A FILM TOO BLUE

...But our film censorship, especially that most effective, "voluntary" censorship of the industry's own Production Code, argues even more unreasonably that anything that cannot be seen or heard by children is unfit for adults...

...Vhat they want is hoopla, and the Union is too pugnaciously dedicated to lend itself easily to barking customers up to the boxoffice...

...The exhibitors, it must be said, are doing their best to fight the film into their theatres...

...It isn't good for the industry...

...The film is neither insidious nor indirect...

...the disappointment is that he is far less interesting than the roue—and less wealthy, when you come down to it...

...The matter is surely one involving censorship of a patent limitation upon the ability of audiences to see what they please, forming judgment on their own behalf...

...Produced and directed by Otto Preminger, the film rather faithfully follows the hit play by F. Hugh Herbert—something of a cinematic feat in itself...

...The formidable trade journal, The Motion Picture Herald, recently editorialized, rather ominously, that the Production Code represented the industry's "bargain" with the public, ". . . and its assurance to the public that it maintains a sentry on watch to guard the public welfare...

...This dialogue is not in accord with accepted standards of decency and morality...

...Later, the Herald cited the case of the new film, From Here To Eternity, as demonstrating that it is possible to launder the dirt out of a story without losing its starch...

...The unnamed "independent producer" of an unnamed film who had presumed to contravene the Code was "playing with fire...

...Even the Ohio censors, in fact, regard the film as possibly suitable for adult entertainment, basing their negative judgment on the fact that it will be seen by adolescents, for whom it would be "extremely objectionable...

...It would be easier to join them in the good fight, howling down pulpits, police, and the lecherous, if it all didn't end up so much like noise along a carnival midway...

...As in the past, movie exhibitors are reluctant to accept the proferred aid of the Union...

...Now, the film has no suggestive gestures or clinches, no revelations of the exaggerated mysteries of the female flesh, such as one may find in dozens of films, any day of the week, running without industry, state, or religious hindrance anywhere in our country...

...But the film runs merrily on—wherever it is shown—making money out of moral outrage, like a book banned in Boston...

...That she will hog-tie the architect in the penthouse is foregone...

...Preminger's direction of Herbert's screenplay, photographed by Ernest Laszlo, succeeds in providing sufficient movement within the screen's flat rectangle, so that the talk can be listened to without a feeling of unbearable stasis...

...Various state and local licensing and censorship boards have wielded both the rods and the axe of their worldly power to ward off this putative threat to the moral and spiritual lives of the people...

...II The Jones novel, minus its obscenities, makes a powerful film...

...In her knowing innocence, the girl is so formidable that the victory of virtue is almost obscenely one-sided...

...As the Ohio Division of Film Censorship stated in rejecting the film: "By implication, inference, innuendo and double-talk, the picture insidiously and indirectly plays upon the sex motive in behavior to such an extent that repetitive suggestions of sex dominance become repulsive...

...The play was mostly talk, which is not unusual with plays, and not a handicap, if the> talk is interesting...

...and "Is your fiancee pregnant...

...Lots of girls don't mind being seduced...

...has impressed state censors in Maryland and Ohio and municipal censors in Milwaukee, Memphis, Kansas City, and elsewhere...

...Now, nobody can argue reasonably that films should portray realistically all aspects of our lives, even those most private—or that all the language of our daily speech can sound the same from theatre screens as it does in conversation...

...Men are usually bored with virgins...

...After all, this is what the trade calls an "exploitation" picture, and publicity is of the essence...

...The movie people do not really want controversy—that terrible word...

...Censors cannot make a good case for restricting what can be seen, heard, or read by adults without insinuating doubt of the competence of adults—the responsible, voting citizenry—to judge for themselves...

...From the premise of the Production Code to the making of childish films is an easy step...

...On the screen, however, there is not the depth of living speech that makes the theatre unique among the forms of dramatic art...

...The trouble with this prolix prose is that it isn't true—or is only partly true, and that part least important...

...What there is objection to is not the actions or costume of the actors, but the talk...

...it is far less frank in its talk about sex than are ordinary, decent people every day of their lives...

...The Legion of Decency has brought up its heaviest batteries of ecclesiastical artillery...

...Childish films train childish audiences, and a vicious cycle of puerility in one of our most influential arts is established...

...This has not stopped it from being shown...

...Talk such as, "Most bachelors have mistresses, have you...

...But one has a feeling of reluctance to swing mighty blows for freedom that may do little more than add to the promotional boom-bang about the film...

...What we hear has to do with the attempts of a young architect, William Holden, to inveigle a young lady, Maggie McNamara, into bed, with some calculated hindrance on the part of a roue, David Niven, who lives in the apartment upstairs, and who makes some half-hearted attempts at seduction himself...

...The Moon Is Blue, however, is nothing without its naughty little speeches...

...The movie industry's own voluntary board of censorship—the old Hays office now directed by Joseph Breen—has refused the film its certificate...

...And it is worth noting here that arguments for censorship in a democracy inevitably seem to fall back upon some idea of protecting the young...

...The American Civil Liberties Union's files are behind in tabulating where the film is banned...