All language subtitles for Sickies Making Films (2018)

(bright accordion music)

(static hisses)
(babies chatter)

(projector clicks and whirs)

(exciting music)
(crowd chatter)

- Does censorship exist
in your community?

If so, in what respect?

Is such a body legal?

And is it a thing that the
majority of the community wants?

Or have you been imposed
upon by some minority group

whose pressures have
influenced your politicians?

Find out about it.

And if you want censorship,

see that the laws are
logical and constitutional.

Otherwise, slowly and surely,
you will lose your heritage.

Remember, you have a
right to say, to read,

and to see what you wish.

(exciting music)

(projector whirs)

(projector stops)

(gentle piano music)

- I want this picture
to be a document.

I wanna hold a
mirror up to life.

I want this to be a
picture of dignity,

a true canvas of the
suffering of humanity.

- But with a little sex in it.

- With a little sex in it.

- How about a nice musical?

(gentle piano music)

- All right, Mr. DeMille,
I'm ready for my close-up.

(gentle piano music)

- Okay, get over there.

All right, let's
take a try at it.

- [Man] Here we go!

Hit your lights!

(lights click on)

(gentle piano music)

- We'll have to rewrite
the scene and re-shoot it,

it's absolute crap.

People don't speak like that.

- [Robert] It seems to me
that the history of film

is very much like the
history of America,

starting out with
its birth pangs,

the very early attempts
to make movies,

and going up through
various periods,

through a, maybe you could
call it free love period,

where everything goes.

- I'd like to make love to
you till you scream for help.

- Can't scream.

(they laugh)

- [Robert] And then
people coming in and say,

well that's not right,

let's clamp down on
some of those things.

- Would you try to seduce me?

- I don't...

Probably.

Why?

- Why, a girl wants to know!

- Who could be qualified
to say what's good for you

and what's good for me?

We're two different people.

So just the whole
idea of it is absurd.

- [Robert] And then
going through a period

of tightening the
expression in the movies.

- Why don't you come
up sometime and see me?

I'm home every evening.

- [Robert] And then
getting where then

and coming back to a period

where almost
anything seems to go.

(chainsaw revs)

- The battle began with
first to see a woman's ass,

then tits, then vagina.

Then a man's ass,
then a man's dick,

and then fucking.

- Is this entertainment?

Is this what should
be shown on a screen?

- [Robert] Baltimore's a
unique part of the story

of censorship in the country
because Baltimore suffered

under the longest running
censor board in the country.

It's a microcosm of
the history of movies

and also the history
of censorship.

- The industry is deeply worried

about a recent Supreme Court
decision on censorship.

The court ruled that
individual communities

have the right to determine
what's obscene and what's not.

And this local option
censorship rule

could change the way movies
are made in this country.

- [Robert] Baltimore
has its beautiful parts,

the skyline, the various
monuments, the parks.

And movies have these, the
grand cinema adventures.

Movies that are uplifting.

- Now, gentlemen,
in this country,

our courts are the
great levelers.

In our courts all men
are created equal.

- [Robert] And on
the other hand,

there are the seedier
parts of the city,

the red light districts.

Movies have the same thing.

There were movies that
were made simply to

explore the public's
prurient interest,

to titillate people.

Or to simply show them
something outrageous

that they couldn't
see anywhere else.

- [Mary] Sickening sickie.

There are sickies making films.

- [Robert] There's
been a long, long fight

for the movies to be able to

show what they want
to show on the screen.

They've had to face a lot of
roadblocks over the years,

and they had to fight to
be considered an art form.

(gentle piano music)

(gentle piano music)

(bright piano music)

- Censor of course comes
from the word census.

And it was a position in
the ancient Roman republic,

but the censor was
the person who decided

who the role of voters would be.

The censor could
determine whether or not

a person was of
sufficient high quality

to be considered a citizen.

So if you did not make
the role of citizens,

you could be stricken from
the roles by the censor.

It was a terrible thing.

- I think that it was assumed

that censorship would
always be with us.

It's a very old idea.

Socrates was a victim
of censorship in a
rather final way.

I mean, the cup of hemlock.

And censorship exists
today inside institutions

that are supposed to be
devoted to the freedom

of intellectual inquiry,
like universities.

- The censoring of movies
is very much related to

the time period when it emerges,

the so-called progressive period

of the turn of the
20th century through

the beginning of World War I.

People wanted to not
just control movies

but control lots of things

that they thought
might be corruptive

or subversive or
somehow detrimental

to society's development
in the ways in which

Protestant white
middle class values

said that society
should progress.

Effort to control movies was
very much in the same mindset

as people's access to alcohol,

requirements that
children go to school.

- We have to remember
that the progressives

at the turn of the 20th
century were very different

from modern-day progressives.

And the progressives
of the 20th century

firmly believed that
the greater good

should trump individual rights.

So your individual
right to produce a movie

or to see a movie,

if that was something that
might harm the greater good,

then that individual right
to see or produce that movie

needed to give way.

They saw it as very
little different from
the kind of reform

that protected people
against impure sausage.

- Everybody could
go to see films.

They were cheap, five cents,

and they were so pervasive,
they were everywhere.

The first movie theaters
were very, very small.

Nickelodeons, they
probably seated 100 people.

Many people viewed
the movie theaters

as horrible smelly dens

that you didn't want
your children to go into.

One of the things they would
do is they would make a name

that sounded really nice.

They had pretentious names

and names that
gave the impression

of a nice, cozy little place..

- This was an era when
we had real distinction

between public versus private.

That in the Victorian era,

there were things that
were in the private realm

that never crossed over
into the public realm.

So things like home life,
things like God and religion,

things like relationships
between family members.

Those things were very private

and never became
part of public life.

Leisure in the Victorian
era was usually confined

to the private life.

And because it was part
of the private life,

it was pretty well controlled.

Controlled by parents,
controlled by clergy,

controlled by educators.

That famous scene of the
two Broadway actors kissing,

that was shocking to the
Victorian sensibilities

because kissing was
something that was supposed

to be done in private,

and here it was, larger
than life characters

kissing on the screen
in the public realm,

people sitting
next to each other

who Victorians were
not very comfortable

thinking should've been
sitting next together.

(gentle piano music)

- The notion of boxing,

that it's a glorification
of brutality

with sort of the scene
that followed it,

you know, gamblers, prostitutes,
alcohol, seedy back alleys,

that whole sort of aesthetic,

that was not something that

was wished to be
glorified or perpetuated.

- [Richard] I think the first
specific censorship laws,

the state of Maine back
at the turn of the century

put in a statute which
said you could not

screen prizefights in the
state of Maine (chuckles)

because it solicited
violence among children

and all the other things.

- The idea that then boxing
could also touch another taboo

in American society at the
turn of the 20th century,

this notion of race or
specifically the spectacle

of black supremacy in this
sort of one-on-one combat.

It wasn't necessarily the
fact that black and white men

boxing together was
especially troublesome.

It was the films of black
men defeating white men,

and particularly Jack Johnson,
that was most troubling.

What was feared about the Jack
Johnson-Jim Jeffries fight

spoke mainly to the progressives
who ran governments,

who ran sort of organizations
charged with public wellbeing.

The challenge was
that they had to admit

that they did not control

the white man walking
on the street,

the average everyday citizen.

The unspoken reality
underneath all of the rhetoric

that spoke to black inferiority,

that spoke to the limited
educability of black people,

that spoke to their
moral bankruptcy,

was the fact that Jim Crow
segregation gave white men

in particularly mass
sort of collections

license to be brutal

in ways that were
simply otherwise not
permitted in society.

It frightened folks.

(indistinct crowd chatter)

- There's no evidence that
there was any groundswell

of opinion of people
demanding censorship laws

from their state legislators.

Where the push was
coming was from groups.

Groups like the Women's
Christian Temperance Union,

the YMCA, the Protestant
Church early on,

and later the Catholic Church
would step in and take over.

The American Society
for the Protection

of Cruelty to Children,

the General Federation
of Women's Clubs,

the National Association
of Colored Women,

the Watch and Ward Society,

the New York Society for
the Suppression of Vice.

These were the groups

that were pushing their
legislators for censorship.

And these were groups
that had some real sway

with those legislators,
they had some clout.

- The argument that's usually
made for the first censors

was these movies are
dangerous for children.

And then they get into
things like untutored people.

- [Laura] The special
capacity for evil concept

is what underlies
all film censorship.

(ominous movie music)

It's the idea that some
people can watch movies

and not be harmed by them,

but other people, children,
illiterates, immigrants,

people who are
especially vulnerable

to all kinds of pernicious

and dastardly kinds
of influences,

we need to protect those
people from that kind of thing.

And movies were the
first true mass medium.

(ominous movie music)

The first moving
picture ordinance

enacted in the United
States was in 1907.

So, very early on after
the onset of movies.

And it came in the
city of Chicago.

Chicago empowered its
police commissioner

to decide whether movies
were safe to be seen or not.

And then the police commissioner
was further empowered

to hire people to
help him to decide

whether movies could be shown.

- [Robert] The earliest
censorship in Baltimore,

for example, was the
police department.

Marshal Farnan, who was the
head of the police at that time,

say around 1908, 1909.

Let's say a policeman had
a certain regular beat.

(police whistle
chirps in background)

He would tasked to go in when
a theater opened a new movie.

(playful piano music)

He'd go in a watch it
and see if it was okay.

If he thought it was okay,
go back to headquarters

and say they opened this
movie and this is fine.

If he didn't like it,

then they could haul the
exhibitor into court.

People were complaining
about the police's censors,

and they complained enough
that Marshal Farnan said,

"Okay, everybody's a censor.

"I open this up to the
entire city of Baltimore.

"If you see a movie,
if you go to movies

"and you see a movie that
you think is a bad movie,

"is a bad influence or
is showing something

"that shouldn't be
shown, call me up.

"I'll have an operator ready
to take your phone calls."

(uptempo piano music)

- [Laura] Pennsylvania
was the first state

to enact statewide censorship.

And they passed it
unanimously in 1911.

Ohio followed two
years later in 1913,

followed by Kansas,
also in 1913.

Maryland enacted its statewide
censorship law in 1916,

New York in 1921, and
Virginia in 1922 as well.

And Massachusetts
was the last in 1926.

And we have to remember that,

in addition to the seven states,

there were hundreds of
municipalities and localities

that were censoring.

(upbeat piano ends)

- [Robert] The list of subjects

that the censor board
felt they had to censor,

and I'm talking about
Maryland specifically,

improper exhibition
of feminine underwear,

indelicate sexual situations,

nude figures,
over-passionate love scenes,

excessive use of firearms,

disrespect for the
law, infidelity,

gruesome murder, stabbing
and shooting persons,

acts of violence, throwing
bombs, train wrecking,

birth control, venereal disease,

inflammatory scenes and titles

calculated to stir
up racial hatred,

white slaves stories, these
were very popular in the '20s.

(upbeat piano music)

Then there was the kissing.

This has always fascinated me.

The censor board seemed
to say a three-foot kiss,

that is, three feet
of film, was enough.

They didn't wanna see a kiss
longer than that on the screen.

So they would cut them out.

(upbeat piano music ends)

- [David] D.W. Griffith's
Birth of a Nation,

which comes to
theaters in early 1915,

is really the realization of

some of the fears that
people have imagined

movies might bring
to American society.

It becomes controversial
because by this point in time,

there are so many elements
either concerned with

censoring movies and controlling
society's moral compass,

and also defending black people

against some of
these brutalities,

as well as ideas
of civil rights.

The idea that a movie
could have national impact

and be a national
conversation topic

was much more realistic in
1915 than say it was in 1885.

- [Robert] The
audience was polarized.

Maryland being on the border,

you had people who thought
this is a great movie,

it portrays the South as it was.

Other people said it's
bad for race relations,

it demeans black people and
this is not a good movie.

It'll cause trouble.

- [Richard] I don't think
anyone can see Birth of a Nation

without seeing a
political agenda in it,

but on the other hand,

I don't know that the
world has to be protected

from seeing that
political agenda.

Seems to me this is the argument

that First Amendment
people always raise.

Freedom is not just freedom,
it's also education,

and the possibility
of seeing things

which challenge both
your own opinions

and your own moral certitudes.

But then the question that
comes up with censorship always

is, is there a
certain constituency

that has to be protected?

- [David] The real danger
of Birth of a Nation

was the fact of its graphic
depiction of violence.

Remember, in 1914, certainly
over the next several years

as the movie is showing,

race rioting takes
on an urban form

which it had not
necessarily enjoyed.

And the notion that
Birth of a Nation

could inspire people
to revelry and violence

was very much feared because
that's what it depicted.

The National Association

for the Advancement
of Colored People

took a lead in many
ways in attempting

some sort of censorship to the
release and the distribution

of Birth of a Nation.

So I think the idea of
censoring was certainly in part

driven by their anti-liberal
impulses early on,

but more so, it was
protective as a response

to that larger context within
which the film would be shown.

- The Mutual Film Corporation
was a large corporation

that had tentacles
in many, many states.

It was a newsreel producer,

it was a motion
picture distributor,

and Mutual decided that
it wanted to attack

the censorship laws in
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kansas,

and they went at it with
a full-pronged attack.

And they took the case
to the Supreme Court.

The opinion, written for
a unanimous Supreme Court

by Justice McKenna, said,

"The exhibition
of motion pictures

"is a business, pure and simple,

"not to be regarded
as part of the press.

"The movies are capable of evil,

"the greater because
of their attractiveness

"and their manner
of exhibition."

This was the
Supreme Court saying

that movies should be regulated,

and go ahead and
regulate, legislators,

if that's what you
choose you want to do.

(dark ominous piano music)

- Hold it a second!

Now, Lina, look.

Here's the mike, right
here in the bush!

- Yeah!

- Now you talk to it.

The sound goes through
the cable to the box.

A man records it on
a big record in wax.

But you have to talk
into the mike first.

In the bush!

Try it again.

- [Robert] In the late
1920s when talking movies

came on the scene, you
had two kinds of talkies.

You had the talkies that were,
sound was provided by disc.

These were big records
that were played,

and they were synchronized
with the film.

The other method of providing
sound was sound on film,

where you had a sound track
running alongside the film.

- [Man] This is the picture
and sound projector.

One motor drives both the
picture and sound equipment.

See?

- [Robert] It sort of took the
censors by surprise I think,

because now they had to
censor words as well.

Previously they just censored
what was on the screen,

the subtitles they could censor.

First of all, they had to
get a new projection system

that could handle
both kinds of sound.

It drove the projectionists
crazy with the sound on disc

because if the censors
say cut out this scene,

cut out so many feet of scene,

they couldn't cut
it out on the disc

because it was already there,

so what they had to do
was take a section of film

that was the same length as
the parts that were cut out,

splice it into there, so
you'd be watching a movie,

all of a sudden you'd
see blank picture,

that you knew something
had been cut out there

to make it synchronized.

(projector whirs)

(indistinct crowd
chatter on screen)

- [Woman In Movie]
Don't fret, honey.

It all goes down the drain.

(giggles)

(projector whirs)

- [Laura] NAMPI is the
National Association

of the Motion Picture Industry,

and it was a group
that was created

largely to fight off censorship.

Hollywood was worried
about censorship,

and they were seeing this
crazy quilt of censorship

going up around
the United States.

And the group put in
a full court press

trying to keep New York from
enacting a censorship statute.

And when that didn't
work, when New York did

go into the censoring column,

that left NAMPI with
a big black eye,

made it realize that this
group that had been formed

in order to fight censorship

was not very effective
at doing that.

So the industry disbanded
NAMPI and created instead

a new organization,

the Motion Picture Producers
and Distributors Association,

and hired a new person to
lead that organization,

a man named Will Hayes.

Will Hayes was what
we today would call

the czar of the motion
picture industry.

He had, he was a politician,
he was well-connected,

he'd been the
Postmaster General,

and he proved to be a
very effective spokesman

for the motion picture industry.

- To Warner Brothers, to
whom is due credit for this,

the beginning of a new era
in music and motion pictures,

I offer my felicitations and
my sincerest appreciation.

- In the 1930s Hollywood came
up with something they called

the Production Code.

This was a lengthy document.

It had been co-written
by a Catholic priest

and a Catholic motion picture
trade magazine producer

and it was a code of
conduct for the movies.

The problem for the
Production Code is that

it was instituted in 1930

when Hollywood was undergoing
the Great Depression.

Sales were declining,
box office was declining.

Hollywood was in trouble,

and what better way to
get people in the seats

than to ramp up the sex and
to ramp up the violence?

And so the Production
Code was largely ignored.

- Do it again, I
like it, do it again!

(grunts)

(through door) Oh
please, Bill, do it!

Oh, stop, Bill!

(whimpers)

- The Catholic Church
became incensed

that the Production
Code was being ignored,

and then created that
Catholic Legion of Decency

to rally the laity to push for

the Production Code to
actually be put into effect,

actually be used.

And the Catholic Church
asked its patrons

to threaten to boycott
theaters that showed

movies that were not considered

things that lived up
to the Production Code.

That threat of a nationwide
boycott of Catholics

really got
Hollywood's attention.

And so in 1934,

they created the Production
Code Administration

and hired a Catholic
in order to run that

Production Code Administration,
a man named Joseph Breen.

The job of the Production
Code Administration

was to make sure that the
Production Code was enforced.

And it was.

So they have to be approved
before they start shooting.

Then they can be looked
at during shooting.

And then they have
to be approved when
shooting is over with

before they can get a
Production Code Seal

and get into as many movie
theaters as possible.

The movie content
that's going to be seen

is the movie content that the
Production Code Administration

wants to be seen.

- [Man On Screen] The whole
inheritance is forfeit.

- I got the job and started
to work in December of 1947

at the New Albert Theater,

and that was the
heart of segregation

in the state of Maryland.

(indistinct street chatter)

About 1943, a huge wealthy named
Howard Hughes, loved women,

and then made this picture
with a beautiful gal,

and it cost them millions of
dollars, called The Outlaw.

(exciting music in movie)

And not every state, but a few
states, including Maryland,

had censor boards.

Said, nope, can't play
here, it shows bad stuff.

- [Laura] The Outlaw was
a Howard Hughes production

about a love triangle
in the Old West,

and it starred an unknown
actress named Jane Russell.

Nobody had ever
seen her act before,

but they had certainly
seen her physique

in some very seductive
and very suggestive ads

that Howard Hughes had put out

long before the
movie even came out.

Hughes was trying to
buck the Production Code,

and he was seeking
publicity for his film.

He was gonna go head up against

the Production
Code Administration

and use lots of
salacious advertising.

He submitted the movie to
most state boards in 1942,

and they all required
some scenes to be cut,

and then for reasons
he never explained,

Hughes withdrew the picture.

And I think he was probably
just waiting for an opportunity

for greater publicity.

And sure enough, in
1946 he was back,

but the Maryland censors,
along with other states,

declined his request
for a license.

He sued, and the
Baltimore city court judge

agreed with the censors,
and he noted that, quote,

"Jane Russell's breasts
hang over the picture

"like a thunderstorm
over a landscape."

- Somebody got the
rights from Howard Hughes

to try to resell it again.

(upbeat piano music)

And they came to Maryland.

And the guy they came
to was Mr. Rappaport.

He had the Hippodrome
and the Town theaters,

and he wanted to play
The Outlaw real bad.

He was lining up lawyers.

He got my help, which was
a little political help.

And he got it passed.

Had to change a few ads,
cover up the cleavage.

Yeah, well it wasn't
that good a picture,

so it would've been a nothing.

Howard Hughes had a lot of
money, but who was Jane Russell?

Nobody knew her.

What absolutely made the picture

was the Maryland censor board.

(sweeping music)

(woman singing)

- [Laura] I think the censors
were wary of foreign films

largely because they
usually didn't go through

the approval process of the
Production Code Administration.

- It may interest you to
sit in with us at a meeting

of the Production Code
Administration in Hollywood,

where we are working for plainer
and better motion pictures.

- [Laura] The censors had
gotten used to, after 1934

and the introduction of the
Production Code Administration

under Joseph Breen,

movies had gotten a lot cleaner.

The censors had a
lot less to cut,

they had a lot less to argue
with with distributors,

because the Production
Code Administration

was really doing the job
that it had set out to do,

which was to clean up movies.

That filter isn't there for
many of the foreign films.

They're just coming in.

They're much more
open about sexuality,

they're much more
gritty in their realism,

they don't necessarily
have happy endings.

They're very different
kinds of films,

much more frank,
much more daring.

(speaking foreign language)

(projector clicks and whirs)

(restrained uptempo piano music)

- [Robert] When foreign movies
started becoming popular

in this country, one of the
early controversial ones

was the Czech film Ecstasy,

which brought Hedy
Lamarr over here

and made her a very
popular actress.

The movie became
terribly popular.

It was censored by
everybody in the world.

The Pope didn't like it,
the Nazis didn't like it.

The U.S. Customs didn't like it.

They seized the film
when it first came over.

It was a lot of trouble
to actually get it

into the theaters here.

- [Laura] Ecstasy
was a scandalous film

that became an
international cause celebre.

It was a joint
Czech-German production

that starred Hedy
Lamarr as an adulteress

who was not always
fully clothed.

She was married to an older man

who turned out to be impotent.

And so in her frustration,
she takes long horseback rides

and goes swimming, and
in one famous scene,

she's swimming in the
pond and turns over,

and she's completely nude.

It's only shown for
a couple of seconds,

and then she rolls over again,

but it was shocking
for the time.

Then while she's swimming
in the pond one day,

her horse runs off,

bolts because he's running
after a mare in heat.

Here, the symbolism starts
to clash everywhere.

He runs off, and he's got
her clothes on his back.

And so she runs after the horse

desperately trying to catch him.

She can't because he's going
after the mare in heat,

and she winds up being
discovered by a crew of men

who are working nearby.

And there's a young, very
virile engineer nearby,

and she's cowering in the bushes
because she has no clothes.

And they meet and they get
together and they fall in love.

And in one particularly
scandalous scene,

they're dancing in a hotel
room while her husband,

the impotent husband, is
in a hotel room above,

and he commits suicide
because he's lost his wife.

It's a very tragic story,
it has a tragic ending.

But it was very artistic.
(gunshot in distance)

Had only 300 words of
dialogue in the entire movie.

It's very moody.
(ominous music)

Very unusual kind of film
for American audiences.

And quite scandalous.

(dark ominous music)

Ecstasy's American distributor

was a company named
Eureka Productions,

and they really wanted
to bring this film

into the United States.

They ran into trouble with
the Customs officials.

They managed to get
it through Customs,

and then spent six years and
an untold amount of money

fighting against censor cuts
in virtually every place

where they tried
to show the movie.

After those six years
of battling in federal

and in several state courts,

it left a considerable wake
behind for the film industry.

It reinforced the
judiciary's refusal

to overturn the censors
(romantic music on screen)

unless actual malfeasance
could be proven.

Any appeals that were
based on the argument

of artistic merit or the
argument that critics' opinions

should be considered in
a censorship decision

would be absolutely fruitless.

They went nowhere in the courts.

The censors continued to decide

whether a movie
should be shown or not

by viewing individual scenes

and not looking at the
movie as an organic entity.

And finally, it showed that
the censors could not be cowed

into changing a determination.

Even after prolonged
legal battles,

the censors never
really gave in.

(sweeping music)

- [Molly] Where are we going?

- [Frankie] I don't know, but
I wanna buy you something.

- [Molly] Ah, well.

- I gotta spend some
money or I'll bust.

How about one of those in green?

- (laughs) Frankie!

- Maybe a colored TV set.

They're pretty.

- Oh, come on.

- [Robert] After the war,

censors wanted to
censor newsreels.

The Senate said, no,
you can't do that.

But it was a close vote.

And they also wanted
to censor television,

but that didn't go
anywhere, either.

- Keep our old friend
Andy from going to jail.

- By the 1940s, with the
onset of the Cold War,

with the rise of liberalism

and the suppression of
anything left or leftist,

we really begin to
see efforts to control

what the American
population has access to,

for fear of subversion,

for fear that we really don't
know those who are around us.

We began to see that aspect
of Cold War conservatism

mesh with the changes that
are not necessarily unrelated

with the racial situation
in the United States.

- And I know what you done.

And you know I never
told you to pretend

you is what you ain't.

- I didn't mean to, Granny.

It just happened.

- But that's a sin before
God and you know it.

- It was a conductor
on the train.

He put me back in another
car, the white one.

- But he knowed who you was,
I put you where you belonged.

- No, it was after that.

- We see the first American
president since Abraham Lincoln

beginning to consider ways
in which to ameliorate

the differences in
citizenship in race.

Specifically, Harry Truman
issues his committee's report

to secure these rights,
which begins to pave the way

towards first-class citizenship.

We begin to see some civil
rights gains in the courts.

We begin to see access to
improved housing conditions

from the Supreme Court.

Whites have a very
real and tangible sense

that their way of
life is changing.

A notion that a film about
a woman believed to be white

but who turns out
to be secretly black

would have been very
popular, very intriguing

to the popular sensibility
at that point in time.

- Can we give you a lift?

- No, thank you.

(car engine hums)

- Excuse me, ma'am, you must
be a stranger around here.

We can't let no white
girl walk by herself

through this here
nigger section.

- I live in this section.

- You what?

- I said I live here,
now just leave me alone!

- It deals with an
African-American woman

who passes as white

while she's attending
nursing school in Boston.

When she goes back
home to Mississippi,

she can longer pass as white,
everyone knows who she is.

And there she has
to face her past,

and she has to face the
discrimination that continues.

So the story is about a woman
who has lived in both worlds.

Right there, we can see in 1949

in places like Mississippi
or Georgia or Alabama

that this could be a problematic
issue for some censors.

These could cause
racial disharmony,

these could cause problems
with the social order as it is.

And the answer to that question
for one group of censors,

the censors of Marshall, Texas,

was to ban the showing
of the movie Pinky.

- The shocking aspect
of a film like Pinky,

in which a black woman
is passing as white,

and even upon discovery
of her secret blackness,

her white fiance
accepts her nonetheless,

isn't so much that
people were unaware

that such things could happen,

but those things
simply weren't spoken.

- She's washed and ironed
and carried clean clothes

to people's back doors
through rain and cold

and the heat of summer.

And she saved her money
and lived on the scraps

white people gave her.

Why?

For me, so she could
send me off to school.

So I could learn to be a nurse.

So her granddaughter
would be spared

the kind of life
she's had to live.

- Granddaughter?

- Yes, her granddaughter, me.

- [Laura] It was
becoming obvious

to even the Hollywood
producers that it was time

to start looking at the
state and local censors,

because they were going to get
involved in cases like this,

cases that were
racially sensitive.

Local boards in places like
Memphis or places like Atlanta,

or in this case,
like Marshall, Texas,

they could be real problems
for the distributors

if they continued this
kind of banning of movies

that were being cleared

in the larger state
censorship boards.

(playful music)

(ominous distressed music)

- By the early 1950s,
particularly in
the larger cities

of the United States,
north, south, as west,

you had long-established,
sophisticated,

in some instances politically
connected black populations

who understood that if
discrimination had not formally

been done away with, there
was still some element

and exercise of power

which allowed them
certain prerogatives.

- Chip Wiggins.

I don't think you even care
that I was just insulted.

- What are you talking about?

- Who insulted you?

- A nigger.

Sally and I were walking
along Parson Street--

- Lois!

- You mean one of them
made a pass at you?

- Well, what do you
expect us to do?

After all, we're just a
couple of helpless girls.

But if you just wanna stand
around here and yak about it.

Come on, Sally.

- Lois, how could you--

- For example in Baltimore,
with the Afro-American's

complaints about The Well
because of the language,

we can see that just as easily
as a community interested

in not seeing pejorative
language used about them

or people who might
relate to them,

and their ability to go
through political channels,

to go through the
powers of politics

to protect themselves
in a way that,

surprisingly perhaps to
us in the 21st century,

they had the expectation
that they could.

- The authorities are
bound be to biased.

It's only natural they'll be
influenced by race prejudice.

- I don't think in this
case, in this town,

race prejudice will
influence justice.

- But this is a
unique situation.

A white man's accused of a
crime against a Negro child.

This time, the shoe's
on the other foot.

- [David] Many of the critics,

particularly from
African-American circles,

of The Well

believed that the
story of The Well,

which may or may not
have been a problem,

could be told without
the gratuitous use

of pejorative and negative
language about Africa-Americans.

- Mr. Franken,
are you all right?

- Come on, we best
get out of here!

- [Man] Somebody get a doctor!

- [Woman] What happened?

- Some niggers did it!

- [David] They would have
applauded efforts to ban

certain types of
language and to restrict

access to certain
types of ideas.

(sirens blare)

Protesting The Well because
of its use of language

as opposed to protesting The
Well for some race-related,

or violent race-related issue
I think speaks to the 1950s

as clearly as say, Birth of
a Nation spoke to the 1910s.

- [Woman] No, no!

(suspenseful music)

- Get in here, son!

(tires squeal)

(gentle elegant music)

- [Laura] The Miracle
involved a story

that looked to some
American Catholics

like it might be very
close to a mockery

of the story of
the Virgin birth.

It's to some Catholics
possibly blasphemy.

- [Robert] They said
it was sacrilegious.

It went to the Supreme Court.

That's what finally decided

that movies deserved First
Amendment protection.

That they were in fact
an artistic expression.

- Roberto Rossellini's movie
was only 41 minutes long.

It's a very short little
filmette, if you will.

Joseph Burstyn was a film
distributor and a film importer.

So he bought the film rights

and brought it into
the United States

and brought it to the
censors in New York State,

and they passed it, they
said it was absolutely fine.

Now you can't show a 41-minute
film in American theaters.

So Burstyn found two other
short films and packaged them.

He put them all together and
titled the movie Ways of Love.

A barrage of
criticism hit the film

when it opened at
the Paris Theater.

Pickets showed up
at the theater,

sometimes 100 pickets a night.

And Catholics were asked to
write letters to the censors

and demand that The
Miracle's license be revoked.

And so the Board of Regents
decided to hold a hearing.

And it was pretty much
a foregone conclusion

that the three regents
who saw the film

declared that it
was sacrilegious

and ordered The Miracle's
license revoked.

At that point, Joseph
Burstyn had a good case

and decided to bring his case.

He lost in both rounds of
the New York State courts,

and then he petitioned
to get his case heard

by the Supreme Court
of the United States,

which agreed to hear the case,

which would make this case the
first time the Supreme Court

had heard an issue of film
censorship since 1915.

The Mutual case was critical

to any success in
the Miracle case.

'Cause as long as that Mutual
case stood as good law,

censorship was gonna stand.

The Miracle case
had a clear outcome

and a less clear outcome.

After the Miracle case, no
censor board could use sacrilege

as a means to exclude a film.

Justice Tom Clark, who wrote
the opinion for the court,

which was unanimous, by the
way, in this, surprisingly so,

he said, "Expression by
means of motion pictures

"is included within the free
speech and free press guarantee

"of the First and
14th Amendments."

That's enough to make
the anti-censorites
just jump for joy.

The court also said that since
they were only determining

whether a movie could be
censored for sacrilege,

they didn't have to
determine whether a movie

could be censored for
something else like obscenity.

No one was very
sure what it meant.

One person who was quite sure

was Maryland's attorney general.

Hall Hammond issued an
advisory to the censor board

that from then forward, the
only censorable item left

for them to use was obscenity.

(playful music and ululating)

By 1966, with the
demise of New York

at the hands of its own
state supreme court,

the only state left
censoring was Maryland.

(gentle piano music)

Every time the Maryland
board was faced

with a legal challenge
to a decision,

they lost every
case for 20 years.

But I think the main
problem they were having

was with the experts
they were using

as their expert witnesses.

And every time they would go
to the Baltimore city court,

the experts, whoever they were,

the Baltimore city court
judges would accept

because the experts had
said something was obscene.

But when they got to the
Maryland Court of Appeals,

that's when the Maryland
Court of Appeals said

you're experts aren't
really experts.

- [Robert] Membership was very
interesting over the years.

You had the gamut.

They were political
appointees in the first place,

but there were
basically three members

who viewed the pictures
and who decided

what scenes they wanted cut.

- I don't know who is
qualified to be a censor.

I think that it's such
a subjective thing

and such a denial of freedom
without much recourse

for a filmmaker, for example.

He'd have to spend a lot
of money to go to court

and maybe he'd win
and maybe he wouldn't.

- [Laura] Most of the censors
on the state and local boards

were people who
seemed to have had

very few qualifications
as censors,

some of whom weren't even
particularly interested

in movies before being
nominated to the board

by the governor.

In Maryland the law
was tightened in 1922

and provided for three
censors, and I'm quoting here,

"well qualified by
education and experience

"to act as censors."

But what well qualified
meant was unaddressed.

In 1961 the new chief
censor, Norman C. Mason,

had completed only
the 11th grade.

His successor was,
according to James Dilts

of the Baltimore Sun,

the most experienced censor
in Maryland's history

because he'd spent
the previous six years

visiting his friend Mason
in the projection room

and watching movies with him.

That was what qualified him
as the most qualified censor.

Salaries were very low, so
censors were often women.

In terms of how long
the censors stayed,

censors could change with each
gubernatorial administration.

So distributors often had
no idea who the censors were

and what they were
likely to object to,

because it might be somebody
new every three years.

- They're political jobs.

You're appointed
by the governor.

- [Reporter] And you've
been here 14 years?

- Five different governors
have appointed me,

and I'm gonna be on 30 more
years if I can help it.

(laughter)

(piano flourish)

- [Robert] They had
inspectors who would go around

and actually view the movies,

make sure that the
scenes were cut

that were supposed to be cut.

They would also have
a projection room

where they could view a movie.

- It was very easy,
anybody could go down there

if you had the time.

Anybody could go to a screening.

And I went to loads
of screenings there.

- I had never been there before,

so my wife and I
went, we took popcorn.

And they didn't like that,
because to me it was a big joke.

- I was eight, seven or eight,

so I wouldn't have
been in the back

where they're watching the,
quote unquote, good stuff.

But I would be in there.

It was just a basic
office with desks.

A downtown business office.

It wouldn't have
been any different

than any other
bureaucratic front office.

Looking at it now, it's
absurd in its hype,

and it's something out
of a John Waters movie,

and no doubt John Waters
got a lot of his inspiration

from this world,
this Baltimore world.

(boy gasps)

- I love you,
Baltimore, I really do.

(crowd applauds)

- I am Cecil B. DeMented!

And this is a
fucking kidnapping!

(crowd panics)
(bombs explode)

(guns fire)
(crowd clamors)

Get down, everybody!

- [Laura] The review and
the censoring process

was pretty similar
from state to state.

If a distributor wanted to
show a film commercially

within a censoring locality,
he had to submit the film.

The distributor paid
a fee at that time

based on the length of the
film and the number of copies.

They would make notations.

They might ask the
projectionist to stop

and go back if necessary
to mark the exact spot

where an illegal word
or gesture or conduct

had taken place.

(projector whirs)
(tinkly piano music)

The reviewer would then
write that down on a form,

and that form was then
given to the distributor.

The distributor was required
to remove those parts

and return the film
for a second review.

(projector whirs)
(tinkly piano music)

(bouncy piano music)

If the film was
objectionable in the whole,

it was rejected using
the term In Toto.

In other words, don't bother
to bring this film back to us.

It isn't going to be passed
no matter what you do to it.

If the distributor didn't
wanna make the cuts

or had an In Toto rejection,

he could ask for
a second review.

If the censors didn't budge
after the second reviewer,

the distributor could sue.

That was the only recourse.

(bouncy piano music)

(sweeping elegant music)

- If the movie had the
seal of the censor board

shown at the beginning of
the film, anyone could go in.

What was missing from that
seal was any reference at all

to the fact that the movie
may have been abridged,

that there may have
been deletions.

People would go thinking they
were seeing the entire film

when maybe they weren't,
and they didn't know that.

So that was, to me, outrageous.

If you buy a book, it'll
say abridged or unabridged.

But in a film, where
people are paying money

and they see the seal,

they assume that they're
seeing the whole thing.

(ominous orchestral music)

- The board was a number
of different things,

but one of the things it was

was a reward to a
faithful servant.

My first contact with the
board was at their invitation.

I did meet a couple of people

who had come into the screening
who were on the board,

and I said, where's the chair?

And they said because
of his infirmities,

he really wasn't able to
see many of the films.

I suspect that Egbert
Quinn at some earlier stage

may have seen a lot of films,

may have had strong
thoughts about films.

But at the time, he
really was disabled,

by distance, by his eyesight,

I think they even
said he was deaf, too,

but I'm not sure about that.

(upbeat music)

- My mother was appointed
by Millard Tawes,

Governor Millard Tawes, to the
Motion Picture Censor Board

after a great deal of
lobbying by my father,

who adored her and
wanted her to be famous,

and he wanted to share her,
she was an attractive woman.

And he had some
political connections.

I can't say that
she was qualified,

but my father thought she was

because he owned movie theaters

and she would go to
the movies a lot.

I think her biggest
qualification

was that she was
capable of castration.

She was a ball-breaker,

and I am a survivor,
astonishingly sane,

because she was pretty harsh.

(playful music)

- And the winner is:

(opens envelope)

Le ciel et la boue.

Sky Above and Mud Beneath.

(triumphant music)

- A friend of mine,
we were having dinner,

a little bit of a provocateur.

"Mrs. Schecter,
have you censored

"any movies lately?", he said.

"Oh, yes, we had one
about this island

"in South Pacific somewhere

"where people were
running around naked."

So my friend said, "The
Sky Above, The Mud Below?"

"Yes, that's the one!"

"Well, what was
wrong with that?"

"Frontal nudity."

"Frontal nudity," he said.

"Well did you want them to
put clothes on those people?"

She said, "No, but let
me give you an example.

"There was an old man
sitting on a stool

"or some kind of a
box or something.

"And his organ was showing.

"It must have been
eight inches long.

"We had to cut that."

Now Sigmund Freud
would say, cut that?

Snip snip on the penis?

Yes!

Yes, that's what my
mother was doing!

Horrifying!

(dissonant music)

But my hope is she
didn't get mine.

(chuckles)

Sorry about that.

(dissonant music and ululating)

- [Robert] There were women
who were simply grandmothers.

Mary Avara was a perfect case.

A tough grandmother,
a bail bondsman.

- In Maryland, deciding
what is or isn't obscene

if it applies to movies

is the job of an official
censorship board.

Charles Gibson has a
report on one board member,

a very outspoken
70-year-old grandmother.

- (in unison with group) Our
Father who art in Heaven,

hallowed by thy name--

- [Charles] That's Mary
Avara leading the prayer,

president and chief moving force

of the Ward Six
Baltimore Ladies Club.

She's turned over her
house to the club,

and the members
call her St. Mary.

- I was working
on the waterfront.

(jaunty music)

This is in the late '50s.

And the political leader
there was Mike McHale,

he was a city councilman,

he lived around
the corner from us.

So I was interested in
politics, and one night he says,

"I want you to go to
this political meeting.

"It's over in
southwest Baltimore,

"over by the Hollins
Street Market."

So I go with him in the
car, we get by the market,

and the meeting place
was up the steps.

(uptempo piano music)

And I remember walking
up the steps with him

to the floor where the
meeting was gonna be held.

And when we get there,
this guy that's half drunk

comes over to him and starts
hitting him in his face

and bad-mouthing him.

And before Mike
could say anything,

this woman came
out of the shadows,

grabbed the guy by the collar,

and said, "Don't you insult
Mr. McHale, he's my guest."

After she did that, Mike
turned to me and said,

"Billy, I want you
to meet Mary Avara."

(jaunty piano music)

Mary Avara was genuine,
authentic, Italian, Catholic.

And political, loyal, faithful.

That's Mary Avara.

- [Man] Mary Avara was the
power behind the censor board,

much as the Medicis
never held a position

in the Signoria of Florence,
but they were the powers.

Someone had to do it, and
she seemed to enjoy it.

- She was easy to offend,
and the thing was, though,

she became a national joke.

My memory with her, it was
always nudity and thrusting,

she really hated thrusting.

Now I don't think
she had ever imagined

a penis would ever be
shown in the movies.

I'm sure that threw her
into a complete fit.

- Well, Mary was laughable, but
she was also a stern censor,

so that you would've
laughed at the same time

she had a good bit of power.

- [Pat] She was so the enemy.

You know, she was
like Captain Hook.

You know, if you were a
kid and saw that movie,

that was a villain, you know?

And she was just a villain.

- Regardless if anybody says,
my constitutional rights,

big deal, constitutional right!

When that was written,

how many people were
here and existed?

Did they have these type of
films that are being shown?

- [Charles] Mary finds the
ratings far too lenient

and uses her own.

- Well, I rate them
GP, garbage production.

R is for rotten.

BR, beyond repairs.

If it's real bad, 4 R's,

rotten, rotten, and
rotten, and rotten.

- [Charles] The Supreme Court
says community standards

should determine
what is pornographic,
what can't be shown.

Mary says she simply
represents the community

and has stacks of congratulatory
letters from Marylanders

to back her up.

And she says she'll stay as
the keeper of Maryland morals

as long as they'll let her.

- [Mary] Don't nobody care.

Somewhere, somebody
has to take a stand.

- The whole thing was
wrong from top to bottom.

There was nothing
about it that was right

or, in my estimation, funny.

But it was a laughingstock,
actually, of the United States

when she did the
talk show circuit.

- She was, you know, had a
fourth grade education, so what?

But I don't think that
she should've had a say

of what people, what
movies they should see.

And she said really stupid
things all the time.

But yet, people
thought it was funny.

She never understood people
were laughing at her.

And they were definitely
laughing at her.

Now she may have known that.

She liked being
famous, definitely.

She liked being in the news,

and she liked the
whole bit of it,

she liked to fight
and everything.

I found her not colorful.

I found her a moron,

and I felt she was
incredibly embarrassing

for the city of Baltimore,
if you wanna know the truth.

- I want to tell you
something, Bobby,

are you really Italian?

You can't possibly be.

- [Bobby] Now what
does that have to do--

- For the simple reason
that Italian people--

- What does that have
to do with 1975--

- I don't care if it's 1980,

Italian people don't teach
their children your way.

A lot of other nationalities--

- You mean I don't teach--
(crowd applauds)

- No, Bobby, I'm very sorry.

My daughter-in-law--

- [Bobby] You mean
teach them freedom,

is that what you're saying?

- Oh, we have freedom,
don't you have freedom?

- I'm questioning right now.

- One of my
daughter-in-laws, she said,

"Oh I just think it's great

"that you're going on
with that Bobby Darin,

"I think he's too much--"

- What does that have to
do with the price of eggs?

- Now of course she
probably right now

is gonna change her
opinion of you--

(audience laughs)

And I'll tell you another thing.

We're getting from
one subject to another

When you start showing
all these films and all,

nobody's gonna change me,

I don't change that easy,

and I've been on
the board 10 years,

I'm a mother.

I'm just as qualified as anybody

who's got an education
degree and what else,

but I'm gonna protect youngsters

if that's the last thing I
do, if I live 20 more years.

(audience applauds)

- I wanna thank Margery
Shriver and Miss Mary Avara.

Thank you for coming.

(audience applauds)
(light piano music)

- [Robert] During the
life of the censor board

it was a constant polarization.

There were people who
thought the censor board

was absolutely useless.
(bright piano music)

You found this in
the newspapers.

The Evening Sun,
anti-censor board.

The Morning Sun, pro-censor.

The Baltimore News was
against censorship.

Some of the critics
were for censorship.

Even some of the exhibitors.

If you look in the newspapers,
at the letters to the editor,

you will find every possible
variation on the spectrum,

from hated the censor board,

thought they were
a bunch of idiots,

they didn't deserve
to be censors,

to we don't need any
censorship, everything is okay,

put everything out
there on the table.

So you found the
entire gamut of things.

(bright piano music)

- [Felix] It was
against this background

that Mr. Freedman decided
in the fall of 1962

to test directly the authority

of the Maryland Motion
Picture Censor Board.

- [Thomas] Commissioner
Freedman has,

his attorney has urged that he
should be able to show a film

without any type of license,

without submitting
it for censorship.

- Okay, in the 1960s, I
think this was the beginning

of the death of the
Maryland censor board.

And exhibitor named
Ronald Freedman,

he was running the Rex
Theater at this time.

- [Ronald] We had
to run our theater,

we had to get pictures through.

The censor board would eliminate

certain scenes in a picture
which they didn't like.

So what we did was, we
submitted the picture

to the censor board.

In advance, we took out scenes
they probably wouldn't like,

and then showed the picture
with the scenes back in again.

softcore sex scenes, you know,

scenes by today's
standards would be nothing

but in those days
the censor board

would stop everything
and anything.

- My father became a
First Amendment crusader

by the opportunities of history.

He started out more into
the history of film,

wanted to promote classic
films, film societies.

When the softcore films came in,

that's where the money was,

and he went in that direction.

And he wanted to keep,
as the screen became

more and more explicit
as the years went by,

he wanted to stay with that
and be where the money was.

- Well you're talking
about the Rex Theater,

which was hugely
important to me.

When I was a kid I saw
The Wizard of Oz there.

First it was a neighborhood
theater, right?

But as they all die, as we
know, they become porn theaters

and then churches.

Well this was way before porn.

But the Rex was the best.

I mean, they had
every condemned movie

that the nuns told us
we'd go to hell to see if

they read to me every
Sunday at Sunday school.

I was a kid then, you know.

But I used to read about it,
and I knew about his fights

with the censor
board and everything.

So he was my idol.

I used to cut out all the ads
and keep them in a scrapbook

and pretend that I
owned the Rex as a child

and imagine the hell

it would cause my
community and everything.

We would go see everything.

We would see every
nudist camp movie.

This is when we were teenagers,
high on pot and acid.

We would go see the most
ludicrous exploitation movies.

But I saw them all.

They were real training for me.

- [Laura] One day, Freedman
saw an advertisement

for a film called
The Immoral Mr. Teas

that was showing at a nearby
Washington, D.C., theater

and raking in lots of
crowds and lots of money.

And he began to think,

hmm, how come I can't
show that movie?

Well, the answer is
he couldn't show it

because it wouldn't be passed
by the Maryland censor board.

And that's when he began to
think that maybe the censorship

that his theater was
living under was something

that needed to be questioned.

- He decided to make a test case

of this movie
Revenge at Daybreak,

which wasn't a
controversial movie,

but he just said he
was gonna show it

without the seal of the censors.

- [Laura] When Freedman began
to show Revenge at Daybreak

without having bothered
to take it through

the Maryland board of censors,

he knew he would get caught.

In fact, he wanted
to get caught.

This is standard
procedure for people

who are trying to buck a system

or people who are trying
to make a legal case.

He wanted to be a test case

and this was the
movie that he chose.

It was a 10-year-old French
film about the Irish Rebellion.

It was completely
unobjectionable.

It had nothing in it that any
censor board would object to.

And I think that's one
of the reasons perhaps

that it was chosen
by Ronald Freedman

as something that he
would intentionally

not submit to the Maryland board

as a test of Maryland's
censorship statute.

So when he started
showing the film,

he called the censor board and
said this is what I'm doing,

come and get me,
come and arrest me.

And that's exactly
what they did.

When he was arrested and
led away from the theater,

purportedly in handcuffs,

he instructed his theater
manager to re-sign the marquee

to say Fight for
Freedom of the Screen.

Freedman of course
got his day in court

and lost at the two rounds
in the Maryland state courts,

and then petitioned for hearing

before the U.S. Supreme Court.

And the Court agreed to
hear the case in 1965.

- [Felix] The appellant
Ronald Freeman is a lessee

of a motion picture theater
located in Baltimore.

He is on principal unsympathetic
to the idea of censorship.

And I may add, he's had a series
of disputes with the board

in which he's always
come out on top.

He's always disputed the
discretionary authority

of the board.

- [Laura] What Freedman and the
other anti-censorites wanted

was to get the Supreme
Court to finally put teeth

into its 1952 pronouncement
in Burstyn vs. Wilson

that the censors had to
bear the heavy burden

of proving that a film was
too dangerous to be seen.

And that's just what
the Court now ordered.

That's a major shift
from what had gone on

in censorship before, that
kind of prior restraint

that kept movies
from being seen.

The Freedman case was
very closely watched

by anti-censorites.

It was a major change in
the way film censorship

was going to occur
in the United States.

And Maryland's attorney general
Thomas J. Finan called it--

- [Finan] The Armageddon
of censorship.

Because it is obvious what
Freedman has done in this case.

- [Laura] And that may
sound like hyperbole,

but actually, in
hindsight, he was correct.

The great irony of all of
this is that the one state

that did rewrite its law in
order to conform was Maryland.

And they did it in
just three days.

They wrote it so well
that it withstood

any constitutional
scrutiny for 15 more years.

- [Freedman] We were
momentarily jubilant

in that for a moment or so
this censor board had gone.

Today I still believe
in what I did,

I still believe in
freedom of speech.

- Freedman vs.
Maryland for my father

was ultimately a
pyrrhic victory.

He always used to say
that this one thing

that he was most well-known for,

it never really
worked out for him

because although it freed
states and exhibitors

across the nation, my
father was hamstrung.

He was never able to profit
from his struggles, so to say.

(sighs)

- I didn't have to take
any of my early films

to the censor board.

Well, I purposely showed them
in churches and universities

for many reasons.

Theaters wouldn't
have played them then.

And at the same time,
yes, I did think,

never thought that they
would bust a church,

and I was correct.

Only thing was, if
they saw the movie,

they would try to
bust the church.

They just didn't
imagine that the church

would have ever screened
a movie like that.

That was the issue, I think.

Pink Flamingos opened at
University of Baltimore.

It played everything,
everything.

Huge write-ups and everything,

they didn't do anything
about it, until it was,

then two years later it opened
in New York at the Elgin,

and then it went to theaters,
real theaters, right?

And it played at the Charles.

And then they had to screen it.

And then they cut,
as far as I remember,

they cut the blow job and
the chicken fuck, I think,

and also maybe the
artificial insemination,

but left in the eating
dog shit, 'cause she said,

"I shoulda cut that dog
doodie, I shoulda, I shoulda."

♪ How much is that
doggie in the window ♪

(dog barks)

♪ I do hope that doggie--

(audio distorts)

I remember the projectionist

who seemed like a character
out of one of my movies.

'Cause he got to look at every
dirty movie that ever came.

I sat right there while
she was watching the movie.

And she would yell "rear
entry" and that kind of stuff.

And she was yelling rear
entry about other movies,

it wasn't just mine,
there was three playing.

So I was shocked at that.

There was no dialogue.

So how could she say
"judged as a whole,"

which the censors would,

'cause she didn't know
what they were about.

She didn't listen to dialogue.

Female Trouble, I went
in with that movie.

And she was waiting for me,

because we had had
Pink Flamingos, which
was a nightmare.

(burlesque music)

And a perfect print I'd
just spent my last penny on,

and she looked at
it and she said,

"You can't have this vaginy,"

and I said, "Well, that's a man.

"That's Divine.

"That's not a vagina.

"It's a cheater if you'd like
to know the real term for it."

And she said, "Don't
tell me about sex,

"I was married to an Italian."

I stole her line
and used it later.

- These are isolated incidents.

- No, they're not.

Look, I'm not a prude,
I'm married to an Italian.

But I am disgusted.

- Then she handed me
a pair of scissors,

and I had to cut and ruin
a big job of splicing

in my brand new
35-millimeter print

that was a huge expense
for me at the time, right?

And cut it in front of her,

and she gave me this
ridiculous seal, which I have.

♪ Maybe I'm twisted

♪ Female trouble

♪ They say I'm insane

♪ But I don't care

♪ Go ahead, put me in
your electric chair ♪

- They have a new
anti-pornography
law in Baltimore,

and it classifies bare
bottoms as pornography.

The bare buttocks, that's
what they're called, right?

- [Ed] Yes.

- That's considered
obscene or pornographic.

And they took Playboy magazine,

and a lot of people are uptight,

they are saying that even
outdoor advertisements,

you've seen those
ads, the infants ads?

- [Ed] Sure, sunburn ads?

- Yes.

That is now--

- [Ed] Taboo?

- The chief of police
is running around

putting raincoats up over
the (obscured by laughter).

You gonna get 90 days
for showing baby pictures

in the office, do
you realize that?

Do you think that's
going a little far?

- [Ed] Yes, that's too far.

- You know, the double X
and triple X hardcore movies

started coming in, maybe '72,
'73, '74, about that time.

There was a market for them.

People were reacting to
decades of suppression.

- [Announcer] Across the
country, movie theaters today

are playing softcore
and hardcore pornography

to virtually standing
room only audiences.

(jazzy music)

Theater marquees everywhere
are graphic proof

of the variety of
sexual subject matter.

♪ It's such a shame

♪ She's not to blame

(sporty music)

- One, two, three, four,

We're gonna make them
(obscured by music)

Five, six, seven, eight,

We're gonna make
them say we're great!

(cheering)

- So can you imagine
how much porn

Mary Avara must have
had to sit through

in the last 10 years of her job?

You know, she may have
thought it was porn,

but it was very softcore
from what's available today.

So I'm not sure how
much she suffered,

but if I had to guess, I
would guess that occasionally

she was titillated.

(intense music)

- Your Sickness, we have
captured the Earth people

and await your command.

- The Earth people, eh?

Bring them to me at once.

(indistinct shouting)

- Probably read like a chapter
out of Dante's Inferno.

Like all of a sudden, you
talk about these things

and they're actually
there in front of you.

It must've been hell for her.

- [Robert] One of the,
the classic case I guess

is the Deep Throat case.

That was playing at the
theater on North Avenue.

- I would imagine that
the Maryland censor board

with a film like Deep
Throat was thinking

we don't need anything
more than this film

to show the judges because
of what the movie was about

and because it was
as extreme as it was.

And it worked.

- [Robert] The censor board
kept saying you can't show this.

They kept showing it.

Police would come and
confiscate the film,

and I guess as
police were leaving,

they would have another
copy of the same film

and keep showing it.

I don't know how many times
they went through this.

- I had seen Deep Throat,

but I went out of a
moral support for it

and paid to see it.

Before that, there was a
gay hardcore porn theater,

and they showed
hardcore gay films,

which she of course
went insane about,

shot them down.

She should've gone
to the theater then,

'cause there was some
hardcore sex in the theater

and on the screen.

But I think she busted those.

But her thing was
way before hardcore.

I mean, of course
she busted hardcore.

But by the time that was
out was her last days.

I mean, you know, she lost.

(bright funky music)

- Maryland has the only
movie censorship board

left in America, and no film
can be shown in the state

without its approval.

It refused to approve a movie
called I Am Curious-Yellow,

not because it's one of the
most boring movies ever made,

but because the censors
found it pornographic.

Today, the Supreme Court let
the board's ruling stand.

The members are three
middle-aged ladies

who look at movies all day.

And they have no
power to censor a film

of savagery, bloodshed,
or brutality,

no power to censor any words.

They can only censor pictures
they find pornographic.

(tinny music)

- I look at these films
and see all the sex

and the way it's
being performed today,

and they can tell me that
that doesn't arouse them.

As I repeat before, they
ought to go see a doctor.

Something's wrong with them.

Because the type of sex
that's being portrayed today

on the screen is
absolutely sickening.

And it does incite crime.

Definitely so.

- As far as I know we
could not do anything

about violence legally.

I saw a great deal of violence.

Violence according to my
interpretation of violence,

which may be very different

from someone else's
interpretation of violence,

but it was not in our purview
to do anything about violence.

- I felt like there
would be bills introduced

concerning violence,
drugs, and dialogue

because the public has
called in reference

to those three, plus the sex,

and there isn't one
bill in legislature

concerning any three of these.

- [Reporter] Now your censor
board concerns only with sex,

is that correct?

- That's right.

And we don't have
much to work with,

but I feel like if they
don't give me any teeth,

they should abolish the board.

But I am absolutely not worried
one bit, nothing whatsoever.

- As far as Maryland
was concerned

with our Motion
Picture Censor Board,

it was almost a
game in Annapolis.

Those of us who were against
censorship knew it was absurd.

- [Laura] The only thing
that keeps this board going

is pure politics.

The politics of Baltimore city.

Votes to abolish the board
were apparently very close

in the late 1970s, and it
seems that the compromise

was to just leave it alone.

- [Julian] Part of it
was I think a game,

and even though we knew it
wasn't the greatest thing

to have Maryland,
the Free State,

recognized as the only state
that still had a censor board.

So there was certainly
an anachronism there.

- I believe that we should
have a strong obscenity statute

which is enforced by law
enforcement authorities,

not by a bunch of
quasi-vigilantes

who are paid to
watch dirty movies.

We're the only state
in the United States

that has a censor board.

I believe it's a
political boondoggle.

It serves no useful purpose,
and it ought to be abolished.

- The bill that passed
the Senate last night

does not alter the budget
of $69,000 earmarked for

the Maryland censor board.

That measure now
goes on to the House,

though sources say that its
future is in some jeopardy.

I'm Bryce Wick reporting
for News Watch Two.

- Maryland was the last
state to have a censor board.

And that was the time when I
came to the Maryland Senate.

I actually pre-filed a bill
in 1977, my first year there.

And so on the first
day of the session,

the bill was introduced,
Senate Bill 333.

And after several
years, what happened was

that under the
Sunset Provisions,

which we have in place to
reevaluate programs periodically

to make sure that you don't
have programs in perpetuity,

they had to come back
to the legislature

and to justify their existence.

How could they justify
their existence?

Number of movies seen?

Number of movies censored?

The quality of Maryland morals

as compared to any other
city or state in the country?

So they couldn't
justify their existence.

Eventually I think by raising
the issue year after year

and having these hearings
one after another,

the people came to see
that the censor board

was a ludicrous institution.

- [Julian] One thing that
perhaps continued it,

Jack Valenti had had
a wonderful building

in downtown Washington and
would invite the committee

and members to see not films
that needed censorship,

like Goldfinger, he
would always come out

with cocktails and dinner
and a private screening.

And it was just really fun
to be invited once a year

for this lavish do.

So that may have been
one of the reasons why

we continued the
censorship board too,

because we were the only state

and we were constantly lobbied,

and that may have
prolonged its life as well.

I really don't know.

- [Barbara] We
knew from the time

that I took the appointment

that sunsetting out
the censor board

was what was probably
going to happen.

- The Maryland censor board,

the last state movie
censor board in the nation,

went out of business today

after reviewing more than
40,000 films since 1916.

Its demise was blamed
on cultural change

and diminished
political influence.

One film inspector
for the group said,

"I was in a movie
theater just last night

"and saw a Deep
Throat type of movie,

"but I just couldn't bring
myself to make a bust.

"Who wants to spend the
summer in a hot courtroom?"

- [Julian] That was it,
they went out of business.

(soft piano music)

I didn't hear any cheering.

I don't think people
really cared by that time.

It had become
irrelevant I think.

(projector clicks and whirs)

- [Howard] The lesson of
the history of censorship

is that it doesn't work.

That you really
cannot censor ideas

and you cannot censor art.

Art will have a way
of expressing itself,

and if it is striking a
responsive chord with people,

it will be received,
and well-received.

The lasting impression
of the censor board

is that it held
Maryland up to ridicule.

And I think it was
a negative mark

on the state of Maryland,

which is one of the reasons why

I thought it was so
important to abolish it.

(film runs out of projector)

- [Julian] There should be no
movie censors in a democracy,

and in our democracy
censorship is not something

that we should be proud of.

- [Barbara] I was happy
to see it sunsetted out.

If you look back
now, you say, really?

There really was a state
board of censors of movies?

- [Ross] I felt then
and I still feel now

the censor board
was a laughingstock

and an assault on common sense.

I believe in freedom
of expression

and a free people should decide

what standards they seek
to apply for themselves

and their children
and their families

to movies or any other
form of artistic endeavor.

- I don't think
censorship should be done

by the industry
or the government.

Censorship should be
done by the public,

by not going to see it.

That's the censorship
that counts.

You don't go, and it'll die.

(upbeat musical chanting)

("A No No" by Danielson Famile)