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

Frank Walsh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 27, 1996

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

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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

From Publishers Weekly

During the 1920s, Hollywood scandals allowed proponents of censorship to start a two-pronged attacked. On the secular side, the Hays Office was established to promote self-censorship of the film industry, while on the religious front the Catholic Church established the Legion of Decency. Together, they formed an alliance that would intimidate the film industry into delivering a product so sanitized that it little resembled everyday life. Walsh, a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, takes us on a journey with the self-righteous that is often hilariously conveyed. The Catholic Church first became galvanized because of a 1927 film called The Callahans and the Murphys in which stereotypes of Irish-Catholics were highlighted. Using its power to have the film pulled, the Church (after much internecine debate) formed the Legion of Decency in 1934, which inveighed against everything from Duck Soup to Mae West. With the end of WWII and the filming of message-laden pictures such as Gentleman's Agreement and The Best Years of Our Lives, the power of the censors began to wane. Walsh has written a heavily footnoted academic history of a topic that will be of special interest to film historians and anticensorship guardians
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 424 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (March 27, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300063733
• ISBN-13: 978-0300063738
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,179,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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