The Obscene Moving Image

The Ohio Board of Film Censorship ran from 1913-1955, at a time when films were not protected under the First Amendment. While other studies have focused on the legal battles surrounding censorship and how the boards affect the development of the film industry, this study will focus upon the content of the censorship. The goal is determine the major topics that the Board censored and how the censorship of those topics developed over a forty year period and changed in the context of cultural events. To explore this analysis, start below with a background in the historical context of the formation of the Board. This context of Progressive era reform significantly shapes the content of censorship that is discussed in the Bulletins section.

Historical Context

Rise of the Movies in Ohio

The medium of film developed quickly in the early twentieth century. In the 1890s the technology of motion pictures rapidly expanded from Edison's first Kinetoscope, and by the first few years of the 1900s there were cheap store-front theaters (Nickelodeons) lining the main streets of urban areas (McGerr 234). Some of the Nickelodeons featured a musical accompaniment and/or a lecturer to describe the short silent films (Sheridan 39). Nickelodeons' popularity quickly exploded in the first few years of the twentieth century, though the middle and upper classes largely avoided them. Nickelodeons promoted their product to working class and immigrant audiences looking for cheap entertainment (May Screening, 35). However, the adventurous appeal of the new media began to appeal across classes, and by the end of the decade larger movie houses were constructed. By the 1910s movie houses, dedicated solely to the playing of films, began appearing in the cities and the suburbs (May Screening, 38).

The explosive development of the film industry coincided with the industrialization and urbanization of the United States in the first few years of the twentieth-century. Motion pictures developed as mass entertainment at the same time, and connected to, American cities, which expanded exponentially in population due to immigration and domestic migration (Sklar 3). Ohio experienced significant growth of industry and immigration in several cities: Toledo, Akron, Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Cleveland ("Urbanization"). For example, the state capital Columbus's population exploded from 31,274 people in 1870 to 125,560 people in 1900 (Hunker 51). Due to the rivers and numerous railroads, Ohio became a strong industrial center for the nation, becoming one of the wealthiest states ("Early Industrialization"). The industry and wealth of Ohio encouraged immigration, particularly to Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1890 Cincinnati was not only the largest city in the Ohio, it also had the densest population of any city in the country ("Cincinnati, Ohio"). The rapid growth of the cities was a boon for the industry but not for the residents. There was limited, unsafe housing, few public services, widespread corruption, and masses living in poverty. Progressive Reformers in Ohio and the rest of the nation worked to remedy these issues ("Urbanization"). This context of rapid urbanization and immigration meant that for the Board of Censors the children who roamed the streets and spent their nickels in the theaters were not hypothetical or located far away, they were fully present in Ohio.

As a result of the changes in industry and the work of reformers, the lives of workers were improved in the early years of the twentieth century. The working class had improved work hours, a shorter workweek, and increased disposable income that provided many with more time to spend on amusements by themselves and with their families. As films began to appeal to a wider audience, they began to increase in quality. American Filmmakers began to distinguish and distance themselves from foreign films in order to appeal to the middle and upper classes (May Screening, 64). Keeping the buildings up to code and the establishment of city and state censorship boards (like the Ohio Board of Film Censorship, headquartered in Columbus) benefited theater owners, for the middle and upper classes felt more comfortable attending (May Screening, 148). Nickelodeons were out, theaters were in. The early theaters could seat around three hundred individuals. But the industry quickly expanded into serials and feature films. By 1912 New York had four hundred theaters, the largest of which was able to seat over 1,000 people and attracted a middle class audience (May Screening, 66). Shortly thereafter extravagant theaters began to appear in the cities and the suburbs, drawing in the upper middle class audience without losing their original lower class appeal (McGerr 256). Michael McGerr quotes early film producer William Fox as proclaiming, "In the motion picture theaters there are no separations of classes…the rich rub elbows with the poor and that's the way it should be" (McGerr 259). In addition to bringing together different classes, The increased popularity of movies created the rise of film celebrities. Prior to 1909 most films did not include cast lists, but between 1913 and 1915, individual stars had emerged, such as Charlie Chaplin, Theda Bara, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks (May Screening 109; McGerr, A Fierce Discontent, 260). Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford became the first stars of film, the king and queen of the Silent Film Era (May Screening, 96). These entertainment icons (Fairbanks, Pickford, and Chaplin) became heroes to the middle class and cemented cinema's popularity and its rise into an industry.

After the industry standard of feature length films developed in the late 1910s, the only other major technical change to occur during the Ohio Board's history was the transition from silent to sound films in 1929. Prior to 1929 silent films had title cards (called subtitles or sub-titles) that would tell the audience the character's dialogue and scene description. Sound films began to be developed in the late 1920s and became an industry standard in 1929. The image below is a graph tracing the appearance of the terms "dialogue" and "subtitle" (and the variations "sub" and "title").

Figure 1: Trends: Dialogue/Subtitle

The graph above shows the shift that occurred from 1929-1933, from silent films to sound films. This had an effect on the volume of censorship occurring and on some of the topics being censored (see Specific Examples on the topic religion).

Brief History of Ohio's Board of Film Censorship

Resistance to scenes of physical affection and violence in motion pictures began appearing in cities across America from the very beginning, and censorship legislation began appearing in states as early as 1907. Over the course of the next twenty years seven states adopted film censorship boards: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kansas, Maryland, New York, Virginia, and Massachusetts (Wittern-Kellar 1-3; Wirt 52). Numerous cities across the country developed censorship boards as well (Censorship Speech, 1945, Legal).

In Ohio on May 3, 1913 a film censorship bill was passed and the Ohio Board of Film Censorship was created. The Board consisted of three political appointees and was positioned within the Industrial Commission of Ohio. (Wirt 55, 57). Of all the states to form a censorship board, Ohio was the only one to word the law in positive rather than negative language (Wittern-Kellar 26). The statute states, "only such films as are in the judgement and discretion of the board of censors of a moral, educational, or amusing and harmless character shall be passed and approved" (Carmen 11). This vague statue was interpreted differently throughout the four decades of film censorship and often responded to the cultural and historical contexts in which the censorship was taking place. Films were censored due to their content, significance, and the real or perceived public response to the film. For example, the 1931 monster horror film Frankenstein was approved when it was first released, without any eliminations. But the re-release in 1946 was only "approved with eliminations." The final re-release in 1952 was initially rejected because, as the censors wrote, "of the unfavorable public reaction to it" (Susannah Warfield to Mr. Rogers, January 17, 1952 Correspondence). The distributors reached out to the Board for them to reconsider, and after the Board reached out several leaders of religious communities and heard their support for the release of the film, they approved it. But, in a decision that reflects the stubborn human elements involved in censorship, the Board again released it as "approved with eliminations," requiring the distributors to eliminate scenes of a murdered girl (Bulletin for April 26, 1952, Bulletins).

Films gained increasing popularity and widespread use in the 1900s and 1910s, an era commonly known as the Progressive era. The Progressive reformers of this era sought to hold their society to Victorian values through moral reform, end cross-class conflict, regulate big business (McGerr 4). As films developed the Progressive reformers began to turn their efforts towards controlling the new medium. Upon many issues the reformers were divided, and it is difficult to make a generalization upon any of their issues. But just like the vice issues of prostitution and prohibition, the reformers were agreed that there needed to be some form of control and safeguarding against the influence of this new medium, possibly even using it as tool for moral crusading (May Screening, 59). Censoring films was of special importance to the Protestant Progressives, for "Movies bypassed the normal communal filters - parents, pastors, teachers - so Protestant Progressives wanted a substitute filter that could weed out the bad movies and send forth the good ones," (Wittern-Keller 19). This need for a filter became increasingly important as films became more popular, by the 1910s more people visited church than the movie theaters. In New York specifically, "By 1910, fully one-quarter of the city attended at least on movie each week. Forty thousand children went to the movies daily, and many working-class mothers were using movie theaters as babysitters," (Wittern-Keller 20). In a comprehensive treatment of silent films, Kevin Brownlow notes a 1911 case where a boy murdered another, and the local newspaper blamed the film The Great Train Robbery as his inspiration. Brownlow claims, "Citing the moving picture as the inspiration for one's evil deeds had already become such a common practice that reformers looked upon the medium as wicked and deplorable, a perverter of youth and a breeder of crime. Those who studied children were, for the most part, convinced that moving pictures had a great deal to answer for," (Brownlow 168).

Protecting children was the major motivation behind censorship across the country. Like Ohio, Kansas had a state censorship board founded in 1913. In analyzing the first year of Kansas' film censorship (1915), Gerald Butters summarizes one of the censors as arguing that "the censorship process was beneficial for the state because it would eliminate bad films, allowing parents to feel safe about sending their children to the picture show" (Butters 58). Like the Kansas Board, the Ohio Board was clear in its motive for censorship. The Ohio Board's censorship summary report on November 30, 1914 to the Industrial Commission, under which the Board functioned, states: "The medium of the motion picture is a prime factor in the education of children. They form a large percentage of the patrons of motion picture theatres and being very impressionable and imitative, they are easily influenced for good or evil according to the type of pictures being shown. For this reason it is the policy of the Board to be especially careful to prohibit the exhibition in Ohio of films that are of an indecent, immoral, criminal or harmful character" (Miscellaneous). In this private document the censors state clearly that protecting children was one of their main goals. This report was written by a member of the Board and was submitted directly to the Industrial Commission that oversaw the Board and its budget. Thus, it should not be interpreted as a platitude or propaganda, but a genuine reflection of one of their motivations for censorship. With droves of children sitting in dark theaters and absorbing all that they saw on the screen, Progressives feared that the moral values of children were deteriorating and their proper socialization was threatened. This motivation must be considered within time period, over fifty years before the MPAA rating system would start having films labeled "R" and "PG13." At this point in time there was no such thing as "adult-only screenings," and per the Ohio law every film had to be approved to be shown for all ages (Dr. Hissong to Mr. Tickel, February 2, 1954, Legal). This was always within the censors mind, when they approved a film, with or without eliminations, they had to feel comfortable in the fact that people of all ages, genders, and classes would be permitted to watch it in theaters.

In response to the growing establishment of film censorship boards across the country, the film industry decided to take matters in their own hands. In 1916 the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry (NAMPI) was formed, it included all aspects of the filmmaking business and sought to prevent the formation of more government censorship. It released a plan, the Thirteen Points, of content that was no longer to be put into films. NAMPI was largely ineffective and was replaced in 1922 by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). The studio heads chose Will Hays, a pristine Republican who had been serving as the postmaster general of the U.S., to lead the MPPDA. Unfortunately, Hays was also unsuccessful, and in 1929 there was a new high of censors' cuts from films (Wittern-Keller 47-53). But Hays persisted, and in 1930 the film industry caught a lucky break when a prominent Catholic Priest Father Daniel Lord and Martin Quigley, publisher of the Motion Picture Herald wrote a detailed set of standards for the film industry. This became the Production Code, an influential document that would significantly help the film industry in their efforts of self-censorship (Wittern-Keller 55). It also lays out useful categories for what was considered immoral at the time, and is referenced several times in this study for the Ohio Board kept multiple copies of it in their files. Unsurprisingly, many filmmakers did not adhere to the Production Code for several years, until Hays formed the Production Code Administration (PCA). The enforcement arm of the MPPDA, the PCA had the power to levy $25,000 fines upon filmmakers who violated the code (Wittern-Keller 61). This threat of fine was effective, and no film was released with the PCA seal of approval until the 1950s (Film scholar Laura Wittern-Keller has an in-depth timeline of censorship across all of the U.S. here).

Despite the self-censorship of MPPDA, the Ohio Board did not disband, rather they continued to censor films even if they carried the PCA seal of approval. From its initial establishment in 1913 to 1921 the Ohio Board was under the Industrial Commission. During this period the Board functioned relatively independently as an authority to itself in their censorship decisions, though they did have to petition the Industrial Commission for all their budget needs. In 1921 the Board was moved to under the Department of Education as part of the state-wide Reorganization Code. The Board continued to operate there until 1955 when the state statute was ruled invalid.

The demise of the Ohio Board came over the course of several years in the 1950s in a series of escalating court cases. The 1952 Burstyn v. Wilson ruled that films should be under the protection of the First Amendment, but censorship was still legal if carried out "under a narrowly drawn statute" (Wittern-Keller "History of Film Censorship"). This meant that the Board could still censor films along the lines of immorality, inciting to crime, and obscenity & indecency (essentially sexual elements). One year later the first trial over the film M, Superior Films Inc. v. Department of Education in the Ohio Supreme Court, actually upheld censorship statute when limited to "three distinct areas...the obscene, the immoral, and that which tended to promote crime or riot," though this judgement was reversed in 1954 per the Burstyn case (Ohio Attorney General C. William O'Neill to Dr. Hissong, March 10, 1954, Legal). The 1954 La Ronde case involving New York ruled out the possibility of censoring on the grounds of "immoral or would tend to corrupt morals" claiming it was too vague (Dr. Hissong to Mr. Kellog, February 15, 1954, Legal). Also in 1954 the case Superior Films v. Ohio, reversed the ban on the film M, and the state was no longer able to censor based on the idea of inciting to crime, what had been one of the censor's core arguments for 41 years (Ohio Attorney General C. William O'Neill to Dr. Hissong, March 10, 1954, Legal). Thus by 1954 the Board was legally only able to censor films based on obscenity and indecency, and they were determined to do that. March 11, just a day after receiving counsel from Ohio's Attorney General, the Board had a list of eliminations on Howard Hughes's R.K.O. Pictures: Son of Sinbad, all based on sexual images and scenes in the film (Certificate of Censorship: Approved, March 11, 1954, Miscellaneous). Hughes (through R.K.O.) challenged the Board in Ohio's Supreme Court that year in R.K.O. Radio Pictures, Inc. v. Dept. of Education of Ohio and the Board lost. A lower court later ruled that Ohio's statue was unconstitutional, and despite an attempt to rewrite the statute, the Board closed down in June 1955 (Wittern-Keller 185).

The Board's Censorship Process

After the Board was established, any film or newsreel to be shown in the state had to be sent to the Board for their approval. The Board would watch the film and decide that it was either approved, approved with eliminations, or rejected. Films were submitted to the Board by distributors, rather than studios or theater owners, who were responsible for paying the per reel fee (initially $1 and later $3) and making any cuts to the film that the Board desired. Once approved the film would be given a leader to attach to the beginning of the film noting its approved status to all who would see it. There was a series of fines for any exhibitor or distributor who attempted to show a film in the state that did not have the attached leader.

Every film that the Board censored fell into one of three categories: approved without eliminations, approved with eliminations, and rejected. The data in the archive of the summaries of the Board's censorship categories is consistent, but the image below is a graph based on the information available.

Figure 2: Censorship Decisions: Categories

As the graph shows, the Board approved a significant number of films over the ones they rejected. Since the Board reviewed all motion pictures that were to be displayed in the State, a large amount of the films submitted were motion pictures developed for industrial or educational use, and these films did not usually require censorship and were quickly approved. Thus the bulk of the motion pictures the Board received were approved without elimination. In a close study of the first few years of censorship (when the Board received the extraordinarily high numbers of films because they were shorter, produced more quickly, and there was a significant number of foreign imports) the approved without eliminations films averaged 74.3% from September 1913 to June 1917. The approved with eliminations category mainly contained serials and feature films, or what you would commonly think of as movies. In this category the censors had reviewed the reels and created a list of scenes or subtitles that the distributors would need to cut before a theater could exhibit the film (these were collected into bulletins), a 23.7% average from September 1913 to June 1917. The last category was films that the Board rejected in total, this was the smallest category, averaging 2% from September 1913 to June 1917 (Statement of Films Censored, 1917, Miscellaneous).

This study will focus mainly on the category of "approved with eliminations," analyzing the eliminations listed in the bulletins throughout the four decades of the Board. Additionally the Case Studies section will look at one film that was "approved with eliminations," and two films that were rejected. It is recommended to start with the Bulletins section, for this lays out the major topics of censorship that are discussed in the Case Studies section.