Fire & Fall Back

The initial attack had all the more impact because it came from an unexpected quarter. While Hollywood keeps a weather eye on church groups, it has never been in trouble with the Protestant National Council of Churches, which traditionally avoids anything that smacks of censorship. But last week the NCC was giving Hollywood fits. The issue, said George A. Heimrich, director of the council's West Coast Broadcasting and Film Commission, was movies that "overemphasize sex for sex's sake and violence for violence's sake." Added Layman Heimrich, before flying to New York to meet with other Protestant leaders: "We are going to take some kind of action."

Boffo. Though Heimrich named no specific films, lest the notoriety make them boffo at the box office, his target was obvious. Such pictures as Cat Girl and Cry Tough are loaded with unnecessary rough stuff; scenes from The Horse Soldiers, Anatomy of a Murder and It Started with a Kiss boast overt, even sniggering sex. The wonder is that the Protestants have waited so long to draw a bead.

As usual, Hollywood fired back in all directions. Sounding as if any criticism amounted to outright censorship, Columbia Vice President Sam Briskin pulled the trigger before he even saw the enemy. No individual or group, he cried, has a right to censor the industry. "The public will soon enough tell us what they want and don't want."

Amen. Aware that at Warner's Rachel Cade (the story of an unmarried, gravid female missionary) is being filmed, and that at United Artists, Elmer Gantry (Sinclair Lewis' story of a hypocritical preacher) is in process, other moviemakers complained that sex and violence are not the real issue. The council, they charged, is really worried about pictures that include criticism of the church. Such pictures have long been submitted as a matter of course for suggestions; today the industry is beginning to think twice about accepting such correction. Producers question the possibility of ever getting the council to spell out a clear opinion. Said one movieman: "The Protestants are not like the Catholics, or even the Jews, whom you can consult and get a fairly definite position. The Baptists disagree even among themselves, let alone with the Presbyterians."

The moviemakers did not have long to wait for an example. No sooner was Augustana Lutheran Heimrich's charge made public than up stepped the Rev. H. K. Rasbach, American Lutheran and a member of the Film Board Committee, to say: "It is decidedly unChristian, after a man has put millions of dollars into a picture, to tell people not to see it. We want the industry to police itself." To that, Hollywood said a loud "Amen," and waited to see what happens next.

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