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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Feb. 26, 1964
'Anything Goes' in Movie Industry Today
WASHINGTON — (UPI) — Attempts to reduce the sex content in movies began almost as soon as motion pictures got into motion. In 1896 there was a loud protest about the duration of a kiss May Irwin bestowed on John C. Rice on a new-fangled invention called the vitascope.
Currently there is only a mild ripple when Shirley MacLaine, playing a prostitute in the film "Irmia La Douce," turns her back on the camera and saunters across the room unimpeded by garments of any kind. Once the most heavily censored of all the entertainment media, the movies are now in an uninhibited era where almost anything goes.
They arrived at this status for several reasons, but chiefly because the United States Supreme Court reversed itself. In 1915 the court ruled that motion pictures were purely a business and not entitled to the constitutional protection given to the press. That invited the most drastic type of censorship—prior restraint—and the states rushed to pass censorship laws.
IN 1952 two rapid-fire Supreme Court decisions changed everything. A film called "The Miracle," made in Italy by Roberto Rossellini and starring Anna Magnani, was brought into court in New York on a charge of being sacrilegious. It was the story of a simple-minded peasant
girl who became pregnant and thought that her seducer was Saint Joseph.
The court removed the New York ban and, more important, held that a state could not censor a film on the ground of sacrilege. Movies, the decision said, were a medium of communication and entitled to the protection of the first and 14th amendments to the Constitution.
A week later the court made a similar ruling in the case of the movie "Pinky," the story of a light-skinned Negro girl who passed for White in the North. The case got to the Supreme Court because a movie exhibitor in Marshall, Tex., had been fined $300 for showing the picture.
BETWEEN the court decisions of 1915 and 1952 Hollywood got itself into a jam, not so much because of the pictures it produced but because of the high-jinks of some actors. Wallace Reid died a drug addict. Fatty Arbuckle was accused, but acquitted, of causing the death of Virginia Rappe at a wild party. Director William Desmond Taylor was shot to death and the ramifications of the case ended the careers of Mabel Normand and Mary Miles Minter. Hollywood decided to censor itself and invited Will H. Hays to do the job.
The so-called Havs Office is still in existence and still issues seals of approval to films with which it finds
The ratings are released to the public in Catholic publications and posted in churches.
NOW...
Eleven organizations, including the American Jewish Committee and the Protestant Motion Picture Council, have formed the Film Estimate Board of National Organizations. They issue a publication called "The Green Sheet" which rates movies in the following categories: adults, mature young people, young people, family, children unaccompanied by adults.
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The Production Code officials undoubtedly have become more liberal in granting approval seals. Bosley Crowther, movie critic of the New York Times, expressed mild astonishment the other day that a film called "Sunday in New York" had received a seal.
The only states that now maintain motion picture censorship boards are New York, Maryland, Virginia and Kansas. Many cities censor films in some form or other, but are more cautious in banning a production. The court decisions in "The Miracle" and "Pinky" are constant reminders that movies enjoy the protection of the Constitution.
THE CONTROL over movies by the Production Code Administration was weakened in the 1950's when seals of approval were denied to "The Man With the Golden Arm" (it dealt with narcotic addiction) and "The Moon is Blue" (a girl's chastity was involved).
nothing wrong. But there is a widespread misapprehension about how the Motion Picture Association of America, which Hays founded, functions. It does not censor movies so much as it helps the producers avoid trouble. Geoffrey M. Shurlock, director of the Production Code Administration, is available to consult with movie producers and directors to help them get scripts that will not run into censorship.
the code's seal of approval. Nothing much happened except Preminger made a lot of money. Now producers, especially those of foreign made films, are largely indifferent to the approval seal and many don't ever apply for one.
THE ATTENDANCE at any given movie can be heavily effected by organizations which are not censors but which rate films as to their acceptability. Most powerful probably is the Catholic Legion of Decency, whose members look at movies before they are released. Then they rate them as unobjectionable for the general public, unobjectionable for adults and adolescents, unobjectionable for adults, unobjectionable in part for all, and condemned.
"They (the code officials) might have thought it a bit too racy for youthful and innocent ears," he wrote. "But that was before the air was shattered by the mention of virginity in 'The Moon is Blue.' For the past ten years the once-unmentionable has been discussed at almost tedious lengths in films."
Hollywood likes to cash in on the publicity value of a sensational book or play. Shurlock helps and he almost qualifies as a magician because he has turned into acceptable films such sizzlers as "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "From Here to Eternity," "Peyton Place" and Gigi."
Otto Preminger, producer of both films, decided to show them without
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