Sex in the Movies
FORSTER, CLIFFORD
Sex in the Movies By Clifford Forster WHEN the United States Supreme Court recently reversed, without opinion, the refusal of New York and Ohio to license, respectively, the motion pictures La...
...It can only be assumed, therefore, in the light of the concurring written opinion of Justices Douglas and Black, that the Court is not yet prepared to go the whole hog...
...In the second case, a few years earlier, the Post Office Department barred from the mails a pamphlet by Dr...
...The court threw out the indictment...
...What would happen if motion pictures were made which faithfully followed the text of these two pamphlets and depicted the various acts of sexual intercourse described in them...
...Two cases come to mind...
...Sex in the Movies By Clifford Forster WHEN the United States Supreme Court recently reversed, without opinion, the refusal of New York and Ohio to license, respectively, the motion pictures La Ronde and M, it created a state of confusion throughout the film world...
...It is only relatively recently that courts have permitted the distribution of literature which frankly speaks about the sexual act...
...It is toward this ultimate problem that I believe the Supreme Court's attention has been directed...
...What was left unclear two years ago by the Court's decision in the Miracle case, which stated that motion pictures were entitled to the protection of the First Amendment but might still be subject to a narrowly-drawn censorship statute, has not been made clearer...
...Paul Popenoe because of a section which described various positions of sexual intercourse...
...It held that the pamphlet was a sober, honest description and that the writer could not be subject to an obscenity prosecution...
...And I also have no doubt that, in those states where there are no censorship laws, juries would unanimously find such films obscene...
...Thus, while it certainly cannot be maintained that either the New York or the Ohio statute is precise and definite, the Court could have invalidated both laws on the ground that films are entitled to exactly the same benefits and protections from prior restraint as newspapers...
...Some studies have already been undertaken to determine the effect of writing and pictures on men, women and children, but no overall survey and analysis has yet been made...
...A Federal district court in Washington, D. C. reversed this ruling...
...We would be on sounder ground if such a study were undertaken...
...It is safe to assume, I think, that if such films were available for public exhibition they would be denied a license in, for example, the States of Ohio and New York...
...The important question remains: Can the Supreme Court ultimately knock out all motion-picture censorship laws...
...One of the taboos which still remains almost untouched in our changing society is discussion of the sexual act itself...
...A few years ago, a man was arrested under the State of Washington's Obscenity Law for distributing a pamphlet called The Perfect Embrace, describing in detail a position of sexual intercourse which the author said afforded both him and his wife the greatest pleasure...
...I believe that there is no great likelihood of this, because, to my mind at least, there is a basic difference between the written and spoken word and the moving picture...
...Certainly this issue was squarely before it this time...
...Although the Supreme Court might hold that these films were entitled to the protection of the First Amendment, it nevertheless would undoubtedly sustain the censorship law and the state boards' action...
...The bland reversals may even have muddied the legal waters, for the State of New York had ruled that La Ronde was properly banned because it was "immoral," and Ohio banned M because it allegedly tended to "promote crime?±--two very indefinite concepts...
...In the La Ronde and M cases, the Court made a qualitative judgment as to the difference between the printed word and the moving picture...
Vol. 37 • March 1954 • No. 9
