While modern censors found the presence of cigarettes in the 50s-set Grease trailer a cause for concern, their latter day counterparts were concerned by what they saw as far more socially damaging problems when it came to evaluating The Wild One. Coming on the wave of a moral panic in the early 1950s, The Wild One seemed to represent and even glorify what many saw as the rise of the wayward, anti-authoritarian teenager. The British censors were so incensed that a movie would, in their eyes at least, seek to exacerbate this growing social problem that they banned it outright. It wasn't until 1967 that The Wild One finally saw a release in the UK - with an X certificate slapped on for good measure. Just a few years later, the board were faced with rating Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, a movie which would have made The Wild One seem like a family film by comparison.
