Sin and Censorship: The Catholic Church and the Motion Picture Industry - Hardcover

Walsh, Frank

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300063733 ISBN 13: 9780300063738

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1996

Synopsis

During World War I, the Catholic church blocked the distribution of government-sponsored V.D. prevention films, initiating an era of attempts by the church to censor the movie industry. This book is an entertaining and engrossing account of those efforts―how they evolved, what effect they had on the movie industry, and why they were eventually abandoned.

Frank Walsh tells how the church's influence in Hollywood grew through the 1920s and reached its peak in the 1930s, when the film industry allowed Catholics to dictate the Production Code, which became the industry's self-censorship system, and the Legion of Decency was established by the church to blacklist any films it considered offensive. With the industry's Joe Breen, a Catholic layman, cutting movie scenes during production and the Legion of Decency threatening to ban movies after release, the Catholic church played a major role in determining what Americans saw and didn't see on the screen during Hollywood's Golden Age.

Walsh provides fascinating details about the church's efforts to guard against anything it felt might corrupt moviegoers' morals: forcing Gypsy Rose Lee to change her screen name; investigating Frank Sinatra's fitness to play a priest in Miracle of the Bells; altering a dance sequence in Oklahoma; eliminating marital infidelity from Two-Faced Woman; compelling Howard Hughes to make 147 cuts in The Outlaw; blocking the distribution of Birth of a Baby; and attacking Asphalt Jungle for serving the "crooked purposes of the Soviet Union." However, notes Walsh, there were serious divisions within the church over film policy. Bishops feuded with one another over how best to deal with movie moguls, priests differed over whether attending a condemned film constituted a serious sin, and Legion of Decency reviewers disagreed over film evaluations. Walsh shows how the decline of the studio system, the rise of a new generation of better-educated Catholics, and changing social values gradually eroded the Legion's power, forcing the church eventually to terminate its efforts to control the type of film that Hollywood turned out. In an epilogue he relates this history of censorship to current efforts by Christian fundamentalists to end "sex, violence, filth, and profanity" in the media.

About this title

Review:

The scope and influence that Catholic censors had in the "golden years" of Hollywood is almost unbelievable to contemporary fans of cinema, who are largely unaware of the origins of movie ratings and morality codes. While debate about sex and violence in the media continues, nothing in our more secular age rivals the Legion of Decency and the powerful censors of the Catholic Church, who dictated the standards of content to Hollywood throughout the 1930s and '40s. In this well-researched and sensitive account of censorship and morality, Frank Walsh recounts how the Catholic Church gained influence in the picture biz, from early efforts to restrict military health films about venereal disease to approving the casting of Frank Sinatra as a priest in Miracle of the Bells. Moguls from de Mille to David Selznick were forced to edit, rewrite, and delay release of their films. This is a fascinating history of the church's early role in Hollywood that doesn't downplay serious moral concerns but lays out an even, detailed account of the Catholic censors' enormous influence on many American cinema classics.

From the Back Cover:

Frank Walsh tells how the church's influence in Hollywood grew through the 1920s and reached its peak during the 1930s, when the film industry's self-censorship system, and the Legion of Decency was established by the church to blacklist any films it considered offensive.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0300063733
• ISBN 13: 9780300063738
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 424