Banned in Massachusetts

"A nightmare of ghoulish obscenities," wrote Boston Superior Court Judge Harry Kalus. And so he banned further Massachusetts showings of Titticut Follies, an 87-minute documentary filmed at the state's Bridgewater State Mental Hospital for the criminally insane. Kalus also ordered the film's maker, Frederick Wiseman, to surrender all prints and negatives of the film. Titticut, said Kalus, exceeded the public's right to know about conditions in mental institutions such as Bridgewater.

The ruling ended an 18-day trial (TIME, Dec. 1), brought on by a suit filed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Bridgewater Superintendent Charles A. Gaughan, among others. In the petition, the state's attorney general, Eliot Richardson, charged that Wiseman invaded the inmates' privacy by photographing them nude during "skin searches" for contraband. Richardson also claimed that he broke an agreement to submit the film for review and approval and assured Bridgewater officials that Titticut was being made only for educational purposes. Instead, Wiseman showed the film at the New York Film Festival last September first. What's more, he booked it into at least two commercial theaters in New York City and sold U.S. and Canadian distribution rights to New York's Grove Press without approval.

Wiseman's lawyers are preparing to request a stay of Judge Kalus' order until the case has been appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Grove still has prints of Titticut. On the theory that the company's business activities in Massachusetts subject it to the state's jurisdiction, the Commonwealth is seeking to enforce a similar injunction against it. A requested ban on Titticut in New York has already been turned down by two state courts and Federal District Judge Walter Mansfield.

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