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CHAPTER EIGHT
THE 1940s: CHALLENGES TO THE CODE AND TO ROMAN CATHOLIC DOMINATION

Hollywood’s “Golden Age” Begins to End, and Breen’s Iron Grip Begins to Loosen

When the Second World War ended in 1945, Hollywood’s “Golden Age” began to end as well. The war itself played a large part in this, for the wartime movies had exposed audiences to much more combat and bloodshed than had ever been seen before in films, not to mention other issues, and once the war was over it was found virtually impossible to return to the pre-war Hollywood morality. The world had changed, and Hollywood was beginning to change as well. Joseph Breen’s Roman Catholic morality was still dominant, but it would not be what it once was. And eventually it would be overturned completely.

Also, although Hollywood had enjoyed a virtual monopoly over American entertainment during the war, this changed after the war, due in large measure to the fact that, as soldiers returned home, started families and moved to suburbia, there were other entertainment options available to them, such as sports and, in particular, television, as more and more households started to own a TV set. Hollywood was struggling against this new household idol called TV, and it was losing the battle, with attendance at movies dropping by the millions. As a result, it kept up its steady attempts to whittle away at the restrictions placed upon it by the Code. Breen kn ew it, and in early 1946 he met with a number of priests, who all agreed to continue to resist Hollywood’s attempts to lower moral standards by introducing such themes as rape, homosexuality and abortion into the movies.

After the war, Hollywood was no longer merely churning out films with entertainment value. Increasingly, films also now contained messages: religious messages, racial messages, social messages of all types. This was what audiences wanted. With the end of the war, Americans now wanted movies to say something to them about the domestic issues their country faced; they wanted movies to make them think, not just to entertain them. But this was not a good thing: Hollywood should never have become the nation’s teacher. Sadly, however, it did.

For example, various films began to portray the newly popular evil of “psychoanalysis”. And although the Code did not specifically mention psychiatry, psychoses, etc., moviemakers thought they could get around certain Code provisions by introducing the themes the Code denied them under the guise of psychiatric and psychoanalytic themes. How wrong they were. Reporter William Weaver, on behalf of the Breen Office, issued the following warning: “writers who interpret this fact as a swell new way to ‘get around the Code’ are in for enlightenment to the contrary, for the policy of the PCA with respect to this new variety of material is to be the same as that applied to the old, exacting of the psychiatrically motivated wrongdoer the same penalties that would be exacted of him if he weren’t nuts”; and, “There’ll be no Trojan horse of contraband under [a] Freudian banner.” ²⁹⁴ There were no flies on Joe Breen.

And yet, despite his vigilance, times had changed and the psychologist was beginning to rival the Romish priest in post-war America, with Hollywood jumping on the bandwagon. This, too, played a part in the undermining, over time, of Breen’s – and Rome’s – dominance of Hollywood morality. The Roman Catholic doctrines of sin and free will and human responsibility were gradually being replaced, in movies, by the new psychological doctrines of “mental illness”, the “unconscious” and “compulsive behaviour”.

And then there were what were called the film noirs. These dark films proliferated after World War Two, and were often very violent and sadistic, graphically so. They were aimed at a male audience, whereas more traditional Hollywood fare was aimed at women first and foremost, for the studios knew that if women could be enticed to watch a movie, they always brought their men along and thus the studios made more money. But film noirs, because of their realistic violence, attracted a male audience and held little attraction for women. These films were desensitising men to violence and were another sign of the changing morality of America after the brutality of the war.

The Breen Office was appalled by the sadistic nature of film noir, and determined to act against this genre. It was an uphill struggle, however. The times had changed and were still changing, and the rising tide of film noirs was becoming extremely difficult to stem, as censorship was being increasingly challenged in court. The once-absolute authority of the Breen Office was beginning to totter.

The Revival of the House Committee on Un-American Activities

After the war, and despite the fact that Martin Dies was no longer in charge of the HUAC, it was revived, thanks to the efforts of a congressman, John Rankin, who saw to it that it became a standing committee of the House. In 1947 the HUAC began the first hearings into alleged Communist infiltration of the film industry. The Legion of Decency remained convinced that Communists were infiltrating Hollywood, and in 1945, soon after the war ended, priest John Devlin, who headed the Los Angeles Legion, let priest McClafferty kn ow by letter that as far as he was concerned the Communist menace was growing in Hollywood, especially among screenwriters. He believed they would attempt to remove all references to God and spiritual values from movies, undermine the Legion, and insert Communist teaching. The Jesuit magazine America, also, claimed that a number of films were serving the interests of Communists. It is no surprise, then, that when in 1947 the HUAC began its investigations of the film industry, most Roman Catholic leaders were fully supportive of it.

The new chairman was Edward Hart, but Rankin was very influential within it. The latter believed there were strong links between Judaism and Communism, but unfortunately he showed that he was anti-Jewish on racial grounds as well, which certainly did not help his case. For example, he once said of a women’s delegation that opposed a bill of his, “If I am any judge, they are Communists, pure and simple. They looked like foreigners to me. I never saw such a wilderness of noses in my life.” This was clearly an unnecessary derogatory remark about Jewish features. On another occasion he called a columnist who attacked him a “slime mongering —”. Another Jewish writer was branded “that little Communist —”. Thus Rankin often revealed that he hated Jews merely because they were Jews, and was not solely against the pro-Communist position of many of them. To make all this even worse, he professed to be a Christian. He once told the House, “I have no quarrel with any man about his religion. Any man who believes in the fundamental principles of Christianity and lives up to them, whether he is Catholic or Protestant, certainly deserves the respect and confidence of mankind.” ²⁹⁵ Apart from the fact that this statement revealed his ignorance of the heathenish nature of Roman Catholicism, it also revealed that, to him, only his concept of “Christianity” was real religion. Even though true Christians reject all other religions as false, they believe in the doctrine of religious toleration as taught in the New Testament. Rankin clearly did not.

Rankin cast his eyes upon Hollywood and the Jews who dominated it. When Edward Hart resigned as chairman in mid-1945, Ra nk in became acting chairman and lost no time. He claimed that he was about to reveal “one of the most dangerous plots ever instigated for the overthrow of the government…. The information we get is that [Hollywood] is the greatest hotbed of subversive activities in the United States. We’re on the trail of the tarantula now, and we’re going to follow through.” Not long afterwards he also stated: “we are out to expose those elements [in Hollywood] that are insidiously trying to spread subversive propaganda, poison the minds of your children, distort the history of our country, and discredit Christianity.” ²⁹⁶ Again, he was mostly right: Hollywood was an immoral, dangerous place, and was indeed doing much of what Rankin accused it of doing. Unfortunately, though, he severely weakened his case, not only by his hatred for Jews just because they were Jews, but also by making outlandish statements so obviously false that he often came across as a raving fool – such as this one: “Communism is older than Christianity. It is the curse of the ages. It hounded and persecuted the Savior during his earthly ministry, inspired his crucifixion, derided him in his dying agony, and then gambled for his garments at the foot of the cross; and has spent more than 1,900 years trying to destroy Christianity and everything based on Christian principles.” ²⁹⁷

And it emerged that Rankin’s rantings against Communism, as accurate as they often were, nevertheless had originated, some months before him, in the rantings of anti-Jewish Nazi sympathisers and “far- right” extremists. One of them was a “Reverend” Gerald L.K. Smith, a man once jailed for using obscenity and disturbing the peace, and described as “America’s most raucous purveyor of anti-Semitism and of racial and religious bigotry.” Opposed to America joining the war against Nazi Germany, he was influential in establishing the America First Party, calling for a negotiated peace with Germany and a solution to the “Jewish problem.” He described himself as a “Christian Nationalist”, a term so often used by extremists full of hatred and pro- Nazi sympathy, bent on attacking Jews in the name of “Christianity”.

Smith ranted against Hollywood as the enemy of the Church and the Christian home. In a six-part series in The Cross and the Flag, the organ of Smith’s party, entitled “The Rape of America by Hollywood”, an anonymous writer declared: “Controlled by foreign-bom, unassim- ilative upstarts, many of whose records smell to high heaven, Hollywood has been raping American decency, national honesty and financial well-being. Christ was crucified on Calvary; and the same despisers of Christ are still busy in this world, especially in Hollywood, crucifying all of the Savior’s fine principles.” As is so often the case, there was much truth in this, but it was spoiled by the extremist position of the organ and the party, dressed up in a “Christian” guise. Fighting Communism cannot be effectively or honestly done by pro-Nazis. One cannot lambast one evil while supporting another.

Smith and Ra nk in were working together, with Smith openly declaring his support for Ra nk in’s investigation into Hollywood and saying, “We Christian Nationalists must give this investigation our full support, because the anti-Christians and anti-Americans are doing all in their power to smear Mr. Rankin and the committee with which he is associated.”

A one-day hearing was held in Los Angeles, conducted by the new chairman of the HUAC, John S. Wood, and HUAC investigator Ernie Adamson. They then declared that Communists were certainly aiming to control the film industry, and that further investigations would be conducted. The committee began its hearings in Washington, and called as a witness none other than the “Rev.” Gerald L.K. Smith. He told the committee, “There is a general belief that Russian Jews control too much of Hollywood propaganda, and they are trying to popularize Russian Communism in America through that instrumentality.

Personally I believe that is the case.” Once again, there was truth in what he said, but his own anti-Jewish stance on racial grounds made his motives highly questionable. Not all within the committee supported Smith, however, and some congressmen were angry when denied the opportunity to interrogate him.

Jews themselves were frightened by the support granted to Smith by Rankin. In 1946 a Columbia University professor had been issued this warning by an HUAC investigator: “You should tell your Jewish friends that the Jews in Germany stuck their necks out too far and Hitler took care of them and that the same thing will happen here unless they watch their steps.” ²⁹⁸ No wonder they were afraid. The HUAC might have been anti-Communist and yes, many Hollywood Jews were Communists; but statements like this one showed that the HUAC appeared to be on a racial Jewish witch-hunt.

Senator McCarthy’s Investigations into Communist Subversion of Hollywood

When in 1946 the election brought the Republicans into control of both the House and the Senate, the HUAC was strengthened. Its new chairman was John Parnell Thomas, a Republican congressman and an Irish-American Roman Catholic. But although a Papist, he also attended Baptist services and sometimes publicly said he was an Episcopalian!

Thomas was a staunch anti-Communist (as many Papists at that time were), and a staunch supporter of Rankin. Once in charge of the HUAC, he lost no time in getting down to business. In May 1947 he and some other HUAC members set themselves up in Los Angeles to investigate Communist infiltration of the movie industry.

Senator Joe McCarthy, a Roman Catholic, was at the centre of the investigations into Communist subversion of Hollywood, the U.S. government and labour unions. In early 1947 McCarthy was presented with an FBI report detailing Soviet espionage activities in the United States government – a report that had been previously ignored by the State Department. McCarthy chose not to ignore it but to act upon it. What he uncovered revealed, as one investigator put it, “the most successful secret war ever waged by one government against another. We know now that the Roosevelt Administration was quite literally crawling with Soviet agents.” ²⁹⁹ And not just the U.S. government, but Hollywood was riddled with Soviet agents as well! The studios were under Jewish control, and a large percentage of Communists in the USA were Jewish; and when one examines how they used their films to undermine and destroy America’s (and the West’s) morals and the Protestant faith, one can clearly see the Red agenda at work. Furthermore, KGB documents recovered from Soviet archives in the 1990s revealed just how extensive the Soviet penetration and subversion of Hollywood really was. Many powerful people in Hollywood were fully prepared to betray their own country and advance Stalin’s foreign policy objectives of undermining America.

The truth is that Stalin, the monster-dictator of Soviet Russia and a mass murderer, had identified Hollywood as one of his top five U.S. targets. He knew the power of film to promote the Soviet/Communist message to the masses. Shortly after coming to power he stated: “If I could control the medium of the American motion picture, I would need nothing else to convert the entire world to Communism.” In saying this, he was merely elaborating on Lenin’s statement before him: “Of all the arts, for us, the most important is the cinema.” ³⁰⁰ These men could clearly see the massive propaganda power of the movies. And Stalin went about taking control of Hollywood via Red double agents within the industry. “Countless producers, writers and stars all proved willing to combine and connive at brain-washing the world about the marvels of the Soviet system. ‘Message’ films such as Mission to Moscow, Song of Russia, North Star and scores of other productions did more to glorify the USSR than the Moscow propaganda machine had any hope of doing.” ³⁰¹

McCarthy, for daring to expose the Soviet subversion of America’s film industry and thereby doing an extremely valuable service for his country, became the target of a massive, Communist-orchestrated character assassination. Liberal U.S. newspapers were at the forefront of this intense smear campaign, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. He was accused of everything under the sun, including “Red-baiting”, political witch-hunts, unsubstantiated charges, conservative fanaticism, and much more. He was vilified and ridiculed. “The real story about McCarthy is that he was hated and vilified, not because he attacked the innocent, but because he successfully exposed the guilty.” ³⁰² Tragically, top U.S. politicians did nothing to help him, even though they knew he was right.

It emerged that one of the most important Communists working in Hollywood was Ella Winter, wife of screenwriter and fellow Communist, Donald Ogden Stewart. Winter recruited various film stars for the Communist cause, including Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart, Katherine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall and Marlon Brando. She made use of them to promote various Red causes, one of the most important being the campaign to keep the United States out of World War Two. She and Stewart threw lavish parties which were paid for by Moscow’s trade mission in San Francisco, and at these parties the Hollywood elite were coaxed to make donations. In this way, the likes of James Cagney, Bing Crosby, and Humphrey Bogart helped to hinder Britain’s efforts to defeat Nazism, as these fundraising parties sponsored strikes in armaments factories which made weapons for British troops. ³⁰³

Dalton Trumbo, the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood at the time, was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, a frequent guest at the Ella Winter parties, and a close friend of William Holden, Bogart, Hepburn and Chaplin. His 1941 film, The Remarkable Andrew, was a deliberate propaganda film for the Soviets, its objective being to keep the U.S. from siding with Britain against Nazi Germany.

However, the Soviet Union’s use of Hollywood to do what it could to prevent the USA from entering the war in support of Britain did an about-turn when Hitler attacked Russia in June 1941. When this happened, Stalin instructed his agents in Hollywood to now do all they could to force the USA into the war on Britain’s side, to help defeat Hitler! It is known that by 1943, the KGB Bureau in San Francisco was providing the Communists in Hollywood with $2 million a month. ³⁰⁴

In the McCarthy hearings into Communist subversion of Holly wood, some 400 actors, actresses, screenwriters, producers, directors and agents were identified as members of the Communist Party or fellow- travellers. The actual figure was certainly much higher.

Fourteen anti-Communist witnesses testified, one of them stating that Hollywood was “the hub of Red propaganda in the United States.” But virtually all of them were members of an organisation called the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. This had been formed by Sam Wood, a Hollywood director who was a friend of the Roman Catholic media magnate, William Randolph Hearst, and a staunch anti-Communist. It aimed to remove Communist influence in Hollywood.

The conclusion reached by the HUAC after it had heard the testimony of these fourteen witnesses was that “up until recently there has been no concerted effort on the part of the studio heads to remove the communists from the industry, but that in fact they have been permitted to gain influence and power which has been reflected in the propaganda which they have been successful in injecting in numerous pictures which have been produced in the last eight years.”

Once again it must be said: it is very true that many in Hollywood were seeking to use the movie industry to promote Communism in the United States and the western world. But the HUAC had relied heavily on the evidence for this fact that had been provided by neo-Nazi, anti- Jewish organisations. This caused many to view the HUAC findings with deep suspicion.

Many of the Hollywood Jewish writers, directors, actors, etc., were very pro-Communist and were certainly seeking to make use of Hollywood to promote Communism. But at the same time, many of the Hollywood Jewish elite – the top Jewish executives – were actually anti-Communist, at least for pragmatic reasons, as we have shown previously. But it did not help their case that during the war they had produced so many films opposing Nazism – this just made them look doubly suspicious in the eyes of neo-Nazis and indeed of other Americans as well, because everyone knew that Hitler hated Jews, so surely the support of Hollywood for anti-Nazi films just proved the Hollywood Jews were pro-Communist? This is how many reasoned. And then too, it really did not help their case at all that President Franklin D. Roosevelt – a notorious leftwinger and Communist sympathizer – had encouraged the Hollywood Jews in their anti-Nazi stance and thanked them often enough for it! It is truly tragic that many anti-Communists in America could not see that being anti-Nazi did not automatically make one pro-Communist. They simply could not keep the two issues separate. And this was because so many conservative anti-Communists at that time were Roman Catholics and decidedly pro-Nazi.

The Hearings, the Testimonies, the Resistance

The HUAC wanted the Jewish executives to suspend all suspected Communists in their studios. FBI agents worked with the HUAC as well. Jack Warner, who was a friend of FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, was the first Jewish executive to provide the investigators with the names of those he thought might be Communists.

In September 1947 John Parnell Thomas announced that the hearings on Hollywood would begin soon, and that he would expose 79 prominent Communists or Communist sympathisers within the film industry. 43 people were subpoenaed to appear. Nineteen of these were viewed as leftwingers who had been pointed out by the Motion Picture Alliance. And ten of those nineteen were Jewish. This just strengthened the feeling inside and outside Hollywood that anti- Semitism was a powerful motivating factor in the hearings. It filled the Jewish executives with fear. They decided to co-operate with the HUAC and admit that Communists were at work in Hollywood, but at the same time to deny that the films they made contained subversive Communistic content.

Jack Warner testified first, and in doing so stated that he had been too emotional in naming the names of radicals during the previous session, and retracted some of the charges. He added that although subversive writers had attempted to use his films to push a radical message, he had removed them. Yet when asked who they were, Warner said he did not know, saying, “I had never seen a Communist and wouldn’t know one if I saw one.” ³⁰⁵

When Louis B. Mayer testified, he said he held Communism in contempt; and although he spoke strongly against Communist writers, he added that he knew of no Communists working for his studio. According to at least one pro-Communist MGM writer, Mayer was not being honest, for he certainly did know of Communist writers working for him.

But some within the film industry decided to fight back. Various liberal Hollywood writers, directors and actors came together to form the Committee for the First Amendment, its purpose being to go to Washington to protest against the attack on freedom of political association. This liberal group included such famous names as Humphrey Bogart, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Kirk Douglas, Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Groucho Marx and Gene Kelly. In a deliberately highly publicised trip, nineteen alleged Communists were flown, in Katherine Hepburn’s own plane, to Washington to testify, including the likes of Lauren Bacall, Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Taylor and Burt Lancaster. At least one of them, Bogart, afterwards admitted that the trip was “ill-advised, even foolish… I am sorry I did it and now see that I was duped, that I was victim to the Communist conspiracy. It won’t happen again.” ³⁰⁶

The promised purge of Hollywood got underway. The very first hearing, at which the HUAC questioned John Howard Lawson, rapidly degenerated into a slanging match between the two sides, and Lawson was eventually removed by police. As one witness after another was called up, they denounced the HUAC for its illegitimacy and its implicit anti-Semitism in no uncertain terms. Rick Lardner, Jr., told the committee, “Under the kind of censorship this inquisition threatens, a leading man wouldn’t even be able to blurt out the words ‘I love you’ unless he had first secured a notarized affidavit proving she was a pure, white Protestant gentile of old Confederate stock.” ³⁰⁷

At the hearings, nine of the nineteen co-operated, but the other ten refused to answer questions about their membership in the Communist Party, appealing to their First Amendment rights. They were defiant and abusive. They became known as the “Hollywood Ten.” According to the evidence unearthed from the Soviet archives, those named by McCarthy were indeed Communists and radicals, receiving their instructions from Moscow. They actually surrendered on instructions of the KGB, which stated that it would in the meantime turn them into martyrs in the outside world and continue to insist on their innocence.

The uncooperative witnesses were all held in contempt by the House. Rankin said the HUAC was attempting to “protect the American people against those things in which these people are now engaged who want to undermine and destroy this Republic, to destroy American institutions, and to bring to the Christian people of America the murder and plunder that has taken place in the Communist-dominated countries of Europe.” Referring to the Committee for the First Amendment, he pointed out the names of those who had signed the petition: “One of the names is June Havoc. We found out from the motion-picture almanac that her real name is June Hovick. Another one was Danny Kaye, and we found out that his real name was David Daniel Kaminsky. Another one here is John Beal, whose real name is J. Alexander Bliedung. Another one is Cy Bartlett, whose real name is Sacha Baraniev. Another one is Eddie Cantor, whose real name is Edward Iskowitz. There is one who calls himself Edward Robinson. His real name is Emmanuel Goldenberg. There is another one here who calls himself Melvyn Douglas, whose real name is Melvyn Hesselberg.” ³⁰⁸

Rankin was right. A very large percentage of leftists in Hollywood were Jews who had changed their names so as to hide their Jewishness. There can be no doubt that many of these were seeking, by their involvement in Hollywood, to push for leftist change within American society.

Eric Johnston, the president of the MPAA, under pressure to produce a plan of action to take care of the alleged radicals within Hollywood, brought the top movie executives together to come up with something. He stated categorically that the executives had to fire those unco operative witnesses or they would never be respected by American society. Being accepted into mainstream America was what the older generation of the Jewish Hollywood elite had spent their whole lives working to achieve, and Johnston’s words hit home. A committee was chosen to issue a public statement, known as the Waldorf Statement. The ten witnesses were to be discharged from their employment until they renounced Communism under oath, and the movie producers agreed that they would not knowingly employ Communists. Of the fifteen producers who signed the statement, ten were Jews.

The ten witnesses were fired, and large numbers of other Communists and liberals were dealt with at the same time. The Hollywood Ten were sentenced to prison. Even those Jewish studio executives who did not agree with the HUAC, believing it was wrong to fire men because of their political beliefs, nevertheless went along with the purge to save their studios and their own necks. In doing so, they earned themselves a lot of good publicity and a lot of goodwill from the public.

As for John Parnell Thomas himself, the HUAC chairman, despite his staunch anti-Communism he had not been above reproach. In 1948 he was indicted for conspiracy to defraud the government, having billed the U.S. Treasury for people who had not actually worked for him. He was eventually sentenced to prison for eighteen months. But oh what irony! Thomas was incarcerated in the very same prison in which two of the Hollywood Ten, Rick Lardner, Jr., and Lester Cole, were incarcerated – and at the very same time! The man who tried to cleanse Hollywood of leftists found himself in the same prison as two of those very leftists.

Overall the hearings were a failure. “Unfortunately… the Congressional interrogators and FBI investigators failed to penetrate the real depth of communist subversion in the film capital. Basically, not much was learnt about party operations in Hollywood, largely because none of the co-operative witnesses had ever been in the party. Misled by double agents in their midst and false information peddled by the KGB, McCarthy left many Soviet sympathisers in key positions in Hollywood, with a far-reaching influence that affects the industry to this day.” ³⁰⁹ Very true. For to this day, the Communists, liberals, and their fellow-travellers in Hollywood always scream “McCarthyism!” whenever it becomes necessary to hide their true colours, and the subversive pro-Communist work they are doing in and via Hollywood. “Today McCarthyism is still a scarlet ‘M’ word used by the left as a trump card to terminate debate and intimidate adversaries. Used as a spear to paralyse all opposition to communism, it has become communism’s best friend.” ³¹⁰

Romanism at War with Communism in Hollywood

Many within the U.S. government were, thus, very rightly deeply concerned about Hollywood’s immense power over the masses, its ability to promote Communism to Americans and the world via its movies. What a pity, however, that Congress, in its commendable zeal to crush Communism in Hollywood, totally failed to discern the threat to America, via Hollywood, of another great evil: Roman Catholicism. Its immense influence within Hollywood was ignored. “Neither the Production Code Administration nor Joseph I. Breen came under scrutiny during the investigations, a measure of the depth of ignorance in the halls of Congress about the true nature of the ideological apparatus dictating the party line in Hollywood.” ³¹¹ And, furthermore, the fact is that “the forces behind much of what was happening were the soldiers of American Catholicism marshalled by Senator Joseph McCarthy [a Roman Catholic], the darling of Holy Name societies, sodalities, and first communion breakfasts.” ³¹²

McCarthy was right in seeing the influence of Communists in American society; but even so he was a Roman Catholic, with a Roman Catholic agenda. And in the Cold War period, under the pontificate of Pius XII, that Romish agenda was very much an anti-Communist, anti-Jewish one.

And so it is not surprising that Hollywood during this period produced a rash of movies with themes of conservative Romanists waging war against Communists: movies such as Guilty of Treason (1949), The Red Danube (1949), The Red Menace (1949), My Son John (1952), and The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima (1952).

The poster advertising The Red Menace, for example, stated of the Romish priest portrayed in the film, “the fearless, fighting priest, who conquered evil with faith!” ³¹³ As for My Son John, this movie, in particular, portrayed the confrontation between the evil of Communism and the supposed good of Romanism. It was Leo McCarey’s creation, the same man who brought Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary’s into being. He was a staunch anti-Communist, and the film reflects this strongly, but it also lays out a very strong pro-Roman Catholic message.

The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima was another very pro-Papist film, centred around the supposed apparition of Mary to some Portuguese children in 1917, during which (it was claimed) she promised the conversion of Russia to Roman Catholicism if Russia was consecrated to her. The film shows Communists terribly mistreating priests and nuns. It depicts an all-out Marxist war against the visions claimed by the children. Of course, there was historical truth in what was portrayed, and there can be no doubt at all of Communism’s sadistic evil. But in its portrayal of “Mary”, etc., it pushed an obvious pro- Papist message as the answer to godless Communism.

Duel in the Sun (1947): Another Challenge to the Code and the Legion Stranglehold

Producer David O. Selznick continued his fight with the Papist censors. In 1944 RKO bought the film rights to a novel entitled Duel in the Sun. The studio requested Selznick to loan them an actress and a director, who were under contract to him, for the film. The actress was Jennifer Jones, who had previously played the part of the virgin Mary in The Song of Bernadette. She was very popular with filmgoers. Selznick also bought the screen rights from RKO.

The PCA deemed it unacceptable when it reviewed the script, because it contained illicit sex, murder for revenge, and lacked the full “compensating moral values” which were required by the Production Code. There was an implied rape in the film, and a hint of nude swimming. It also featured a vulgar religious figure, known as the “Sin Killer”, and the PCA demanded that RKO emphasise this man was not an ordained minister, and he was not to be depicted in the film as a “travesty on religion.” Portraying negative images of “clergy” was a violation of the Code.

Selznick had no time for Breen or the Code and threatened to go to court if necessary. But despite his fighting words, in order to make the film acceptable to the PCA and to the Legion of Decency he decided to include what he considered enough “moral values” to make the film acceptable, including severe punishment for the criminals, and he agreed to make various changes to the original script. In this way he hoped that the things deemed objectionable in the film would be overlooked by the censors. The PCA people were still uncertain, but as Selznick kept rewriting the script for them, they found it difficult to condemn it outright, and so in 1945 approval was given to the working script, and work on the film began. PCA officials visited the set at times to make sure that the costumes were not too revealing and that the swimming scenes were not too explicit. Cuts to suggestive scenes were insisted upon, and made, although Selznick was enraged. And in December 1946 the PCA issued its seal of approval. This was surprising, given the fact that, as Variety magazine stated, “rarely has a film made such fra nk use of lust”. But the film actually opened on the west coast without first being submitted to the Legion for approval.

But if the PCA had been lenient this time, many influential Roman Catholics were having none of it. Tidings, the Romish weekly of the Los Angeles diocese, branded the film as “plush pornography”, and Roman Catholic film critic William Mooring told Romanists that this film was more dangerous morally than The Outcast, and that it violated the Production Code by creating sympathy for sinners, detailing seduction, and mocking religion. It certainly did this. Moreover, because Jennifer Jones had previously played a religious role in The Song of Bernadette, Mooring was angry that she now played such a seductive one.

Selznick’s choice in his casting of the leading roles, in fact, appeared to be a deliberate thumbing of his nose at the Roman C atholic institution. Not only had Jennifer Jones previously played Mary, but Gregory Peck had previously played the part of a Roman Catholic priest in Keys of the Kingdom. Peck himself later said that Selznick took a kind of “perverse delight” in casting him as the male lead in Duel in the Sun, adding: “He took two saintly characters and made us into kind of sex fiends.” A reviewer in the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film “is sex rampant. Jennifer Jones is no Bernadette. Gregory Peck… is no ‘Father Chisolm.’ But these two are hotter than a gunman’s pistol.” ³¹⁴ Protests against the movie poured into the Legion.

The Papist archbishop, John Cantwell, warned all Romanists in Los Angeles that, “pending classification by the Legion of Decency they may not, with a free conscience, attend the motion picture Duel in the Sun ”, for it “appears to be morally offensive and spiritually depressing.” Then Martin Quigley, the Legion’s unofficial spokesman, stated that the film would definitely be placed in the “Condemned” classification, telling Selznick that unless he greatly altered it (and he suggested many cuts), the “outcome would be disastrous”. ³¹⁵

Selznick wrote to the editor of Tidings, the Popish weekly which had branded the movie “plush pornography”, saying that the reviewer had a “callous and diseased mind” for casting “a wicked and wanton slur upon Miss Jones… a distinguished artist… a Catholic who has received her education in a convent.” ³¹⁶ He conveniently overlooked the fact that this Roman Catholic actress was perfectly content to be having an extramarital affair with him!

Selznick considered ignoring the Legion, having reason to believe that the film, which was already doing extremely well at the box office, would continue to do so even if the Legion condemned it. But first he wanted to make certain that Eric Johnston and Joseph Breen supported him. His film had been approved by the PCA, after all; but would they and Hollywood studios support him against the Legion? As it turned out, the studios would not help him fight the Legion, even though they themselves were sick and tired of the Legion’s interference. They were simply too afraid of the financial consequences of being at odds with Rome’s powerful Legion of Decency! In Selznick’s own words, they were “completely yellow”.

Selznick, hung out to dry and doubtless gnashing his teeth in rage, came to the conclusion that it would be best for him to edit the film in the ways Quigley had suggested. It was hoped, by both Selznick and Quigley, that these changes would move the Legion to give the film a “B” classification (i.e. containing some objectionable material). Selznick therefore made the cuts and submitted the film to priest Patrick Masterson at the Legion, and Quigley himself told Masterson that Selznick had fully co-operated with him and with Breen. But the priest was far from satisfied. After reviewing the film he let Breen know by letter that it should never have received the PCA seal. It was far too explicit in the Legion’s opinion. And even Breen admitted he had made a “serious error” in granting it a seal.

Meanwhile the protests increased. In Los Angeles, Roman Catholic sodality groups threatened a possible month-long boycott of all films, because films like Duel in the Sun were so immoral; in Houston, the Catholic Youth Organization requested that the mayor ban what it called “this masterpiece of filth [which] glorifies drunkenness, adultery, rape and other forms of lowest immorality”; priest John Sheehy in Boston said that this film would result in “thousands of priests [being] detained years longer in confessionals seeking to dispel the evil images bom of witnessing this alleged entertainment.” ³¹⁷ Significantly, though, and a sign of changing times, thousands of letters were written in support of the film as well, even from Roman Catholics.

Selznick was incensed with the Legion and wrote that if it gave his film a “C” classification, well then, so be it. “We have suffered enough from the shenanigans of [the Legion],” he wrote. ³¹⁸ He also said, “Reverend Masterson has not been designated by God as the final word in what is seriously offensive and we are… sure that the non- Catholics of America, and a goodly percentage of Catholics as well, do not accept him.” ³¹⁹ The film had received the PCA seal of approval, Selznick fumed, but of what good was such an approval if a film then had to be submitted to religious censors at the Legion of Decency?

Even though Selznick was a man who had no qualms about making a morally offensive movie and thus his desire to want to release this movie cannot be condoned at all, he was absolutely right in his comments about Masterson: the priest was not appointed by God, and the Roman Catholic institution’s arrogance in setting itself up as the moral guardian of America was repugnant, for this religious system has never had a leg to stand on when it comes to matters of morality. Selznick was also right when he said that Masterson’s views were not acceptable to non-Papists, nor even to a large percentage of Papists. Still, Americans permitted the Legion to act as their moral guardian.

Selznick raged against the Legion, and threatened to release the film anyway and then take out full-page advertisements, and make use of radio and other means to tell his side of the story. He believed this would end the Code and result in federal censorship, but he did not care.

This protracted battle between an independent producer and the powerful Roman Catholic Legion finally ended with a Legion victory. Selznick had fought to retain the film’s ending even though the Legion had considered it immoral, but he was now permitted to retain it as long as he added a prologue and an epilogue to the film, making it clear that sin is sin. This was done, with the prologue speaking of the “forces of evil” in battle with “deeper morality”, and the “grim fate” awaiting “the transgressor upon the laws of God and man”, and the “Sin Killer’s” character being based on “bogus unordained evangelists” who were “recognized as charlatans by the intelligent and God-fearing.” The epilogue, too, written by the Legion’s monsignor, John McClafferty, spoke of the “moral weakness” of Jennifer Jones’ character that led to “transgressions against the law of God.” ³²⁰ The film received the “B” classification Selznick had been hoping for.

But the truth is, such prologues and epilogues had little effect on audiences. Most people walk out of a movie without watching the credits at the end, and therefore would miss the epilogue; but more than that, they were watching the film precisely because they were attracted by the provocative nature of the scenes, and no amount of moralising either before or after the film would make an impression on them! The Roman Catholic censors may have eased their own consciences by insisting on these inclusions, but if they really believed these somehow sanctified the film, they were naive in the extreme. The only possible response to films of an immoral nature is for the people not to view them – not attempt to clean up an immoral movie by cutting this and that and pasting prologues and epilogues. People are not fools. They can see through such inconsistency.

The film broke box office records as people nationwide flocked in droves to see it. And some of these places were Legion strongholds. Clearly Roman Catholics were rushing to the theatres just like so many others. A Roman Catholic university, the University of Santa Clara, California, even used the film as a fundraiser, with a Jesuit priest telling Selznick that he was very grateful the film had raised thousands of dollars for under-privileged youth!

“The refusal of Breen, Johnston, and industry leaders to defend Selznick, and themselves, from Legion attacks simply encouraged the Legion to continue to demand that it be given the right of final approval of all films produced in Hollywood. It was a decision the industry would soon regret, and it would be another twenty years before the Legion stranglehold on Hollywood was broken.” ³²¹

Forever Amber (1947): a Major Studio Challenges Roman Catholic Censorship

In 1947 another movie made huge waves as well, with Papist censorship being challenged by a major Hollywood studio this time. The movie was Forever Amber.

The 1944 novel on which the movie was based was described by the Saturday Review of Literature as “the bawdiest novel…in years”, a story of multiple illicit affairs and more. The morals of Americans being now in rapid collapse, the book became a bestseller, and this attracted the attention of Hollywood, in particular of Twentieth Century-Fox. Joseph Breen naturally rejected the first synopsis of the proposed film when it was sent to him for review, saying it was “a saga of illicit sex… bastardy, perversion, impotency, pregnancy, abortion, murder and marriage without even the slightest suggestion of compensating moral values.” ³²²

Darryl F. Zanuck was head of Twentieth Century-Fox’s studio production, and he was given the task of producing an acceptable script. Fie knew that if he worked closely with Breen from the outset, this would save all the cuts that would have to be made to the film later. Fie told Breen that the film was a tragic tale of a girl who sins repeatedly and ends up losing all she sought to obtain by her sins. And he was successful in winning Breen over! Breen asked Zanuck to include a voice of morality in the film, which Zanuck did – and Breen was satisfied. Fie approved the basic script, priding himself on the fact that the PCA had the power to remove offensive material in such stories and keep only the good in them. This was so, even though, as Variety reported at the time, the “expurgated screenplay…has made the original story hardly recognizable.” ³²³

Again this shows the foolishness of this approach of the censors. The book remained intact; the filmed version was altered. The movie might be sanitised to some extent, but the unsanitised version of the story was still available for anyone to read.

Zanuck went ahead and made the film, a lavish and hugely expensive production, expecting no trouble from the Legion. It was scheduled for preview by the Legion just ten days before its release in October 1947. But he had miscalculated: priest Patrick Masterson, the Legion’s assistant executive secretary who was in temporary charge, was against it even before he saw it. However, the Legion reviewers themselves, those IFCA ladies as well as professional “lay” Roman Catholics, were far less offended than the priest was, and voted to classify the film as “A2” (i.e. unobjectionable for adults) or “B” (objectionable in part for all). Yes, even those staunch Roman Catholic Legionaries were softening morally as the years went by!

Masterson, however, was made of sterner stuff. He wanted the film condemned. He wrote to Francis Spellman, New York’s Romish cardinal, saying the film was immoral, and that the PCA was becoming increasingly lax in enforcing its own Code as time went by. Spellman agreed with him. He wrote a letter to all priests in his archdiocese, to be read out by them at all masses, in which he said that Forever Amber glorified immorality and licentiousness, and that Roman Catholics could not view the film with a safe conscience.

But this time – and it was the first time since 1936 – a major Hollywood studio (Twentieth Century-Fox) went on the offensive and threw down the gauntlet to the Legion of Decency. It pointed out that the film had been approved by the PCA. Priest Masterson told priest Devlin, “This time the chips are really down”, ³²⁴ and the mighty Roman Catholic hierarchical machine in the United States went into action. Philadelphia’s Romish cardinal, Dennis Dougherty, threatened that if the film was not removed, a year-long boycott would be imposed on all Fox theatres in his archdiocese by himself, just as he had threatened over The Outlaw previously. Romish bishops in Providence and in New York took a strong stand against it as well, with calls for a boycott in New York. But Fox did not buckle under this threat, so the Catholic War Veterans rallied to the cause, picketing theatres in Philadelphia and at a theatre in Rochester, New York. The dioceses of Buffalo, New York, and Rochester, New York, echoed Dougherty’s call for a boycott. Chicago’s Romish cardinal urged his people to avoid it, and Romanists in St. Louis were asked to avoid it as well. The protests spread further afield. The Legion got the mayor and city council of Grand Rapids, Michigan, to block the showing of the film. Protests by Roman Catholics got the film cancelled in Illinois.

But did the Roman Catholics of these and other great cities heed these calls, one and all, and boycott the film? Certainly not initially. Variety reported that, “Oddly enough, in cities like Philadelphia, Boston and St. Louis where [Roman Catholic] church influence is strongest, Amber is doing best”, noting that in St. Louis it was a big hit “despite… a blast from the Archbishop.” ³²⁵ Countrywide, including where the Papal hierarchy had called for boycotts, there were lines of people stretching for blocks to get into theatres and standing-room- only crowds inside.

But it did not last: although the film continued to do very well in urban areas, rural and independent exhibitors wanted Twentieth Century-Fox to conform to the Legion. Zanuck claimed that these exhibitors were themselves under threat from the Roman Catholics who wanted to see the film stopped. But there was also another reason: in the country’s capital, the hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) were well under way, and the Hollywood Ten were accused of inserting Communist propaganda into films coming out of Hollywood. The screenwriter for Forever Amber, Ring Lardner Jr., was subpoenaed to appear before the HUAC regarding his association with the Communist Party in America. His collaborator, Philip Dunne, was a founder of the pro-Communist Committee for the First Amendment.

Twentieth Century-Fox decided to give in to the Legion. It was agreed that some lines of dialogue in the film would be cut, and a prologue and epilogue would be added which would clarify the guilt of the sinners in the film as far as the Legion was concerned. The prologue spoke of “the wages of sin” and of the heroine’s sins. And at the film’s end a voice-over by a main male character implored God to have mercy on both him and the heroine for their sins. With these changes, the film was given a “B” rating by the Legion, and the pickets and protests ended, except in Philadelphia where Romish cardinal, Dougherty, kept his boycott in place.

Ultimately, Forever Amber made a great deal less than its production costs. Yes, the Legion campaign had greatly contributed to this, but the original PCA censorship had done so even more, for it had changed the story so much from the novel that audiences, hankering after the sex that was a major part of the book, simply found the film boring when so much of the sexual content had been removed. This again shows how Americans’ morals had changed for the worse. They wanted sexual scenes, and were not prepared to financially support a film that had been purged of much of its originally-intended immorality.

Captain from Castille (1947): Whitewashing the Inquisition

Although various Roman Catholics, including Jesuit priests such as Daniel Lord and Wilfred Parsons, served as film consultants, advising studios on how to handle Romish themes in movies, it was announced back in 1933 by John J. Cantwell, bishop of Los Angeles, that all Roman Catholic film advising must fall under his authority because the film industry was situated in his diocese. He appointed one of his own priests as the official Romish film advisor. This was the Irish-born priest, John Devlin, who was the head of the Los Angeles Legion of Decency. Devlin threw himself into the work, reviewing a large number of scripts annually. He became the recognised Roman Catholic authority on all things to do with the film industry, and was feared by screenwriters and directors. But he also overstepped his mandate: instead of concentrating solely on how films treated the Roman Catholic religion, he also tried to influence them if the Irish were treated poorly in a film (in his opinion).

The script for Captain from Castille was based on a novel that revolved around the conquest of Mexico by Cortez. In the story, the Grand Inquisitor in Spain charges a man named Pedro De Vargas with heresy, and his sister is tortured to death by the Inquisition. Da Vargas goes to Mexico with Cortez, where the Grand Inquisitor is killed by the Aztecs.

Priest Devlin was not at all happy with the script, considering it to be a “deliberate attempt to discredit Christianity in general, and the Catholic church in particular.” ³²⁶ He claimed that the Inquisition had actually accomplished great good, and that the script exaggerated its evils! The Inquisition was, in truth, one of the greatest evils ever created, and – it was a Roman Catholic evil. This is the historical reality, and there is no escaping it. Millions of people were tortured and put to death by the Inquisition, which was serving the interests of the Roman Papacy. To claim that it accomplished great good was a shocking misrepresentation of the plain truth! But very typical of priests of Rome, who will go to any lengths to hide the truth about the Inquisition’s horrors from the world.

Devlin’s stance greatly troubled Darryl Zanuck, who asked the man who had worked on the script, John Tucker Battle, what could be done about it. Battle suggested that the Inquisition be downplayed, and that it not be tied to the Roman Catholic “Church” at all in the film. He also suggested that Cortez’s Roman Catholic motivation for conquering Mexico be removed from the film. And to cap it all, he suggested that a friendly priest should be worked into the film, who would represent “the true church”. True to form, “Hollywood never let the historical record get in the way of a good story”. ³²⁷ A film in which the Inquisition was divorced from Roman Catholicism was nothing but a fantasy. But at all costs the “Church” of Rome was not to be offended, for that would mean losses at the box office.

Zanuck himself was reluctant to make the changes, and in the end he added the “good priest” and downplayed the “Church” of Rome’s role in the Inquisition to some extent. But further than that he would not go. Devlin was satisfied for the most part, and the Legion gave the film an “A2” classification.

The Foreign Film Challenge to the Censorship System

The Roman Catholic-controlled censorship system in the United States film industry was now also being challenged from another source: film directors – often Roman Catholic directors – from Europe, where they were not bound by a Production Code and were consequently able to make movies which frequently contained far more immorality than anything Hollywood could belch out. European films were frequently more sexually explicit than Hollywood productions, as well as containing such things as murder, drugs, suicide, etc., and naturally many of them were rejected by the PCA, not to mention the Legion. After World War Two Martin Quigley was very concerned that European films would deteriorate even further morally, and if they were permitted into the U.S. this could undermine the authority of the PCA and the Legion.

Joseph Burstyn was at the heart of this challenge initially. A Jewish- Polish immigrant to the United States, he devoted himself to bringing foreign films to his adopted country. After World War Two he and his business partner, Arthur L. Mayer, imported a number of Italian films into the U.S., including The Bicycle Thief, which the Legion of Decency declared to be sacrilegious. The irony here was that such films were coming from Italy, an intensely Roman Catholic country where many of the directors were Roman Catholics, and yet being condemned as sacrilegious by the Roman Catholic Legion in New York!

By the end of the Second World War Hollywood was the undisputed capital of celluloid entertainment worldwide, with some 90 million people flocking to movie theatres every week. The film industries of European countries such as France, Italy and Germany were decimated by the war; and yet from 1945 to 1952, Hollywood, also, took a battering economically, in large part due to the House Committee on Un-American Activities branding it a hotbed of Communism, but also for various other reasons which it is not necessary to go into here. By 1950 movie attendance had plummeted to 60 million, and profits were falling rapidly too.

There was not much of a market for foreign films in the U.S., however, and in addition only a handful got passed by Breen’s PCA.

Open City (1946 but Shown in America in 1946/7): the Hypocrisy and Selective “Morality” of Papist Censorship

Now we will see an example of the selective “morality” of the Papists in control of Hollywood censorship (and thus of the selective “morality” of Rome itself), and of just how much of a sham their supposed “moral indignation” over immoral movies was. Papist censorship had far more to do with exerting control over Hollywood for Rome s own purposes than over keeping America’s morals intact:

A film coming out of Italy at this time was entitled Open City. It was directed by Roberto Rossellini, who claimed that he was neither a Fascist nor a supporter of Mussolini, and yet who, during the war, had made war propaganda films. Italian audiences had disliked the film; but it was smuggled into America and released by Mayer and Burstyn, and did extremely well in 1946. It seriously violated the standards of both the PCA and the Legion, covering as it did such themes as pregnancy out of wedlock, lesbianism, murder, drug addiction, graphic torture scenes, and a priest who helped the Communist-led Italian underground during the war. And yet, incredibly, the Legion did not find it offensive, giving it a “B” classification, and the PCA, also, made few objections when it was submitted! Burstyn was informed by Arthur DeBra of the PCA’s New York office (who reported to Joseph Breen) that the film was essentially acceptable, although a few scenes needed to be cut and trimmed. Burstyn did not make any changes, and the film played without a PCA seal for a year. In July 1947 Burstyn made the cuts and the seal was issued.

Why this astounding attitude, from both the Legion and the PCA, to this film? Normally a film such as this would have been automatically condemned and rejected by both, and in fact it was far more explicit than The Outlaw, Duel in the Sun, or Forever Amber. But it was passed with hardly a whimper.

Here is the reason: the Vatican loved the film! The Vatican’s “Central Catholic Committee” approved it, and a copy was even requested for the Vatican’s film library! And why did the Vatican love it? Why were the highest officials of the Roman Catholic institution prepared to overlook its sexual explicitness and graphic brutality? Firstly because at heart, these men were, and still are, like men everywhere else in the world: unregenerate, worldly, fleshly, sensual, attracted by such things. As we have said, all this censorship power over Hollywood had far more to do with exerting control over the industry than over any real desire to keep Hollywood morally clean anyway. And this would become even clearer in the coming decades, when censorship was abolished and yet various Roman Catholics, including Jesuit priests, would wholeheartedly endorse, and even be deeply involved in the making of, films that were full of sexual immorality, gratuitous violence, and even grotesque demon possession.

But there was also a second and very important reason why the Vatican loved Open City: the film presented “one of the most sympathetic portrayals of the Catholic church ever seen on screen. The typical Hollywood Catholic priest of the time… spun out pieties with moral absoluteness that allowed little thought for the other characters or audience members. In Open City the moral choices the [pro- Communist Italian] partisans have to make are anything but clear-cut, and the church… is tolerant and understanding when war forces [the characters in the film] to violate normal conventions. [The priest] is unalterably opposed to fascism and determined to fight for a better life for the people. In the film, the church has the total support of the people: Even the communists, who hate religion, turn to the church for help and support; what is more, the church is willing to help them because they are fighting fascism.” ³²⁸

It must be remembered that for centuries the Jesuits had made use of theatre to promote Roman Catholicism; and film was simply the modem equivalent of theatre. This is why they always wanted a controlling hand in Hollywood and in film media the world over. So when Open City depicted the Roman Catholic religion in such extremely positive light, the Vatican was fully supportive of it! And this is the reason for the willingness of Joseph Breen and his PCA, as well as the Legion of Decency, to pass the film with no condemnation! What utter hypocrisy.

And when one understands the role played in the Second World War by the Roman Catholic “Church”, one will be able to understand, even more clearly, why the Vatican viewed Open City as a wonderful propaganda tool to cover up the Vatican’s own involvement in the war. For the truth is that both Nazism and Fascism were given immense support by the Vatican! Flitler and Mussolini – both Roman Catholics – were hugely encouraged by the Vatican in their diabolical schemes, ³²⁹ the evidence for which is simply overwhelming and is so vast that to this very day Rome is doing its utmost to rewrite history. But now the war was over, and the Nazis and the Fascists had lost; and the Vatican was desperate to appear anti- Nazi and a«fi-Fascist to the world. This film was seen as a great help to the Vatican in getting the world to believe this.

This role of Rome in the war was recognised by Gregory D. Black, author of The Catholic Crusade Against the Movies, 1940-1975, when he wrote: “ Open City presented a church that few in 1946 would recognize. The role of the Catholic church in Germany had been one of conciliation toward Flitler, with no bishop taking to his pulpit to denounce the campaign against the Jews. Moreover, Pope Pius XII had not spoken out against the Holocaust, and this silence on Nazi atrocities subjected him to severe criticism soon after the war. Open City offered a refreshing tonic for a church so stung.” He went on: “American Catholics were not unaware of the controversy surrounding the pope. Given the position of the Vatican, it would certainly have been embarrassing for the American Catholic Legion of Decency to issue the film a condemned rating: The bishops would have been ridiculed in the American press and would not have relished explaining to Vatican officials why a film so favourable to Catholicism had been condemned in America.” ³³⁰

The film rewrote history. No wonder the Papist censors passed it. It depicted the Italians as being unitedly anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist during the war, which was simply not the case in fact. Italy was allied to Hitler, but this is not mentioned in the film. Nor, of course, does it come out in the film that Italian film-makers willingly produced Fascist propaganda films during the war years.

And there was something else as well: even though the priest in the film supports the underground Communist resistance movement in Italy, and at this time the Vatican (under Pius XII) was still very anti-Communist, yet already things were changing, and there were a great many priests who were becoming increasingly supportive of Communism. And just a few years later, a very pro-Communist pope would come to power, John XXIII. ³³¹ So this film was depicting a shifting of alliances within the Vatican itself, a re-orientation towards Communism, that would define the Vatican’s political affairs for decades to come.

Paisan (1946) and Germany, Year Zero (1948): the PCA in Conflict with Itself and with the Legion

Rossellini followed up with another film set in Italy during the war years, Paisan. This movie contained very controversial scenes, including prostitution, which would usually have earned any Hollywood movie a condemned rating. Arthur DeBra of the PCA’s New York office reviewed it and approved it, which greatly angered Joseph Breen at the Los Angeles office, who felt that it was sexually immoral. He correctly felt that if a foreign film depicting such scenes could be passed, then Hollywood film-makers would begin to demand the same treatment for their movies. And so he decided that from then on, all foreign films would have to be reviewed at the Los Angeles office – his office.

Next came a third film by Rossellini, entitled Germany, Year Zero, set in post-war Germany. This film contained scenes of child prostitution, child sexual abuse by a homosexual, child suicide, and the murder of a father by his son. Breen and the PCA were horrified by the film, with Breen branding it “thoroughly and completely unacceptable”, and moreover that it could not be made acceptable no matter how many cuts were made to it. The Legion of Decency declared it was “unfit for general movie audiences”, and that it would only give the film a “B” category if the scenes of paedophilia and child prostitution were cut and an epilogue was added, which the Legion itself wrote. These changes were made, the Legion gave it a “B” – but Breen was adamant: the film could not be made acceptable. It was a shock to the Papist Breen, having the Papist Legion approve a film he had condemned. It did not help him when a number of state censorship boards also approved it, either with minor cuts or none at all.

The film did not do well at the box office. But even so, the times had changed, and Joseph Breen was striving to maintain a form of Roman Catholic censorship that was no longer fully supported either by the general public or even by fellow-Roman Catholics. The Legion believed that he had become increasingly liberal (although in the case of this film it was the Legion that was more liberal than Breen), and McClafferty and Quigley had lost faith in him, although they still believed in the Code. Their problem was with the administration of the Code by the Breen Office.

In addition, there was some protest from Protestant groups about the PCA’s domination by Roman Catholics. They were convinced that Hollywood was churning out one pro-Papist religious film after another – and they were right. Furthermore, there was concern over the fact that priests of Rome were depicted as heroes, but Protestant ministers were depicted as weak and often comic.

A Protestant Film Council was established after World War Two for the purpose of advising Hollywood on Protestant issues, but it never became as influential as the Legion of Decency. In the words of Geoff Shurlock, who was later to replace Breen, the studios did not want “the Catholics running the industry, but [the Protestants] never showed themselves…capable.” ³³²

1948 Supreme Court Ruling Erodes PCA Power

It was a huge blow for Hollywood when, in May 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the movie industry was an illegal monopoly. It ordered a separation of exhibition from production. And what interests us at this point is that an important component of this monopoly was censorship, because the major studios had agreed to never produce nor play a film in their theatres that had not received a PCA seal of approval. But once the Supreme Court ruled, the power of the PCA was affected adversely. No longer was PCA power almost total, for now film theatres were independent of film production, and they could choose to play films that did not have a PCA seal. Moreover, if the Legion of Decency condemned a film, the theatres were no longer as concerned about it. This was a huge step in the direction of eventual termination of movie censorship, and a huge blow to both the PCA and the Legion, Rome’s twin pincers for controlling what Hollywood churned out.

Films, in the same way as newspapers and radio, were now deemed to be part of the press; and freedom of the press was guaranteed by the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution. Films, therefore, could now be made under the same “press freedom” guarantees – with catastrophic results to Americans’ morality, and to the morality of the entire western world.

Miracle of the Bells (1948): Rome Turns a Blind Eye When Money is Flowing Romeward

When Frank Sinatra was cast as a priest in this film, this caused something of a stir, for he had become a somewhat notorious personality. The Romish cardinal, Francis Spellman, alarmed at the casting, asked Los Angeles auxiliary bishop, Joseph McGucken, to try to get RKO studio to drop Sinatra from the part. Although McGucken felt this could not be done, he contacted Joseph Breen regarding the rumours that Sinatra was involved with the Communist Party and that he was a womaniser. Breen admitted that in addition to having a problem with alcohol, Sinatra had kept “bad company”, notably leftists who had used him as a front; but he told McGucken that the actor had remained faithful to his wife. This was not true, although it is possible Breen did not know it. McGucken was able to pass on this information to Spellman, with the additional news that Sinatra’s managers had decided, for purposes of publicity, that Sinatra would become a benefactor of the Catholic Youth Organization. ³³³

Such has ever been Rome’s way: it can make a lot of noise about a person’s morals, political leanings, etc., but all that noise is silenced when there is money heading in Rome’s direction, even from the person concerned. Fra nk Sinatra, a notorious womaniser, unacceptable at first to Rome to play a priest in a film, became Frank Sinatra the good benefactor to the “Church” – and Rome turned a blind eye to what it had been opposed to before. Ah, the love of money (1 Tim. 6:10). Flow it can talk!

Joan of Arc (1948): a Screen “Saint” Causes Breen Pain

In 1948 the actress Ingrid Bergman appeared as the lead character in the Hollywood film, Joan of Arc. It had not been easy to persuade influential Papists that the film was a good one (from their perspective). In addition to priest John J. Devlin, Breen found three other priests (two of them Jesuits) to work with him on watching over the film’s production. This irked Devlin, who felt they were not needed and he was more than up to the task himself. And, giving away Rome’s real attitude to historical truth in movies, he told one of the priests that what was more important than historical accuracy was that the film should “carefully and sympathetically” put across the Roman Catholic viewpoint! Priest Patrick Masterson, himself deeply troubled that one of the Jesuit advisors was insisting on historical accuracy, said to Devlin, “After all, history is one thing, movies another.” ³³⁴ In other words, historical accuracy could go out the window – all that mattered was that the film was pro-Papist!

Ingrid Bergman was extremely popular and the film was expected to be a massive hit, especially as it was particularly aimed at pious Roman Catholic moviegoers, being about one of their famous “saints”. Joe Breen himself was ecstatic about the making of the film because of its pro-Roman Catholic message. And indeed, when it was released it played to capacity crowds. Breen could hardly contain his excitement, joy and praise for the film. Until…

Until Ingrid Bergman, a wife and a mother, went the way of virtually all Hollywood actors and actresses and started having an extramarital affair with Italian director Roberto Rossellini. Here was a woman playing the part of a Papist “saint”, and yet embroiled in a decidedly unsaintly affair. And it certainly affected the box-office success of Joan of Arc very negatively.

Breen, devout Papist that he was, was aghast. Writing to a Jesuit friend in France, he said her affair ranked as “possibly, the most shocking scandal which even Hollywood had had to contend with in many years. Miss Bergman, from the first day of her arrival here, has always conducted herself in a most commendable manner. There has never been even the slightest breath of scandal about her. She was regarded as a fine lady of unimpeachable character, a good wife, and a good mother.” ³³⁵ Perhaps so – but Hollywood has always been a cesspool, and sooner or later most actors and actresses succumb and dive into that pool.

Breen went further – he actually urged his Jesuit friend to try to intervene in the business, perhaps even by the Jesuits persuading the Vatican to somehow put pressure on the Italian government itself! As Breen’s biographer wrote, “to do what? deport Bergman to Hollywood escorted by papal guards?” ³³⁶ Breen also wrote to the lady herself, without success.

The Ingrid Bergman business gives us a glimpse into the devoutness of Breen’s Roman Catholic faith. He genuinely believed that he – assisted by the Jesuits and other powerful Romish allies – had been put on the earth not only to keep Hollywood morally clean but also to keep it as Roman Catholic as possible; and Bergman’s fall from grace was a severe blow to that objective.

The Bicycle Thief 91948): PCA and Breen’s Authority Undermined Still Further

An Italian movie called The Bicycle Thief was released in 1948 and directed by Vittorio De Sica. The Legion could not see anything immoral in it. Breen, however, was of a different mind, and said there were two scenes which had to be cut, one of which involved a boy urinating and the other, a chase through a bordello. But both Joseph Burstyn, the distributor, and De Sica refused to make any changes to it. They decided to appeal Breen’s ruling.

Burstyn went to the press, who ridiculed Breen and the MPAA for banning the movie. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) came out in favour of the film and against Breen, with its head branding Breen’s decision a “shocking demonstration of censorship power and must be condemned as a violation of free thought and expression.”

Martin Quigley supported Breen, not because the film was immoral but because the foreign film-makers, De Sica and Rossellini, were pro-Communist. “The Bicycle Thief comes from that sector of the European production which leans distinctly to the left,” his magazine, The Motion Picture Herald, stated. He said both men were members of “the pro-Communist Italian Film Congress.” ³³⁷ There was truth in this: European Communists were making left-leaning films and naturally their purpose was to indoctrinate. And so once again, we have the strange scene of powerful, conservative Roman Catholics in America seeking to stamp their own mark on an industry dominated by Communists or pro-Communists. For the true Christian, both are hostile to morality and biblical Christianity.

In March 1950 the MPAA board of directors assembled to listen to Breen and Burstyn state their cases, and Burstyn’s appeal was denied. It was a determined effort to prevent foreign films from having an American distribution, as these films were far more sexually explicit and it was believed (rightly) that they would lower the moral standards of Americans. Foreign film-makers could make such films because they did not have the censorship American films had. Breen knew that if foreign films containing such scenes and themes were to be allowed into America, the purpose for the PCA and for the Legion would essentially cease to exist. He wanted to maintain firm control over the films Americans were allowed to see. He wanted Rome in general, and himself in particular, to exercise this control.

A few months later, three major national circuits booked The Bicycle Thief, despite the MPAA ruling. This was a big blow to the authority of Breen’s PCA, for up until then major exhibitors had pledged not to book films that did not carry the PCA seal of approval; and now, for the first time, this pledge had been broken. No longer was it a given that exhibitors would automatically reject films with no PCA seal. The PCA and the Legion were losing power, step by step.

Beyond the Forest (1949): Abortion in Film

In 1949 Breen rejected a script for The Doctor and the Girl, a film involving abortion; but Eric Johnston, MPAA president, ordered Breen to negotiate with MGM studios about it. He did, despite reservations and a warning to Johnston that if the film was passed, other studios would start making films about abortion as well. The film was indeed passed, but, as Breen had predicted, almost immediately afterwards another script for a film involving abortion crossed his desk: Warner Brothers’ Beyond the Forest. The task of bringing the film into conformity with the Breen Office standards was given by Breen to Jack Vizzard. Vizzard had been studying for the Jesuit priesthood but had dropped out and joined the PCA. After Vizzard had made some changes Breen reluctantly gave the film a seal.

But priest Masterson was having none of it, and the film was condemned by the Legion of Decency. The film began to take a pounding from reviewers, and theatres discontinued showing it. Jack Warner asked Breen to try to get the Legion to back off- after all, Breen had approved the film. Vizzard was sent to Masterson, but the latter was not impressed with an ex-Jesuit seminarian who had approved such a film. Changes were made to the film, however, and the Legion reclassified it with a “B” rating.

Vizzard was then chastised by Martin Quigley as well, and Quigley also told Breen that the PCA had lowered its moral standards. Breen, for his part, said the scripts had become worse than ever. He was certainly correct when he told Quigley: “There is some sinister force at work hereabouts. I just can’t put my finger on it, but I am satisfied in my own mind that this condition, which has come about in recent months, did not just ‘happen.’ There is an African in the woodpile!” ³³⁸ Yes, he was right, as the studios pushed the boundaries in their efforts to get people away from their TV sets and back to the movie theatres; but what Breen did not grasp was that the Roman Catholic religion, which he so enthusiastically adhered to, was a major part of the problem, as it shoved hypocritical Papist morality down the throats of the movie bosses, who only swallowed it very, very reluctantly and vomited it out whenever they could.

The Legion of Decency Still Powerful, But…

As the decade of the 1940s drew to a close, it appeared that the Legion was still very powerful. Certainly most of Hollywood was reluctant to challenge it. As one participant in Life magazine’s 1949 “movie roundtable” put it: “the Legion holds the whip hand over Hollywood and nothing can be done about it.” ³³⁹

However, the evidence showed that the Legion, although still powerful, was in fact being supported less and less by Roman Catholics themselves. Huge numbers of them were simply ignoring their hierarchy and going to see the films they wanted to see. The situation, then, was as follows: a powerful Roman Catholic hierarchy in America determined to impose its authority on its subjects in the same way as it did in other, less democratic, more subservient and more Papist countries; a Roman Catholic population increasingly influenced by the American spirit of false moral “liberty” and to that extent less influenced than in previous generations by its religious leaders; and a movie industry where the studios were dominated by Jews and frequently strongly influenced by Communism, and yet still at this time lacking the willpower to stand up to the Papist Legion of Decency or the Papist-controlled Production Code Administration. For the time being at any rate, the Romish hierarchy was still on top and getting its way; but for how long?

The Code – and Breen – Come Under Increasing Criticism and Ridicule

In addition, the Code itself was coming under increasing criticism. Morally, times had changed after the war, and many wanted films to reflect those changes. Sam Goldwyn, the Jewish mogul of Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer fame, condemned state censors in an address in 1949, branding them as “petty, single-minded, single-tracked dirt-sniffers who feel they have to justify their official existence by using their scissors instead of their heads”. As regards the Code itself, he was almost equally as blunt: “It is my firm belief the time has come to bring the Code up to date, to conform to the changes that have taken place during the 19 years since it was first adopted. It needs overhauling, revamping, renovating.” ³⁴⁰ But Breen was adamant that the Code had to stay as it was, so that Hollywood would continue to provide “clean and wholesome entertainment” (at least in his judgment). It must be remembered that, for him and others, the Code was viewed as almost a divine document, based solidly on the Ten Commandments. Indeed, Motion Picture Herald at the time stated bluntly, “One does not consider it probable that even the dynamic Mr. Goldwyn would be trying to bring the Ten Commandments ‘up to date.’ Also, he can probably settle with his friend Mr. Joseph I. Breen easier than with Moses.” ³⁴¹

The attitude of many within Hollywood to the Code which they felt was outdated was expressed in an advertisement that appeared in the Screen Writer: “Wanted, an idea: Established writer would like a good updated idea for a motion picture which avoids politics, sex, religion, divorce, double beds, drugs, disease, poverty, liquor, senators, bankers, wealth, cigarettes, congress, race, economics, art, death, crime, childbirth and accidents (whether by airplane or public carrier); also the villain must not be an American, European, South American, African, Asiatic, Australian, New Zealander or Eskimo.” ³⁴²

The calls for changes became louder, more insistent. The Code was attacked, questioned, even ignored by many. Breen himself was increasingly being ridiculed, viewed as a relic of an earlier, more rigid era, no longer in tune with the changing times. And the opposition was not just coming from within Hollywood itself, but from the general public. Breen wrote to Daniel Lord in 1950 as follows: “In recent years… there has been a growing disposition to seek to destroy the Code, to do away with it…. I have noticed since the war, a very positive development that suggests paganism. This manifests itself by the disposition to throw off all standards of decency, of honesty, of honor.” ³⁴³

He was correct, of course. This is precisely what was happening. The battle was now on between Roman Catholicism and the anything- should-go immorality of an ever-growing number of people across America and the West, throwing off the moral restraints of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations, and insisting that entertainment should “change with the times” and pander to the lower moral standards.