was banned in 1976.
But questions in Parliament were only the start.
When the Bradford Environmental Health panel moved to ban The Warriors in June 1979 and The Hills Have Eyes four months later, cinemas and film-fans mobilised.
Joe Whiting, the manager of Keighley's Classic Cinema, started a petition urging the panel to think again. It garnered more than 2,000 signatures in less than a month. A counter petition set up by local churches gathered 1,000 signatures.
Of The Warriors, Mr Whiting told the T&A: "There is nothing in the film to justify the ban and, in my view, the panel over-reacted to the bad publicity it had in America when it was blamed for inciting street violence."
In nearby Harrogate, the regional censorship panel had quietly folded in June 1979 because it could not get enough volunteers to watch a monthly diet of sex and violence.
There were no such problems in Kirklees where the general services sub-committee voted to ban Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (or Lost Cannibals as the councillors erroneously called it).
Doreen Woods, chairman of the Leeds licensing committee told the T&A it was a tough job, but someone had to do it: "There are a lot of films we would prefer not to see. But it is our responsibility. People have actually come up to me and congratulated the committee on its work."
Despite that in June 1980 local film censorship in Leeds was scrapped. One councillor wailed: "What's the point of a ban when people know they can travel 20 minutes to Bradford and see anything we ban?"
Apart from The Hills Have Eyes, obviously.