In 1945 bums were there to be whacked.

The classic, Brief Encounter (well worth watching) was recently televised and I was surprised to see that it included this "one-whacker":

That is a great film. Good old Celia no one would have dared give her bum a smack! And Trevor Howard is wonderful as the thoroughly decent sort of chap that nearly ends up going off with another chaps wife but pulls back from the precipice just in time. I have actually seen that one at the cinema recently (a rare treat for Mrs B) and I must admit to having been deeply moved by it.

And in 1938! Here's another good 'one-whacker', from Hitchcock's classic train thriller 'The Lady Vanishes':
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+lady+vanishes+1938+full+movie

Check out around 1.10.50...

Here's the offscreen strapping scene from "Places in the Heart" (1984), starring Sally Field as a recently-widowed mother trying to keep her family together:



Since the point of that situation was how strongly disciplining her son affected his mother, I thought that the spanking should have been shown onscreen, with emphasis on both of their facial expressions, but the film makers apparently lacked the nerve to do so, even though by 1930s standards it didn't seem like a particularly severe punishment.

The boy had been caught smoking out behind the schoolhouse, I believe; his mother had to ask him how soundly his father would have strapped him for the offense, and he apparently gave her an honest answer.

His little sister sincerely asking him "Did it hurt?" afterward, that struck me as cutely naive of her...

--C.K.

It also includes something you would never see in a modern movie - a child speaking up and being told to be quiet.

The good old days. I wish they would rediscover them.

Where are my nostalgia tinted spectacles? But then again when you look at the politically correct God bless the BBC world we live in it does make you hanker for the "good old days".

Nostalgia is not what it used to be

Spanking was quite prevalent in the days that were represented in these type of stories. It seems that onscreen spankings have fallen out of style in Hollywood. However, I have to admit that Blue Hawaii has an excellent spanking scene with Elvis Presley delivering an over the knee spanking.

I remember an old movie where the father or guardian took the child up to her room and spanked her.l You could hear the loud spanking and crying. It was not a short spanking.