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... MOVE, ADAPT, OR DIE: LAGOPUS LEUCURA CHANGES IN DISTRIBUTION, HABITAT, AND NUMBER AT GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, MONTANA DAVID BENSON AND MATTHEW CUMMINS School of Mathematics and Sciences, Marian University, 3200 Cold Spring Road, Indianapolis, IN 46222, USA. E-mail: dbenson@marian.edu ABSTRACT.Because of the montane island effect and relative rates of climate change, alpine species may be particularly affected by changing climate. White-tailed Ptarmigan (Lagopus leucura) are adapted to life in the alpine cold, but may be less well-adapted to hot summer temperatures. In 1996 and 1997, ptarmigan living in Glacier National Park (GNP) were closely associated with remnant snow and free water in the late summer, a resource that is rapidly changing in distribution and extent as climate changes. We examined White-tailed Ptarmigan distribution, habitat, and numbers in 2009-2010 for comparison with 1996-1997 data. Briefly, five areas within GNP were searched for ptarmigan during August. Habitat data including microclimate were collected at flock locations. Microclimate at ptarmigan flock locations differed from other areas nearby. Flocking ptarmigan appeared to be less numerous than described in 1996 and 1997, and mean flock locations on Logan Pass moved 335 m upslope between the 1990s and 2009 and 2010. Ptarmigan in 2009 and 2010 chose habitat that had the same coverage of vegetation and rock as 1996 and 1997, but contained less snow and water, was farther from snow and water, contained lower soil moisture content, was higher in elevation, and steeper in slope. Our study demonstrates that White-tailed Ptarmigan in GNP have changed distribution, altered habitat preferences, and perhaps on a local scale, experienced declining population numbers in late summer. Received 1 March 2011, accepted 20 June 2011. BENSON, D., AND M. CUMMINS. 2011. Move, adapt, or die: Lagopus leucura changes in distribution, habitat, and number at Glacier National Park, Montana. Pages 237246 in R. T. Watson, T. J. Cade, M. Fuller, G. Hunt, and E. Potapov (Eds.). Gyrfalcons and Ptarmigan in a Changing World, Volume I. The Peregrine Fund, Boise, Idaho, USA. http://dx.doi.org/10.4080/gpcw.2011.0121 Key words: Lagopus leucura, White-tailed Ptarmigan, climate, habitat, distribution, water. change. Parmesan (1996) documented a shift of 124 m upward in elevation in the Ediths Checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha) in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Montane plant species in the Swiss Alps have shifted upward 49 m per decade (Grabherr et al. 1994), while treeline in the Canada Rockies has moved significantly upslope (Luckman AS CLIMATE CHANGES (IPCC 2007), species distributions, habitat and demography are being affected (see reviews: McCarty 2001, Parmesan and Yohe 2003, Crick 2004, Parmesan 2006, Visser 2008). Some of these effects may be more pronounced in mountain systems. Several researchers have uncovered elevational changes attributable to climate 237  BENSON AND CUMMINS and spring alpine climate on ptarmigan have begun to emerge. In Colorado, median hatch dates have moved ahead by approximately 15 days during 19751999 (Wang et al. 2002). Wang et al. (2002) also found that higher minimum winter temperatures retarded the growth rate of a White-tailed Ptarmigan population. Martin and Wiebe (2004) found White-tailed Ptarmigan breeding success was greatly reduced when spring snow melt was delayed by two weeks. and Kavanagh 2000). Montane birds have the potential to be affected, too. Pounds and others (1999, 2005) found a significant increase in elevation in the distribution of bird species using montane cloud forest habitat. A modeling study of Snow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis) distribution suggested that breeding range will decrease or disappear in the Grampians of Scotland under some predicted climate change scenarios (Berry et al. 2001). Implicit in such studies are changes in a species habitat. Rather than, or in addition to changes in distribution, species may adapt to changes in habitat by modifying behavior. Thus far, the behavioral changes in response to climate most often recorded are phenological (Bradley et al. 1999, Parmesan and Yohe 2003). For example Dunn and Winkler (1999) used Tree Swallow (Trachycineta bicolor) nest records from across its range to document a 5 9 day advance in breeding date between 1959 and 1991. Inouye et al. (2000) revealed a phenological disjunction between arrival and emergence dates of American Robin (Turdus migratorius) and Yellow-bellied Marmots (Marmota flaviventris) and the first date of bare ground. Species may also adapt by changing what habitat they select or exploiting different aspects of their preferred habitat (Martin 2001). Lesser known are how changes in summer climate may affect these alpine specialists. Ptarmigan at the northernmost end of the Rocky Mountains in the lower 48 states, USA, in Glacier National Park (GNP), Montana were found to be very closely tied to snow and water in the late summer (Choate 1963a, Benson 1999), possibly due to the cool microclimate which that habitat provides (Johnson 1968). GNP has experienced a mean average temperature increase of 1.6C in the past 150 years, approximately three times the global average (Hall and Fagre 2003). Although precipitation has increased near the park over the past century, and winter snowpack within the park and summer temperatures have remained relatively stable (Selkowitz et al. 2002), glaciers and perennial snow cover within the park have decreased from 99 to 27 km2 during the past 150 years (Key et al. 2002). The number of glaciers has declined from 150 to 27 since the late 1800s and all are predicted to be gone by 2030 (Hall and Fagre 2003). Local extinctions, such as of Pika (Ochotona princeps) in the Great Basin, have also been attributed to changing climate. Parmesan and Galbraith (2004) found that extinct populations of Pika were from significantly lower elevations than those still present. A similar result was found in Checkerspot Butterflies; local extinction rates were found to be greater at the southern end of the species range and at lower elevations (Parmesan 1996). Ptarmigan in GNP choose habitat closely associated with snow and water (Choate 1963a, Benson 1999), a resource that rapidly changed in distribution from year to year as perennial snow has decreased. Our study examines how White-tailed Ptarmigan in GNP have responded to the rapid changes in the distribution of perennial snow and water in terms of alterations in late summer flock locations, habitat preferences, and local population numbers. White-tailed Ptarmigan (Lagopus leucura) are the only bird species in North America to spend their entire lives in the alpine (Braun et al. 1993), and the effects of changes in winter 238  PTARMIGAN CHANGE OVER TIME METHODS Study Area.The primary study area encompassed approximately 2.5 km2 southeast of Logan Pass in Glacier National Park, MT, USA, as described by Choate (1963a) and consisted of large, glacially-carved alpine hanging valleys and cirques, with meadows transected by long benches of sedimentary rock. Much of the study area was treeless, with stunted Subalpine Fir (Abies lasiocarpa) and Whitebark Pine (Pinus albicaulis) occurring sporadically throughout. Snow covered much of the study area until mid-July, after which the meadows became snow free and relatively dry. The distribution of perennial snow on Logan Pass has changed over the past century from the 1930s when Clements glacier was the principal source of late summer water and snow, to the 1950s when it was downgraded to a permanent snowfield, to the 2000s when that permanent snowfield was almost completely melted by late August (Figure 1). Figure 1. Distribution of perennial snow on 22 August 1995 (231,499 m2) versus 27 August 2005 (35,283 m2) on Logan Pass in Glacier National Park (USDA 2005; USGS 2001). The majority of the snow is on the site of the former Clements glacier. We searched five other areas for ptarmigan flock sites: Lunch Creek, Piegan Pass, Grinnell Glacier, Reynolds Mountain, and Bear Hat Mountain. Previous searches of each of these areas were reported by Benson (1999). These areas were similar in character to Logan Pass, described above. Habitat Analysis.After the breeding season (approximately mid-Julylate September), ptarmigan males and unsuccessful females form flocks of 220+ birds (Braun et al. 1993). Flocking individuals are sedentary or slowly moving and are generally found within 2 m of another individual. Flocks leave behind obvious sign, including fresh droppings and multiple feathers in approximately 20-cm-diameter circles where each bird was sitting (pers. obs.). We centered habitat plots on flock locations found between 9 August and 7 September 2009 and 2010. These flock locations were defined as areas with either two or more ptarmigan within 2-m of each other or with more than two piles of fresh (not dried out) Figure 2. White-tailed Ptarmigan flock sites in 196162, 199697, and 200910 on Logan Pass in Glacier National Park, MT (Choate 1963a; USDA 2005). The arrow indicates the direction of increasing slope. 239  BENSON AND CUMMINS the Hidden Lake Nature Trail in the Logan Pass study area. We obtained 1961 and 1962 flock location data from hand-drawn maps in Choate (1963a). droppings and fresh (still fluffy; not wet and matted) feathers. Several sites with dry droppings, matted feathers, or feathers with mud or dirt splashed on them were not used in the analysis because they were assumed to be more than one week old. 1996 and 1997 Data.Habitat data from Benson (1999) was used to compare with those from 20092010 on the number of individuals and flock locations on Logan Pass and habitat preferences in the five study areas combined. A consumer-grade GPS unit was used to obtain flock coordinates in 1996 and 1997 with selective availability corrupting locations in random directions by about 50 m horizontally. While each individual point may not be as precise as recorded in 2009, the average center point of all flocks on Logan Pass in 1996 and 1997 is assumed to be accurate because each individual location is incorrect in a random direction and because the GPS locations match one of the authors (Benson) descriptive notes and maps of flock locations. We measured habitat variables (Benson 1999 following Frederick and Gutirrez 1992) in 177-m2 circular plots (15-m diameter) centered on the estimated middle of the flock location. Vegetation and abiotic components of the habitat plot were sampled along two 15-m transects on random compass bearings intersecting at the point where the bird was observed, totaling 100 equally spaced line intercepts (Benson 1999). We took five surface samples of soil on each transect totaling approximately 150 g wet mass. Each soil sample was weighed to the nearest 0.1 g on an electronic balance, ovendried at 50C, and re-weighed to give percent soil moisture content. Statistical Analysis.T-tests were used to compare nine variables from 20092010 and 19961997 habitat data with a Bonferroni-corrected significance level of < 0.006. Oneway ANOVA was used to compare five microclimate variables between random and flock locations in 2010. The Bonferroni-corrected significance level was < 0.01. Nonnormally distributed data were transformed using square root or log transformation. The values reported are means SE. Microclimate.We collected microclimate data at three of the five study sites from 928 August 2010. Ambient temperature and humidity were collected with a data logger housed in a radiation shield. We took black globe temperature with a thermometer in the center of a six-inch copper globe painted matte black. An apparatus was placed in the noted location of two individuals in each flock. We placed three other apparatuses in semi-random locations with a similar light regime to the flock location at or near a random distance within 50-m along a random compass bearing. We left these microclimate collectors in place an average of four days, then moved to another flock location for a total of 12 flock locations. RESULTS In 20092010, we found flocks in four of the five locations extensively searched. The largest flock contained five individuals, although three flocks in close proximity (within 30 m) were found on Logan Pass totaling seven birds (Table 1). On Logan Pass, the one-day highest total number of individuals found was 11. However, no other flocks were found on that day, and no search in prior days yielded more than 11 individuals (Table 1). Ptarmigan Population Size and Distribution. Birds in 2009 and 2010 were not banded. Population sizes were estimates based on the number, size, and location of flocks. We used GPS (2-m accuracy) to obtain flock location coordinates and ArcView 9.2 to map and find the average center-point of flock locations near 240  PTARMIGAN CHANGE OVER TIME Table 1. Flocking individuals and flock sizes from 1959 (Choate 1963a), 1997 (Benson 1999), 2009, and 2010. Individuals in 1959 and 1997 were individually marked. Big day indicates the number of flocks and total birds seen on one day of searching the Logan Pass study area. 1959 1997 2009 2010 Total Flocking Individuals 55 18 10 (unmarked est.) 11 (unmarked est.) Largest Flock 17 10 4 11 Average Flock 5.0 5.1 3.0 5.0 4 flocks; 33 birds 2 flocks; 12 birds 3 flocks; 7 birds 1 flock; 11 birds Big day on Logan Pass due either to the difficulty in finding flocks in the late summer or to an actual decline in late summer numbers in this location. Ptarmigan are cryptically-colored throughout the year and are especially difficult to find in the late summer because they do not respond as readily to recorded calls. This characteristic, however, should affect studies equally. The distance between the mean center of the late 1990s flock locations (n = 20) and the 20092010 flock sites (n = 20) on the Logan Pass study area was 335.2 m horizontally (Figure 2). In 20092010, ptarmigan (N = 49) chose habitat significantly farther from snow and marginally farther from water, with higher soil moisture and a steeper slope than ptarmigan in 1996 and 1997 (N = 26, Figures 3 and 4). Coverages and elevation were similar, although 20092010 had fewer flock sites with snow or over 20% water (Figures 5 and 6). A decline in the number of individuals using Logan Pass in the late summer does not necessarily mean there was a change in breeding numbers. In fact, between the late 1950s and the late 1990s there was a large change in the number of late summer individuals on Logan Pass, but little change in breeding numbers (Choate 1963a, Benson 1999). For 20092010 we had no data from the breeding season. Other researchers have found ptarmigan moving among alpine valleys in the late summer (May and Braun 1972), presumably because they could not find suitable late-summer habitat at higher elevations at their breeding locations (Herzog 1977). Our findings suggest that Logan Pass may have been less suitable for flocks in 20092010 than in the past; however, if ptarmigan moved to a more suitable location, we were unable to find that location despite searching potential habitat surrounding the area. We did not find large numbers of ptarmigan in any of the areas searched in 20092010. Compared to random sites, ptarmigan flock locations tended toward lower average high ambient temperatures, lower black globe temperatures, and lower average high black globe temperatures, although none of these comparisons had a P-value below the Bonferroni corrected alpha (Figure 7). Mean ambient temperature (Figure 7) and humidity (random mean = 58.1 +/- 15.7; flock mean = 65.2 +/14.7; df = 51, F = 2.74, P = 0.1) did not differ between random and ptarmigan flock locations. DISCUSSION In this study, we found fewer total individuals than 13 years prior at Logan Pass and much fewer than encountered in a study done in the same location during 19581962 (Table 1; Choate 1963a, Benson 1999). The decline apparent among these three studies could be We found ptarmigan in GNP in the late summer 20092010 in close proximity to both 241  BENSON AND CUMMINS gonum spp., Ranunculus spp., and Mimulus spp. (Weeden 1967, May and Braun 1972, Clarke 1989). It has been suggested that the close relationship between ptarmigan and water and snow in the late summer is primarily due to the availability of this young, lush vegetation in those areas (Choate 1963b, Braun 1971, Herzog 1977, Scott 1982). A further explanation for the association of late summer flocking habitat with snow, water and related variables may be the cooler microclimate they provide (Johnson 1968). Indeed, we found that locations chosen by ptarmigan tended to have lower average high temperatures than random areas nearby. Snow and water have a moderating effect on local environment, and the pres- water and snow, though not as close to these resources as ptarmigan were in the late 90s (Figure 3). The 19611962 distribution of flocking locations on Logan Pass changed in 19961997, and again in 20092010, following the horizontal and elevational movement of perennial snow melt-off (Figs. 1 and 2). These elevation shifts are similar to those reported for lowland bird species in Costa Rica (Pounds et al. 1999), Ediths Checkerspot Butterfly in North America (Parmesan 1996), and Pika in the Great Basin (Beever et al. 2003). Summer diet of White-tailed Ptarmigan consists of leaves and seeds of herbaceous plants such as clovers, sedges (Carex spp.), Poly- Figure 3. Distance to snow (P = 0.001) and distance to water (P = 0.014) from White-tailed Ptarmigan flock sites in 199697 (N = 26) vs. 200910 (N = 49) in Glacier National Park, Montana. Error bars are +/- SE. Figure 4. Soil moisture content and slope at White-tailed Ptarmigan flock sites in 19961997 (N = 26) vs. 20092010 (N = 49) in Glacier National Park, Montana. Error bars are +/SE. 242  PTARMIGAN CHANGE OVER TIME Figure 5. Coverages of habitat variables at White-tailed Ptarmigan flock sites in 19961997 (N = 26) vs. 20092010 (N = 49) in Glacier National Park, Montana. Rock and soil includes the cover categories: gravel, rock, boulder, and soil. Vegetation includes forbs, grasses, ericaceous shrubs, and Salix nivalis. Error bars are +/- SE. Inset boxes show the percentage of White-tailed Ptarmigan flock sites with snow (w/snow) and with over 20% water coverage (>20% water) in 1996-97 (90s) and 2009-10 (09'10). Figure 6. Elevation at White- tailed Ptarmigan flock sites in 19961997 (N = 26) vs. 20092010 (N = 49; P = 0.009) in Glacier National Park, Montana. Error bars are +/- SE. Figure 7. Microclimate comparisons at White-tailed Ptarmigan flock locations (N = 25) and random (N = 27) locations within 50 m with similar sunlight characteristics for 4-dayaverage periods. High Temp. and High Black Globe Temp. refer to the mean of the daily high ambient and Black Globe temperatures. Error bars are +/SE. 243  BENSON AND CUMMINS As the alpine environment changes with continuing warming, alpine species like ptarmigan are afforded three scenarios: (1) follow their preferred habitat, (2) change their habitat preference, or (3) become less prevalent in their former range all year or during certain seasons. In the case of White-tailed Ptarmigan in GNP, it appears as if all three may have occurred at once. The fact that ptarmigan are able to move long distances, and appear able to adjust their behavior in response to altered thermal regimes, bodes well for their long-term prospects in a changing climate. ence of snow and water at a location in the late summer is likely due to other environmental characteristics such as shade and shelter from wind resulting in a cool airshed at that location. Choosing habitat based on thermal characteristics is not unique to ptarmigan. Other species may base nest site selection (Wachob 1996), roost selection (Barrows 1981), and location of daily activities (Walsberg 1993, Wolf et al. 1996, Patten et al. 2005) on thermal needs. As the only birds in North America to spend their entire lives in the alpine environment, White-tailed Ptarmigan are very well adapted to cold, but are less well adapted to high summer temperatures. 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... 192 SHORT COMMUNICATIONS The Condor 104:192197 q The Cooper Ornithological Society 2002 LOW EXTRA-PAIR PATERNITY IN WHITE-TAILED PTARMIGAN DAVID P. BENSON1 Department of Zoology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-4236 Abstract. The White-tailed Ptarmigan (Lagopus leucurus) is one of the few socially monogamous species within the highly polygynous grouse subfamily (Tetraoninae). I found White-tailed Ptarmigan in Glacier National Park, Montana, to be nearly genetically monogamous. Of 58 chicks with putative fathers identified, three were the result of extra-pair copulations (5%). Three of 18 clutches (17%) contained extra-pair offspring. I suggest that White-tailed Ptarmigan males are able to guard their females effectively from extrapair copulations because of high visibility in their habitat and their ability to forage alongside their mate. The three extra-pair offspring were sired by unknown males. Key words: Lagopus leucurus, mate guarding, monogamy, paternal care, paternity, White-tailed Ptarmigan. Baja Paternidad Extra-Pareja en Lagopus leucurus Manuscript received 16 April 2001; accepted 9 November 2001. 1 Present address: Department of Biology and Environmental Science, Marian College, 3200 Cold Spring Road, Indianapolis, IN 46222. E-mail: dbenson@marian.edu Resumen. Lagopus leucurus es una de las pocas especies socialmente monogama dentro de la subfamilia Tetraoninae que se caracteriza por ser altamente polgina. En el Glacier National Park, Montana, encontre que los individuos de L. leucurus eran casi completamente monogamos en terminos geneticos. De 58 polluelos con padres putativos, tres (5%) fueron el resultado de copulaciones extra-pareja. Tres de 18 nidadas (7%) presentaron hijos extra-pareja. Sugiero que los machos de L. leucurus son capaces de proteger efectivamente a sus hembras para evitar copulaciones extra-pareja debido a la alta visibilidad del habitat en que se encuentran y a la habilidad de forrajear junto con la hembra. Los tres hijos de origen extra-pareja no fueron engendrados por machos que estaban en pareja. Over 90% of bird species are socially monogamous. Recently, however, avian behaviorists have become aware of the disparity between social and genetic mating systems (Gladstone 1979), especially since the advent of genetic fingerprinting techniques that allow rates of extra-pair paternity (EPP) to be measured (Burke and Bruford 1987, Quinn et al. 1987, Wetton et al. 1987). This disparity varies from extreme in, for example, the Superb Fairy Wren (Malurus cyaneus; 69% EPP; Dunn and Cockburn 1996) to nonexistent in the Common Loon (Gavia immer; 0%; Piper et al. SHORT COMMUNICATIONS 1997). The rate of EPP can also vary among congeners (e.g., 3% vs. 36% in two species of Acrocephalus; Schultz-Hagen 1993, Hasselquist et al. 1996), and can even vary among populations within species (Lifjeld et al. 1991, Gelter and Tegelstrom 1992). Several hypotheses have been posed to explain interspecific and intraspecific variation in EPP, such as variation in breeding density (Birkhead and Mller 1992), breeding synchrony (Birkhead and Biggins 1987, Stutchbury and Morton 1995), and genetic variability (Petrie et al. 1998). Classic parental investment theory suggests that paternity may be related to male parental care (Trivers 1972). For example, Piper et al. (1997) hypothesized that the need for biparental care in large nonpasserines might favor the evolution of paternity guards that ensure genetic monogamy. Comparisons among closely related species are needed to help distinguish among hypotheses for variation in extra-pair paternity. Only four species within the highly polygynous grouse (Tetraoninae) are socially monogamous. Of these four, only the genetic mating system of the Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) has been assessed. Freeland et al. (1995) found socially monogamous Willow Ptarmigan to have a low (4%) rate of extrapair paternity. Like Willow Ptarmigan, the White-tailed Ptarmigan (L. leucurus) has highly variable breeding densities (1 4 breeding pairs per km2) and breeds from the middle of May through the middle of July (Braun et al. 1993, Hannon et al. 1998). Willow Ptarmigan males, however, are unique among grouse in providing extensive parental care. Willow Ptarmigan males defend nest and chicks, and will assume full responsibility for a brood if the female cannot (Martin 1984, Martin and Cooke 1987); yet, paternal care does very little to augment annual production (Martin and Cooke 1987). Whitetailed Ptarmigan males defend females during incubation recesses early on, provide less defense as incubation continues, then join flocks late in the incubation period and rarely provide nest or brood defense (Schmidt 1988, K. Martin, pers. comm.). Both Willow and White-tailed Ptarmigan males spend much of their time accompanying their mates before incubation and during incubation recesses (Braun et al. 1993, Artiss and Martin 1995, Hannon et al. 1998, Artiss et al. 1999). Up to 26% of male ptarmigan are unmated floaters in some seasons (Hannon and Martin 1996). In this study I examined the genetic breeding system of White-tailed Ptarmigan for comparison with Willow Ptarmigan. I also attempted to assign genetic sires to extra-pair young. METHODS Data were collected MaySeptember 19961998 from a population of White-tailed Ptarmigan in the Logan Pass area and from 19971998 in the Piegan Pass and Morning Eagle Falls areas of Glacier National Park, Montana (488419N, 1138439W). The three study sites were 24 km apart with no movement of known individuals among sites (DPB, unpubl. data). I searched the Logan Pass area more thoroughly and more often (once per week) than the other two areas (twice per month). Searches consisted of systematically walking 193 the study area while playing taped male challenge calls during and chick distress calls after the breeding season (Braun et al. 1973) in an effort to observe all individuals in the Logan Pass area. Social mating status was determined by observation. Males observed with a female prior to or during incubation were considered the putative father of the offspring in the females clutch. On one occasion, a male was seen flying back and forth between two females at approximately 5-min intervals, apparently guarding them, while they were off the nest during the incubation period. This trio was considered polygynous. Males who were observed alone before 16 July were considered unmated (Choate 1963). Females found before 16 July or brooding chicks within seven days of hatching were considered breeding females (Choate 1963). Because observations were made once weekly on Logan Pass but less often in other locations, I made mating status classifications only at Logan Pass. I assumed that chicks observed with a female were her offspring, due to the lack of evidence for egg dumping in this species (Braun et al. 1993). I captured adults using a noose-pole (Zwickel and Bendell 1967), banded each with a colored, numbered band, and took three contour feathers as a DNA sample (Pearce et al. 1997). I captured chicks using a large insect net and removed two developing feathers. All chicks in each brood were captured. In three cases where nests were located, I used vascularized eggshell membranes as a source of chick DNA (Pearce et al. 1997). I prepared two feathers from each individual for DNA extraction by removing the vanes, slicing the shaft (calamus and the bottom two-thirds of the rachis) into fourths lengthwise, and then chopping the slices into 5-mm pieces (Pearce et al. 1997). Vascularized chorioallantois egg membranes were removed from the shell and broken into pieces (Pearce et al. 1997). The eggshell membrane or feather pieces from each individual were then ground with an epi-pestle and sterile sand in 500 mL of 2% CTAB solution for DNA extraction (Soltis et al. 1991) and incubated for 2 hr at 658C. I used two chloroform extractions and precipitated DNA using ammonium acetate and isopropyl alcohol overnight at 08C. The precipitated DNA was resuspended in 40 mL TE buffer, and 1 mL resuspended DNA was used per PCR reaction. Three microsatellite DNA loci (LLST1, Piertney and Dallas 1997; LLST3 and LLST7 Piertney et al. 1998) were amplified in 10-mL PCR reactions containing 1 U Sigma Taq DNA Polymerase, 10 mM TrisHCl (pH 9.0 at 258C), 50 mM KCl, 1% Triton X-100t, 5% DMSO, 2 mM MgCl2, 0.25 mM each primer, 0.1 mM each dNTP, and 1.5 mCi 35S-labeled dATP. These reactions were conducted in a thermal cycler with an initial denaturation of 2 min at 968C, followed by 34 cycles of 968C for 1 min, 2 min at annealing temperature, and 728C for 2 min. The cycling profile concluded with a 7-min extension at 728C. Annealing temperatures of 598C for LLST1 and LLST3 and 608C for LLST7 were used. Amplification products were visualized on a 6% polyacrylamide gel using autoradiography and scored visually for size using an M13 bacteriophage sequence as a size standard. For each individual I determined the genotype at 194 SHORT COMMUNICATIONS TABLE 1. White-tailed Ptarmigan demographic data from Logan Pass, Montana 19961998, and Piegan Pass and Morning Eagle Falls, Montana, 19971998, showing breeding season numbers and extra-pair young (EPY). Mated males includes all males found with a female before 16 July (Choate 1963); unmated males includes all males located alone before that date. Breeding season total includes mated males, unmated males, and females found before 16 July or brooding on Logan Pass within seven days of hatch (Choate 1963). Because Piegan Pass and Morning Eagle Falls were not intensively surveyed, mated males, unmated males, and breeding season totals were not determined for those areas. Year Logan Pass 1996 1997 1998 Mated males Unmated males Breeding females Breeding season total 10 6 11 27 8 6 5 7 10 5 23 18 Piegan Pass and Morning Eagle Falls 1997 1998 Totals a One male attended two females and was b Two females sampled in 1996 produced Putative fathers known Broods Chicks EPY 5 2a 4b 4 17 7 14b 13 1 1 1 0 2 1 8 5 0 0 18 64 3 considered the putative father of both broods. two broods and six offspring in 1997. These broods and chicks were excluded from the EPY analysis. each of the three microsatellite loci. Then, using the genotype of each chick and its putative mother, I was able to include or exclude the putative father as the sire. I assigned paternity to the putative father when his genotype was compatible with those of the chicks in the clutch with which he was associated. If the putative male was not the father, I examined all other males in the population for possible paternity. Exclusion probabilities were calculated using allele frequencies at each locus by Cervus software (Marshall et al. 1998). Because some females were not observed with a male before or during incubation, I could not assign putative fathers to their offspring. These offspring were omitted from the results. RESULTS During the three years of this study 64 chicks were genetically typed and attributed to both a putative father and mother (Table 1). Thirty-five males were finTABLE 2. Microsatellite loci, alleles, heterozygosity, and probability of paternity exclusion given the putative mothers genotype, for a population of Whitetailed Ptarmigan in Glacier National Park, Montana. The hypervariable loci LLST3 and LLST7 yield a high probability of exclusion. Exclusion probabilities were calculated using Cervus software (Marshall et al. 1998). MSAT loci Number of alleles Average heterozygosity Probability of exclusion LLST1 LLST3 LLST7 Total 10 43 28 0.714 0.899 0.854 0.628 0.908 0.849 0.995 gerprinted genetically in the study and classified as mated or unmated each year (Table 1). Total breedingseason birds on Logan Pass decreased during the three years of this study (Table 1). There were 16 socially monogamous pairs and one polygynous trio that produced offspring and for which putative fathers were known (Table 1). Two ptarmigan pairs with offspring in 1996 had chicks again in 1997. The 1997 broods and offspring (six total) appear in Table 1, but are not included in calculations of extra-pair young (EPY) (below). Neither had EPY in either year. All three loci were highly polymorphic, with heterozygosities ranging from 0.714 to 0.899 (Table 2). Individual total exclusion power ranged from 0.964 to 0.999 for the three loci combined and the average total exclusion power was 0.995. Of 58 chicks (64 with putative fathers minus 6 from resampled pairs), 55 matched the putative father at all three loci. Alleles of three chicks did not match the putative father at all three loci and were considered extra-pair young (5% of 58 chicks). Three of 18 clutches (17%) contained EPY. One of the EPY occurred in a polygynous trio in 1996 (1 of 7 chicks; 14%), and the other two were found in socially monogamous pairs (2 of 51 chicks; 4%) in 1996 and 1997 (Table 1). One male was cuckolded in two successive years, once as a member of the socially polygynous trio and once with a different mate in a socially monogamous pair. One chick in a brood found about 30 days after hatching mismatched the attending female at two loci. The chick could not be matched up with any other pair, and may have been a result of egg dumping or afterhatch adoption. Although all resident males sampled (n 5 35) were typed at all three loci, none of the three EPY matched SHORT COMMUNICATIONS a male at more than two loci; thus, I was unable to assign paternity to any of the EPY. I observed two extra-pair copulation (EPC) attempts and one within-pair copulation during the three years of this study; all occurred at dusk. During both EPC attempts, an unbanded and unsampled flying male repeatedly landed next to or on a female. The social partner of the female chased the intruder away while vocalizing vigorously. Neither of the EPC attempts resulted in EPY. DISCUSSION Males in the population of White-tailed Ptarmigan I studied in Glacier National Park, Montana, rarely lost paternity. This is the second of the four socially monogamous species within the Tetraoninae found to be nearly genetically monogamous (Freeland et al. 1995). Certainty of paternity does not appear to be related to the evolution of male parental care in ptarmigan. White-tailed Ptarmigan males provide little parental care yet have a low rate of extra-pair paternity (4%), similar to Willow Ptarmigan in which males provide comparatively much more care. The lack of a relationship between paternity and parental care is to be expected if the male investment in parental care has no effect on recruitment (Whittingham et al. 1992), which appears to be the case in Willow Ptarmigan (Martin and Cooke 1987). Male birds are thought to increase their certainty of paternity by assurance techniques such as mate guarding (Birkhead and Mller 1992). This behavior presumably reduces opportunities for females to engage in EPCs. Mate guarding has been shown to be effective in mate removal experiments (Westneat 1994, MacDougall-Shackleton et al. 1996). However, in a metaanalysis of avian paternity studies, Mller and Ninni (1998) found no relationship between the intensity of mate guarding and paternity. Further, many descriptive studies have found a negative relationship between the intensity of mate guarding and paternity (Gowaty and Bridges 1991, Kempenaers et al. 1995, Schleicher et al. 1997). In this study, the intensity of mate guarding was not recorded; however, other studies of Whitetailed Ptarmigan have described intense mate guarding prior to incubation and while the female is off the nest during incubation (Schmidt 1988, Artiss and Martin 1995). Freeland et al. (1995) suggested that mate guarding was important in reducing EPP in Willow Ptarmigan. Mate guarding throughout incubation in Willow Ptarmigan might also enhance male reproductive success by ensuring paternity in renesting attempts (Martin 1984) or by enhancing female foraging rates (Artiss et al. 1999). The efficacy of mate guarding may depend on the physical ability of a male to remain close to his female. High visibility in alpine habitat, the low density of ptarmigan populations, and the sedentary nature of White-tailed Ptarmigan may limit the ability of males or females to engage in EPCs. Territorial ptarmigan males may not be willing to jeopardize the energetic investment in their territory by leaving their mates to seek EPCs themselves (Martin 1984, Hannon and Martin 1992). White-tailed Ptarmigan also do not need to 195 trade off mate guarding for foraging, because they forage alongside their mates. If male ptarmigan do enforce fidelity upon females through mate guarding, one would expect that males who are socially paired with two females would be less able to guard both mates, and therefore lose more paternity to cuckoldry, than socially monogamous males. Sample sizes for both studies were low, but Freeland et al. (1995) suggested that this was true in Willow Ptarmigan and this may also be true in the present study (the only polygynous trio was cuckolded, whereas the rate of EPY in monogamous pairs was 12% of clutches). Breeding density has been proposed as an explanation for within and among species variation in EPO (Birkhead 1978, Mller 1987). The density hypothesis suggests that as density increases, so does the accessibility of extra-pair partners. The data presented here lend some support to this hypothesis. From 19961998 the number of White-tailed Ptarmigan present on Logan Pass during the breeding season decreased 33% from 27 to 18. Extra-pair offspring found on Logan Pass decreased as well (two in 1996, one in 1997, and none in 1998). None of the three EPY found in this study could be assigned to any of the 35 resident males (both mated and unmated) sampled. Because mated male Whitetailed Ptarmigan respond to tape-recorded vocalizations during the breeding season and unmated males often do not (making them more easily overlooked), it is possible that the EPY were sired by unmated rather than mated males. Unmated males have been found to engage in EPCs in other species, such as Willow Ptarmigan (Martin and Hannon 1988), Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor; Barber and Robertson 1999) and Stitchbirds (Notiomystis cincta; Ewen et al. 1999). Because female White-tailed Ptarmigan are receptive to intruder males (Martin and Hannon 1988), the potential benefits of engaging in EPCs for mated male ptarmigan may be outweighed by the cost (i.e., lost paternity) of leaving their mates. In conclusion, this study found a low number of EPY in White-tailed Ptarmigan in Glacier National Park. White-tailed Ptarmigan males provide less parental care than males of the closely related Willow Ptarmigan, yet have a similar rate of EPY. 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... 2013. Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science 121(2):9196 BEAVER-DREDGED CANALS AND THEIR SPATIAL RELATIONSIHP TO BEAVER-CUT STUMPS Matthew J. Abbott, Brandon Fultz, Jon Wilson, Jody Nicholson, Matt Black, Adam Thomas, Amanda Kot, Mallory Burrows, Benton Schafer and David P. Benson*: School of Mathematics and Sciences, Marian University, Indianapolis, IN 46222 ABSTRACT. Castor canadensis Kuhl (North American beavers) are central place foragers who collect woody plants and building materials from their surroundings and return to a main body of water containing a lodge or food cache. It has been suggested that beavers dredge water-filled canals to extend access to foraging areas; however, the possibility that these engineered transportation routes function as extensions to the beavers central place has yet to be considered. Our objective in this study was to gain a better understanding of the formation and utilization of canals by beavers and thus further elucidate the complex foraging behavior of these ecosystem engineers. During 20042011, we mapped beaver ponds, canals, and cut stumps in eight groundwater-fed wetlands, from at least four separate colonies, in Indianapolis, IN. We found that the mean length, depth, and width of the beaver-dredged canals were 604.3 6 493.1 m, 28.0 6 22.2 cm, and 107.7 6 107.1 cm respectively. Two of the canal systems were mapped for multiple years and their length, depth, and width increased over time and supported the prediction that beavers continuously engineer these canal systems to extend their foraging area into new locations. In addition, and in contrast to previous studies, we found that the number of beaver-cut stumps was negatively related to distance from canals, but not from the body of water containing their lodges. We recommend that studies of optimal foraging in beavers take canals into account, where applicable, when relating foraging to distance from the central place. Keywords: North American beaver, canal, Castor canadensis, foraging 1960, Jenkins 1980, Howard and Larson 1985). Hall (1960) for example, found that 90% of cut stumps were within 35 m of the water body with the lodge. Optimal foraging studies of beavers have found that beavers forage less, and more selectively, the farther they are from the main water body containing the lodge (Jenkins 1980, Belovsky 1984, McGinley and Whitham 1985, Fryxell and Doucet 1991, Raffel et al. 2009). However in some locations, beavers dredge canals apparently to increase accessibility to foraging areas (Berry 1923, Warren 1927, Townsend 1953, Naiman et al. 1986, Rebertus 1986, Johnson and Naiman 1987, Mitchell and Nierring 1993, Butler and Malanson 1994, Gurnell 1998, Rosell et al. 2005). Canals are often flooded by groundwater seeps and can be up to 1 m wide and 100 m long (Berry 1923, Rebertus 1986, Butler and Malanson 1994, Gurnell 1998). How these canals affect their central place foraging behavior has not been studied. In this study we examine the geomorphology of beaver-dredged canals by measuring and mapping eight canal systems in the Indianapolis, INTRODUCTION As central place foragers, Castor canadensis Kuhl (North American beavers) gather food and return to a central location, usually a water body with a lodge, dam, and/or food cache (Aldous 1938, Brenner 1962, Jenkins 1980, Belovsky 1984, Raffel et al. 2009). They feed on herbaceous vegetation as well as the bark and cambium of woody plants including Aspen (Populus tremuloides), Willows (Salix spp.), Cottonwood (Populus deltoides), Ashes (Fraxinus spp.), and Maples (Acer spp.) (Denney 1952, Hall 1960, Brenner 1962, Belovsky 1984, Roberts and Arner 1984, Baker and Hill 2003). Woody vegetation is either eaten where it is cut, or the stems are transported to a food cache near the lodge or to the lodge itself for construction (Busher 1996). Beavers usually forage within 100 m of the main water body containing the lodge (Hall * Corresponding author: School of Mathematics and Sciences, Marian University, 3200 Cold Spring Road, Indianapolis, IN 46222; email dbenson@marian. edu; phone 317-955-6028 91 92 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INDIANA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Figure 1.Beaver-dredged canals and cut stumps in Indianapolis, IN.; (1.) Shows location of Eagle Creek, Fishback Creek, and Nina Mason Pulliam EcoLab beaver-dredged canals in the northwest quarter of Marion County; (2.) Shows the distribution of the Eagle and Fishback Creeks canal systems; (3.) Shows the relationship between the canal systems in the NMP EcoLab; and (4.) The 2009 map of canal system NMP EcoLab 2 showing the relationship between beaver-cut stumps, beaver-dredged canals, and water nbody containing beaver lodges. IN area. Two of these canal systems were mapped over two consecutive years to examine changes over time. In addition, to assess how canals affect central place foraging behavior, we mapped the distribution of beaver-cut stumps in each of these canal systems. METHODS During autumn seasons in 20042011 we mapped beaver canals in eight canal systems in Indianapolis, Marion County, IN. Two canal systems were associated with at least one beaver colony on Fishback Creek (FB) (39.884779N, 86.308443W; WGS84), two with at least one colony on Eagle Creek (EC) (39.893472N, 86.297650W; WGS84), and one canal system for each of two colonies at the Nina Mason Pulliam (NMP) EcoLab at Marian University on Crooked Creek (39.818161N, 86.205897W; WGS84; Figure 1). In both the Fishback Creek and Eagle Creek areas, only one lodge was found nearby each, so we assume one colony created the canals in each of the two areas respectively. These canal systems contained primarily groundwater-fed wetlands that were dominated by Willows, Green Ash (F. pennsylvanica), Dogwoods (Cornus racemosa and C. amomum) and American Elm (Ulmus americana). ABBOTT ET AL.BEAVER DREDGED CANALS The Fishback Creek canal systems were 1.5km from the Eagle Creek canal systems and both were 11km from the NMP EcoLab canals along Crooked Creek (Figure 1). Canal systems often contain dry segments, segments containing water, and check dams. The Fishback Creek and the Eagle Creek canal systems were connected to their respective creeks by dry segments essentially a deep-cut trail. The canal systems at the NMP EcoLab each had a check dam separating the canals from the water bodies upon which the lodges were sited. Although the canal systems at the NMP EcoLab were only separated by 120m, we considered them to be created by two different colonies of beaver for the following reasons: 1. there were no signs of movement (trails, tracks, or sightings) between the two areas. 2. there were no cut stumps in the 120m gap between the two areas; and 3. there were two lodges in each of the two areas. Beaver canals were mapped by walking their length and all tributaries with a hand held Global Positioning System (GPS) unit (accurate to within 61 m). The canals were defined as gutter-like trails or paths that were dredged lower than the adjacent ground and that were connected to the larger water body containing the lodge. Canals often contained beaver-cut roots, obvious signs of dredging (e.g. pushed/ packed mud and debris on the edges of the canal ways), beaver-chewed sticks, and/or beaver-cut stumps. In contrast to a stream or creek, most active canals also contained nonmoving water (Berry 1923). Using measuring tape, we measured canal depth at its center, canal width, and water level at the center of each canal at approximately every 10 m along its length. We repeated this mapping procedure for two of the canal systems in 2008 and 2009 to detect changes in canals over time. To map beaver-cut stumps we walked transects that paralleled the water bodies containing the lodges and were at approximately 10 m intervals and extended to 10 m beyond the farthest canal. We recorded all beaver-cut stumps within 1 m of the transect using GPS. Cut stumps of all sizes were mapped and shrubs with multiple cut stems were considered a single stump. Trees that were girdled without felling were not included. The age of the cut was categorized as fresh (i.e. youngest) if the surface of the cut was whitish and unblemished, old if mottled with various shades of gray, 93 and rotten and old (i.e. oldest) if the cut stump was losing its form. Cut stumps were not mapped in 2008 for the two canal systems that were re-mapped in 2009. In these systems, stumps recorded as fresh were assumed to be cut in 2009, because they tend to become gray, and thus would be recorded as old, in less than a year. Minimum distances of cut stumps from canals and water bodies with lodges were calculated using ArcView GIS 9.2 (Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., Redlands, CA) and Kendalls rank correlation coefficient ((T) (Kendall 1938)) was used to determine statistical dependence between cut stumps and distance to main water body with lodge or canals. Means are given 6 standard deviation. RESULTS Geomorphology of beaver-dredged canals. We mapped a total of 4834 m of beaverdredged canals in the Indianapolis area (Fig. 1). Collectively, these canals had a mean depth of 28.0 6 22.2 cm, a mean width of 107.7 6 107.1 cm., and they contained an average of 13.2 6 16.2 cm standing water. We found 2662 beaver-cut stumps along the transects with 16% of them being freshly cut, 60% old, and 24% rotten and old. Between 2008 and 2009 there was a 10% increase in canal length in canal system NMP EcoLab 2 (Figure 1; Table 1). In addition, the average width of the canals increased 21% and the average depth of the canals increased 27% within that same year. In canal system NMP Ecolab 1, there was a 2.5% total increase in canal length, a 6.7% increase in canal width, and an 8.3% increase in canal depth between 2008 and 2009 (Table 1). Evidence of deliberate modification or dredging in both of the canal systems was present in the form of pushed/ packed mud and debris on the edges of the canal ways. Of the 932 stumps found in NMP Ecolab 2 in 2009, 26% were freshly cut; while in NMP Ecolab 1, only 2% of the reported 421 stumps were considered fresh (Table 1) Spatial relationship of beaver-cut stumps to beaver-dredged canals.In all eight canal systems the number of beaver-cut stumps had a strong inverse relationship with distance from canals (T5 20.9818; 2-tailed p , 0.001), but not distance from the water bodies containing the lodge (T5 0.036; 2-tailed p 5 0.737) (Table 2 and Fig. 2). Furthermore, 90% of the 16 20 116 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 FB1 FB2 FB3 EC1 EC2 EC3 NMP1 NMP1 NMP2 NMP2 (2008) (2009) (2008) (2009) 215 253 1152 1115 254 201 321 329 1193 1315 200.4 75.6 63.1 170.6 59.0 88.3 120.7 128.8 79.2 95.8 88.8 28.4 27.9 170.2 20.4 84.6 55.6 52.5 48.9 52.2 50.0 28.9 17.0 34.8 29.2 28.9 25.4 27.5 23.3 29.6 20.9 20.5 7.8 24.4 23.2 25.5 9.2 10.4 17.4 21.0 Mean canal depth (cm) Canal system Total length (m) Mean width (cm) 3.0 24.5 1.8 3.0 9.1 16.3 11.0 14.2 4.1 17.7 4.5 8.3 7.1 9.9 12.8 19.1 0.00% 0.00% 41.67% 100.00% 20.00% 33.33% 100.00% 100.00% 61.04% 80.33% 0 0 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 83 261 206 451 130 178 N/A 421 N/A 932 54 30 58 96 154 50 90 6.02% 11.49% 23.41% 17.29% 1.54% 3.37% N/A 2.14% N/A 26.29% 12 18 20 20 16 28 Main Water Pond 90% (m) % Flooded Mean water depth (cm) # Stumps mapped % Fresh-cut stumps Canal 90% (m) PROCEEDINGS OF THE INDIANA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Table 1.Characteristics of eight beaver-dredged canal systems in Indianapolis, IN, 20042011. Main Water 90% and canal 90% are the distances (m) from the main water body containing the lodge or a canal to 90% of the beaver-cut stumps. Means are 6 standard deviation. 94 Table 2.Spearman rank correlation coefficients showing a strong negative relationship between (a) canals and beaver-cut stumps, but not between (b) main water bodies containing the lodge and cut stumps for eight canal systems in Indianapolis, IN, 20042011. Canal System (a) Canal (T) (b) Main Water (T) FB1 FB2 FB3 EC1 EC2 EC3 NMP1 NMP2 20.718 20.771 20.771 20.863 20.716 20.605 20.920 20.926 20.005 0.321 0.341 0.303 0.368 0.382 20.096 20.151 cut stumps in all canal systems were within a range of 30154 m from the water body with lodge, while 90% of the stumps had a distal range of only 1228 m from the canals (Table 1). There were no discernible patterns associated with stump age: 90% of fresh stumps were within 8 m of the canals and within 116 m of the main water; 90% of old stumps were within 16 m of the canals and withion 124 m of main water; and 90% of rotten stumps were within 16 m of canals and within 100 m of the main water. DISCUSSION Geomorphology of beaver-dredged canals. The canals described in this study were dredged by beavers and filled with water primarily from groundwater seeps. Our observations were similar to those in other studies that have described canals or moats in areas such as peatlands without a constant surface water inflow (Rebertus 1986, Gurnell 1998). However, the canals described in this study were slightly wider and deeper than those that have been found in other areas (Gurnell 1998). It is apparent that beavers are continuously modifying and lengthening their canal systems over time. In canal systems NMP EcoLab 1 and 2, changes made to the canals (i.e. lengthening, widening, and deepening) between 2008 and 2009 were associated with increased feeding (i.e. more freshly-cut stumps) in the area where those changes took place. This association suggests that the beavers focus their energy on modifying the canals where current food sources are located. ABBOTT ET AL.BEAVER DREDGED CANALS 95 Figure 2.Distance from main water bodies containing lodges to cut stumps (1.), and from beaverdredged canals to cut stumps (2.) for beaver-dredged canal systems in Indianapolis, IN, 20042011. In canal system NMP EcoLab 1, the original colony of beavers abandoned the lodge in 2008. The lodge was re-colonized (or at least visited), however, by a different colony of beavers just before the canals were re-mapped in 2009 (Pers. Obs.). Consequently, no beaver foraging activity took place for the majority of the time between 2008 and 2009 (Pers. Obs.), this is likely the reason why this canal system did not change as dramatically as the other system and why there was a smaller percentage of fresh (less than one year-old) stumps. When comparing canal systems NMP EcoLab 1 and 2, then, it was evident that the rate of change in canal characteristics was associated with the amount of foraging activity (i.e. fresh stumps) that took place. Canals are likely used as safer and/or easier routes for transporting food back to the lodge or cache (Berry 1923). Spatial relationship of beaver-cut stumps to beaver-dredged canals.Most studies of optimal foraging in beavers have found that the distance from a water body with lodge or the waters edge is inversely related to the number of woody stems cut (Hall 1960, Jenkins 1980, Belovsky 1984, McGinley and Whitham 1985). We found that the number of beaver-cut stumps was negatively associated with distance from beaver canals, but not from the main water bodies containing the lodges. Therefore, our results suggest that the water body with lidge should not be assumed to be the waters edge. The beavers in our study utilized their engineered canal systems to forage for 90% of their food sources far beyond the limited radius described by Hall (1960) for colonies without canals. Because water filled canals are easier and perhaps safer travel-ways for beavers to use to reach their central place, when assessing optimal foraging, straight-line distance from a water body with lodge to the lodge or cache may be inadequate to describe the complexity of habitat traversed. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Overall support of this project was provided by D. Elsener, T. Enneking, and L. Bertocci. C. 96 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INDIANA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Nielsen, S. OBrien, R. Patrick, D. Bauman, J. Woodward, J. Stumpf, and M. Wilson gave helpful suggestions and comments on the manuscript. M. Van Bruaene gave field assistance. 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Central place foraging by beavers (Castor canadensis): a test of foraging predictions and the impact of selective feeding on the growth form of cottonwoods (Populus femontii). Oecologica 66:558562. Mitchell, C.C. & W.A. Nierring. 1993. Vegetation change in a topogenic bog following beaver flooding. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 120:136147. Naiman, R.J., J.M. Melillo & J.E. Hobbie. 1986. Ecosystem alteration of boreal forest streams by beaver (Castor canadensis). Ecology 67:12541269. Raffel, T.R., N. Smith, C. Cortright & A.J. Gatz. 2009. Central place foraging by beavers (Castor canadensis) in a complex lake habitat. American Midland Naturalist 162:6273. Rebertus, A.J. 1986. Bogs as beaver habitat in northcentral Minnesota. American Midland Naturalist 116:240245. Roberts, T.H. & D.H. Arner. 1984. Food habits of beaver in east-central Mississippi. Journal of Wildlife Management 48:14141419. Rosell, F., O. Bozser, P. Collen & H. Parker. 2005. 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... The FASEB Journal Research Communication SDF-1/CXCL12 induces directional cell migration and spontaneous metastasis via a CXCR4/Gai/mTORC1 axis Patricia Dillenburg-Pilla,* Vyomesh Patel,* Constantinos M. Mikelis,* Carlos Rodrigo Zarate-Blades, Colleen L. Doi,* Panomwat Amornphimoltham,* Zhiyong Wang,* Daniel Martin,* Kantima Leelahavanichkul,* Robert T. Dorsam,* Andrius Masedunskas,* Roberto Weigert,* Alfredo A. Molinolo,* and J. Silvio Gutkind*,1 *Oral and Pharyngeal Cancer Branch, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, and Laboratory of Immunology, National Eye Institute, U. S. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland Multiple human malignancies rely on C-X-C motif chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) and its ligand, SDF-1/CXCL12 (stroma cellderived factor 1/C-X-C motif chemokine 12), to metastasize. CXCR4 inhibitors promote the mobilization of bone marrow stem cells, limiting their clinical application for metastasis prevention. We investigated the CXCR4-initiated signaling circuitry to identify new potential therapeutic targets. We used HeLa human cancer cells expressing high levels of CXCR4 endogenously. We found that CXCL12 promotes their migration in Boyden chamber assays and single cell tracking. CXCL12 activated mTOR (mechanistic target of rapamycin) potently in a pertussis-sensitive fashion. Inhibition of mTOR complex 1 (mTORC1) by rapamycin [drug concentration causing 50% inhibition (IC50) = 5 nM] and mTORC1/ mTORC2 by Torin2 (IC50 = 6 nM), or by knocking down key mTORC1/2 components, Raptor and Rictor, respectively, decreased directional cell migration toward CXCL12. We developed a CXCR4-mediated spontaneous metastasis model by implanting HeLa cells in the tongue of SCIDNOD mice, in which 80% of the animals develop lymph node metastasis. It is surprising that mTORC1 disruption by Raptor knockdown was sufcient to reduce tumor growth by 60% and spontaneous metastasis by 72%, which were nearly abolished by rapamycin. In contrast, disrupting mTORC2 had no effect in tumor growth or metastasis compared with control short hairpin RNAs. These data suggest that mTORC1 may represent a suitable therapeutic target in human malignancies using CXCR4 for their metastatic spread.Dillenburg-Pilla, P., Patel, V., Mikelis, C. M., Zarate-Blades, C. R., Doi, C. L., Amornphimoltham, P., Wang, Z., Martin, D., Leelahavanichkul, K., Dorsam, R. T., Masedunskas, A., Weigert, R., Molinolo, A. A, Gutkind, J. S. SDF-1/CXCL12 induces directional cell migration and spontaneous metastasis via a CXCR4/Gai/mTORC1 axis. FASEB J. 29, 10561068 (2015). www.fasebj.org Abbreviations: CXCL12, C-X-C motif chemokine 12; CXCR4, C-X-C motif chemokine receptor type 4; EGF, epidermal growth factor; FACS, ow cytometry; H2BGFP, histone and GFP fusion protein; LPA, lysophosphatidic acid; mTOR, mechanistic target of rapamycin; mTORC, mTOR complex; PTX, pertussis toxin; SDF-1, stroma cellderived factor 1; shRNA, short hairpin RNA; siRNA, small interfering RNA 1 Correspondence: National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research/National Institutes of Health, 30 Convent Dr., Building 30, Room 320, Bethesda, MD 20892-4340, USA. E-mail: sg39v@nih.gov doi: 10.1096/fj.14-260083 This article includes supplemental data. Please visit http:// www.fasebj.org to obtain this information. ABSTRACT 1056 Key Words: mTOR rapamycin cancer lymphangiogenesis chemotaxis CHEMOKINES ARE MASTER REGULATORS of cell migration (1). Currently, there are 48 known molecules that belong to this cytokine superfamily, which are divided in 2 groups depending on their function: inammatory and homeostatic. Inammatory chemokines, such as IL-8, C-X-C motif chemokine (CXCL) 1, and CXCL2, are induced during inammatory events, and multiple chemokines can bind and activate shared receptors (2). In contrast, homeostatic chemokines are constantly expressed and released as they play crucial physiologic roles, such as tissue regeneration and stem cell maintenance, which also results in a more restricted ligand usage by its receptors (3). The C-XC motif chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) 7-transmembrane G proteincoupled receptor binds to the homeostatic C-X-C motif chemokine 12 (CXCL12, also known as stromal cellderived factor 1, or SDF-1). CXCL12 is secreted in normal, nonpathologic state by many organs such as liver, bone marrow, lung, and lymph nodes (2). CXCR4 expression correlates with poor prognosis in many tumor types, and most of the sites that secrete its ligand, CXCL12, are frequently colonized by metastatic cells (4). Given the key role that CXCR4 plays in cancer metastasis, therapeutic targeting of CXCR4 has been tested in clinical trials (5, 6). Although effective in decreasing metastatic disease, CXCR4 inhibitors promote the mobilization of bone marrow stem cells from their niche (5), a side effect that limits their clinical application. In fact, CXCR4 antagonists are currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell mobilization 0892-6638/15/0029-1056 FASEB for autologous transplantation in patients with nonHodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma (68). To circumvent this, we hypothesized that the study of the CXCR4 downstream signaling circuitry may help identify targets that could be affected by drugs and that could potentially be explored as new therapeutic options for many human malignancies that depend on CXCR4 for their metastatic spread without provoking hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell mobilization. The PI3K/Akt/mTOR (phosphoinsoitide 3-kinase/ AKT/mechanistic target of rapamycin) signaling pathway plays a major role in regulating cell growth and survival and is one of the most frequently deregulated biochemical routes in cancer (9). It is noteworthy that many oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes directly or indirectly affect this pathway, and mutations of and genetic and epigenetic alterations in components of the PI3K/mTOR pathway are among the most prevalent alterations in human malignancies (1013). mTOR is a major effector of PI3K/Akt pathway, and CXCL12 signaling through CXCR4 has been shown to induce Akt phosphorylation/activation (14, 15). However, mTOR exerts different functions depending on the complex in which it is engaged. Two accessory proteins, known as Raptor (regulatory-associated protein of mTOR) and Rictor (rapamycin-insensitive companion of mTOR), dene mTOR complex 1 (mTORC1) and mTOR complex 2 (mTORC2), respectively (16, 17). Both complexes have been associated with a variety of functions, including cell metabolism, growth, proliferation, autophagy and protein synthesis for mTORC1, and survival, metabolism, and cytoskeletal organization for mTORC2 (9, 18). The effectiveness of inhibitors of the mTOR pathway for cancer treatment is under current evaluation in multiple clinical settings, and some mTOR inhibitors have already been approved for clinical use (1923). Nonetheless, the precise role of mTOR and its complexes in each tumor type is yet to be fully understood, as is the possibility that mTOR may contribute to cancer metastasis. Although the ability of CXCL12 to stimulate mTOR is well established, the functional contribution of mTOR signaling to CXCR4-mediated migration and metastasis is poorly understood. The latter may be of direct cancer relevance, as mTOR blockade is not known to cause bone marrow stem cell mobilization (24, 25), whereas it has been reported in gastric carcinomas that mTOR is required for CXCL12mediated migration in vitro (26). By use of cells that express CXCR4 endogenously, we show that CXCR4/Gai activates mTORC1 and mTORC2, and that this activation is required for chemotaxis. Moreover, we took advantage of a novel in vivo system to monitor CXCR4-mediated spontaneous metastasis to the lymph nodes to investigate whether mTOR represents a suitable antimetastatic target. It is surprising that we found that, although the 2 mTOR complexes play a role in CXCR4-mediated migration in vitro, only mTORC1 disruption decreases tumor growth and the ability of tumor cells to spontaneously metastasize to lymph nodes. This suggests that rapamycin and its analogs, which inhibit primarily mTORC1, may represent promising targeted agents preventing metastasis of many highly aggressive cancers that use CXCR4 for the guided migration of cancer cells from their primary tumors to their secondary colonization sites. SDF-1/CXCL12 INDUCES DIRECTIONAL CELL MIGRATION MATERIALS AND METHODS Reagents All chemical and reagents were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (Woodlands, TX, USA) and all antibodies were purchased from Cell Signaling Technology (Beverly, MA, USA) unless otherwise stated. mTOR inhibitors rapamycin and Torin2 were purchased from LC Laboratories (Woburn, MA, USA) and Tocris Bioscience (Ellisville, MO, USA), respectively. CXCL12, epidermal growth factor (EGF), and lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) were purchased from R&D Systems (Minneapolis, MN, USA). Cell culture, transfection, and lentivirus infection HeLa cells were cultured in DMEM supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum at 37C in 95% air/5% CO2 (Invitrogen, Carslbad, CA, USA). Small interfering RNA (siRNA) transfection was performed using Lipofectamine RNAiMAX reagent and 50 nM of SMARTpool siRNA for Raptor or Rictor (Thermo Fisher Scientic, Woburn, MA, USA). All analyses were performed between 48 and 72 h after transfection. Stable knockdown of Raptor, Rictor, and CXCR4, and H2B-GFP stable cell lines were achieved by infecting HeLa cells with lentivirus expressing the respective short hairpin RNA (shRNA) (Open Biosystems, Huntsville, AL, USA) or H2B-GFP (Addgene, Cambridge, MA, USA). Selection was started 7 d after infection using puromycin (1 mg/ml). Experiments using knockdown cells were performed 5 to 7 passages after selection was done, always in the presence of puromycin. Chemokine receptor expression prole Gene expression analysis was performed by RNA sequencing. RNA was isolated from cell lines during exponential growth and then submitted to RNA sequencing. Indexed RNA sequencing libraries were prepared using Truseq RNA sample Prep Kit, version 2 (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA) and sequenced in pairedend mode on a Illumina Hiseq2000 sequencer. Raw data were mapped to the human genome (hg19 version) using GSNAP software in SNP-aware mode. Aligned reads were imported into the AVADIS NGS v1.6 software for read ltering and transcript quantication using the DESeq algorithm. Clustering and other statistical analysis was performed by Avadis NGS. Immunoblot analysis Proteins from subconuent HeLa cells were extracted at 4C using lysis buffer (50 mM Tris-HCl, 150 mM NaCl, 1% Nonidet P-40) supplemented with proteases and phosphatase inhibitors (protease inhibitor cocktail, Sigma-Aldrich; 1 mM Na3VO4 and 1 mM NaF). Protein quantication was assessed using DC protein assay (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA, USA) following the manufacturers protocol. A total of 30 mg of protein was loaded in an SDS-PAGE, and proteins were transferred to nitrocellulose membranes. All membranes were blocked in milk and incubated with primary antibody (1:1000) for 1 h at room temperature. The following primary antibodies were used: phospho-S6, S6, phospho-Akt 473 and 308, glyceraldehyde phosphate dehydrogenase, and a-tubulin. To detect signal, we used secondary antibodies conjugated to uorochrome: monkey anti-rabbit coupled to IRDye800CW and goat anti-mouse coupled to IRDye 700CW (Li-Cor Bioscience, Lincoln, NE, USA). Images were acquired using Odyssey (Li-Cor Bioscience) and processed using Odyssey Application Software, v3 (Li-Cor Bioscience). 1057 Boyden chamber chemotaxis assay Chemotaxis assay was performed using a 48-well Boyden chamber with an 8 mm pore size polyvinyl pyrrolidonefree polycarbonate membrane (NeuroProbe, Gaithersburg, MD, USA). Cells were serum starved, and 8 mm membranes were coated with collagen type I (10 mg/ml) at 4C for 6 to 8 h (BD Bioscience, San Jose, CA, USA). Next, cells were added to the upper chamber and chemoattractant was added to the lower chamber in serum-free medium, and cells were allowed to migrate for 16 h in humid chambers at 37C. Membrane was then xed, stained with hematoxylin, and cells from the upper chamber removed with a cotton swab. Migrated cells (in the lower chamber) were counted under a high-magnication eld. Chemotaxis assay using m-Slides developed visible tumors after 3 wk, thus resembling the tongue model. Animals were monitored weekly and euthanized at wk 5 after tumor implantation. Inguinal, abdominal, and cervical lymph nodes were retrieved and analyzed histopathologically. Immunouorescence, immunohistochemistry, and histopathologic analysis Tongues were cut into 4 sections of approximately the same thickness, following its major axis. These sections were xed and embedded in a single parafn block for histopathologic analysis and immunohistochemistry or in optimal cutting temperature compound for immunouorescence. Multiple 8 mm sections were cut and stained as previously described (27, 28). For immunohistochemistry, we used rabbit polyclonal anti-LYVE1 1:200 (Abcam, Cambridge, MA, USA) and rat monoclonal anti-CD31 1:50 (BD Bioscience), and for immunouorescence, we used rabbit polyclonal anti-LYVE1 1:250 (Abcam). Chemotaxis assay was performed following manufactures instruction. In brief, the observation area of the chemotaxis chamber (IBIDI LLC, Verona, WI, USA) was coated with bronectin (100 mg/ml) or collagen type I (10 mg/ml) for 1 h followed by 1 wash with water, then let dry for 1 h. HeLa cells transfected with siControl, siRaptor, or siRictor 48 h before the assay were seeded in serum-free condition and left to adhere for 3 to 4 h at 37C in a humid chamber. CXCL12 (90 ng/ml) was used as a chemoattractant and was added to the upper reservoir. Images were collected every hour for 24 h with a 103 objective using a Zeiss LSM 700 confocal microscope equipped with a CO2- and temperature-controlled chamber. Data were analyzed by the ImageJ (http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/) plug-in Manual Tracking (http://rsbweb.nih.gov/ij/plugins/track/track.html), followed by the Chemotaxis and Migration tool from IBIDI (http://www.ibidi.de/ applications/ap_chemo.html). Two-photon microscopy Animal studies Population doubling assay All animal studies were carried out according to U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)approved protocols (ASP 07-442), in compliance with the NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Female SCID-NOD (NCI, Frederick, MD, USA), 4 to 6 wk of age and weighing 18 to 20 g, were used in the study and were housed in appropriate sterile lter-capped cages and permitted food and water ad libitum. All handling and tumor implantation procedures were conducted in a laminar-ow biosafety hood. To calculate the population doubling, 30,000 cells were seeded and kept in culture in DMEM 10% fetal bovine serum for 24, 48, or 72 h. The number of cells per well was counted at each of the end points and applied to the formula x = [log10(NH/N1)]/log10(2)] (30), where N1 is the inoculum cell number (30,000) and NH the number of collected cells. To yield the cumulated doublings, the population doubling for each passage was calculated and then added to the population doubling of the previous day (28). Establishment of spontaneous metastasis model in SCID-NOD mice HeLa cells were cultured to 7080% conuence, trypsinized, washed in PBS, and suspended in serum-free DMEM at 50,000 cells/50 ml. For implanting, animals were anesthetized with 2% to 5% isourane (Baxter Healthcare Corporation, Deereld, IL, USA), the tongue was exposed using tweezers, and 50 ml of media containing the cells was injected submucosally into the posterior area of the tongue. The animal was then monitored until recovery (1 to 2 min). All animals were then assessed weekly for tumor formation and progression. All animals developed visible tumors in the tongue after 3 wk. For the initial analysis of tumor metastasis, animals were euthanized at wk 5 after tumor implantation, and inguinal, abdominal, and cervical lymph nodes were retrieved and analyzed histopathologically. For all further studies, only cervical lymph nodes were analyzed. Flank injections were performed initially with different cell concentration injected subcutaneously in SCID-NOD mice. A total of 2,000,000 cells/100 ml was the condition where all animals 1058 Vol. 29 March 2015 Time-lapse and 3-dimensional acquisitions were performed using an Olympus IX81 microscope equipped with FluoView 1000 scanning head (Olympus America Inc., Center Valley, PA, USA) that was customized for 2-photon microscopy as previously described (29). Flow cytometry (FACS) analysis Cells were collected and stained using anti-CXCR4 (clone 44717) or isotype control (clone 133303) antibody conjugated to phycoerythrin for 1 h at 4C (R&D Systems) in PBS 2% fetal bovine serum. After staining, cells were washed, and 100,000 events were acquired in FACSCalibur using CellQuest software (BD Bioscience) and analyzed by FlowJo software version 9.4.11 (TreeStar, Ashland, OR, USA). Statistical analysis Data analysis was done using GraphPad Prism version 5.00 for Windows (GraphPad Software, La Jolla, CA, USA). One-way ANOVA followed by Newman-Keuls multiple comparison tests was used, and P values of ,0.05 were considered statistically signicant. RESULTS CXCL12 induces HeLa cell migration and spontaneous metastasis through CXCR4 To investigate the underlying mechanisms by which CXCL12 induces tumor cell migration and metastasis, we took advantage of HeLa cells that express CXCR4 endogenously. We rst performed FACS analysis to conrm CXCR4 expression, and as seen in Fig. 1A, HeLa cells express high levels of CXCR4. Moreover, when challenged in a chemotaxis assay, HeLa cells migration toward CXCL12 The FASEB Journal x www.fasebj.org DILLENBURG-PILLA ET AL. was remarkable, while control cells without chemoattractant barely moved. Of note, treatment of HeLa cells with pertussis toxin (PTX) completely prevented CXCL12mediated migration without affecting EGF-induced migration, demonstrating that HeLa cell migration to CXCL12 is mediated by coupling of the receptor to Gai (Fig. 1B). To further explore the role of CXCR4 in HeLa cell migration and metastasis, we generated stable CXCR4 knockdown cells using lentivirus infection. Upon puromycin selection, a pool of shCXCR4+ cells was established and validated by FACS for decreased expression of the C 440 Isotype CXCR4 Counts 330 220 110 Number of cell/HMF 250 200 shCXCR4 150 100 50 0 *** 0 100 101 102 100 103 101 CXCR4 Lymph nodes invaded (%) F shControl shCXCR4 3 2 1 G 2 LN 40 Metastatic Tongue J Tumor size (mm3) Tumor cells 20 5 shCXCR4 0 28 Time (days) 50m 500m K shControl 21 H Normal LN 500m shControl shCXCR4 14 Vehicle CXCL12 500m 3 I 7 *** 50 ventral tongue 60 Time (days) 0 100 80 0 10 150 100 0 1 shControl shCXCR4 0 103 dorsal tongue Lymph nodes invaded (%) Cumulative population doubling 5 0 102 200 CXCR4 E 4 D Isotype shControl Vehicle PTX Number of cells/HMF B A chemokine receptor (Fig. 1C). As expected, cells with decreased CXCR4 expression had defects on CXCL12mediated chemotaxis (Fig. 1D). Although it has been reported that CXCL12/CXCR4 are critical for survival and cell proliferation in connective tissue sarcoma, gliomas, and kidney and prostate tumors (3134), HeLa cells do not require CXCR4 signaling for cell proliferation in vitro (Fig. 1E). Given the high levels of CXCR4 expression in HeLa cells and their propensity to spontaneous metastasis in an oral xenograft model (29), we hypothesized that their dissemination to locoregional lymph nodes could be LYVE 1 Tumor cells / LYVE 1 ** 100 80 60 40 20 0 shC shCXCR4 Figure 1. CXCL12 induces HeLa cell migration and spontaneous metastasis through CXCR4. A) FACS data showing membrane expression of CXCR4 in HeLa cells. B) Chemotaxis assay using Boyden chamber after 16 h exposure to vehicle, CXCL12 (50 ng/ml), or EGF (50 ng/ml) showing that CXCL12-mediated migration is PTX sensitive. C) Stable knockdown of CXCR4 was achieved using shRNA, and FACS analysis was performed to conrm decreased expression of CXCR4 in HeLa cells stably expressing shCXCR4 compared to shControl. D) Chemotaxis assay measured after 16 h exposure to CXCL12 (50 ng/ml) in Boyden chamber, showing decreased cell migration to CXCL12 in shCXCR4 cells. E) Cell proliferation was assessed by population doubling, and it was not changed by CXCR4 knockdown. FH) HeLa cells were injected in the tongue of SCID-NOD mice, and full necropsy was performed at the experimental end point. F) Graph represents the percentage of invaded lymph nodes per mouse. G) Histology from primary tumor and lymph nodes showing in the upper panel a poorly differentiated primary tumor and in the lower panels a normal and a metastatic lymph node. H) Live animal imaging of H2B-GFP expressing primary tumor (upper left) and lymph node metastasis (upper right) using 2-photon microscopy. LYVE1 immunohistochemistry showing high density of lymphatic vessel in the primary tumor (lower left). LYVE1 immunouorescence analysis revealed H2B-GFP+ tumor cells inside the LYVE1+ lymphatic vessel. I) CXCR4 knockdown did not affected primary tumor growth in tumor xenografts. J) Histology from 4 representative primary tumors (dashed lines represent tumor limits). K) Percentage of invaded cervical lymph nodes per mouse, showing that CXCR4 is required for lymph node metastasis. In each case, ANOVA was performed on 2 or 3 independent experiments in vitro and n = 10 from 2 independent experiments in vivo. Data represent mean 6 SEM. **P , 0.01, ***P , 0.001. SDF-1/CXCL12 INDUCES DIRECTIONAL CELL MIGRATION 1059 a CXCR4-mediated process. To test this, we rst conrmed the ability of HeLa cells to spontaneous metastasize by injecting mice in the tongue and screening them for metastasis by performing full necropsies. The primary tumors were large and aggressive, and the majority of the animals had at least 1 invaded lymph node. The secondary site in all cases was cervical lymph nodes, and the incidence of metastasis was between 70% and 100% (Fig. 1F). Histologic analysis showed poor differentiated primary tumors and the presence of tumor cells in cervical lymph nodes (Fig. 1G). Because of the easy accessibility permitted by this tongue model system, live images from primary tumor and lymph node metastasis were acquired using a 2-photon microscope. In its upper panels, Fig. 1H shows snapshots from Supplemental Movies 1 and 2, in which H2BGFP (histone and GFP fusion protein) tumor cells can be visualized in the tongue and within a cervical lymph node, respectively. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that HeLa xenografts are highly positive for the lymphatic marker LYVE1, suggesting that those tumors have a complex lymphatic network. Moreover, immunouorescence using H2BGFP tumors captured the presence of tumor cells inside LYVE1+ vessels within the primary tumor. Using shCXCR4+ and shControl+ cells, we induced tongue xenografts to assess the contribution of CXCR4 in this experimental spontaneous metastasis model. Corroborating the in vitro data, shCXCR4+ tumor cells showed no proliferation defect in vivo, and primary tumors from shControl and shCXCR4 cells were similar regarding their growth and tumor size at the experimental end point (Fig. 1I, J ). Although effects in the primary tumor were absent, remarkably, CXCR4-decient HeLa cells were not capable of establishing lymph node metastasis (Fig. 1K). These data suggest that spontaneous lymph node metastasis of HeLa tongue xenografts rely on CXCR4 to metastasize to cervical lymph nodes; therefore, it may represent a novel, short-term, and suitable CXCR4-dependent spontaneous metastasis model. CXCR4/Gai induces mTORC1 and mTORC2 activation and the use of mTOR inhibitors abrogate CXCL12 mediated chemotaxis. Steady-state HeLa cells in complete media were treated with a mTOR kinase inhibitor that blocks mTORC1 and mTORC2 activity, Torin2 (35); or with mTORC1 inhibitors rapamycin and Torin2. Long-term blockade of mTOR downstream targets were achieved with both pharmacologic approaches as judged by up to 72 h decrease in AktS473 phosphorylation upon Torin2 treatment and S6 phosphorylation upon Torin2 and rapamycin treatment (Fig. 2A). HeLa cells were starved of serum overnight and treated with CXCL12. CXCR4 activation induced S6 and AKTS473 phosphorylation, which was completely dependent of Gai, as it was abolished by pretreatment of cells with PTX (Fig. 2B). As expected, CXCL12-induced activation of mTORC1 was blocked by rapamycin and Torin2; and activation of mTORC2 was blocked by Torin2, as judged by decreased pAktS473 (35) (Fig. 2C). In order to test whether CXCR4-induced mTOR activation was required for CXCL12 induced chemotaxis, we challenged HeLa cells in a Boyden chamber chemotaxis assay. Interestingly, blockade of mTORC1 and -2 by Torin2 decreased CXCR4-mediated migration but had no effect on 1060 Vol. 29 March 2015 EGF receptor and LPA receptormediated migration (Fig. 2D). Moreover, treatment with rapamycin also decreased CXCR4-mediated migration in HeLa cells (Fig. 2), suggesting that blockade of mTORC1 is sufcient to abrogate CXCR4/Gai-mediated migration. Similar ndings were observed when analyzing the role of mTOR in CXCL12-initated migration in MCF-7 (Supplemental Fig. S1A) and T47D cells (Supplemental Fig. S1I), 2 representative breast cancer cells in which CXCR4 uses Gai for chemotaxis (36). However, interestingly, rapamycin had no effect on CXCL12-mediated migration in SUM-159 and MDA-MB-231 (Supplemental Fig. S1J, K), 2 triple-negative breast cancer cells that have been previously reported to engage Ga13 instead of Gai downstream of CXCR4 for cell migration (37), supporting a more specic role for mTOR downstream of Gi signaling. None of the mTOR inhibitors induced changes in the CXCR4 expression levels (Fig. 2F). These data indicate that CXCR4/Gai activates mTOR, which is required for CXCL12-mediated migration. mTORC1 and mTORC2 are required for migration directionality during CXCR4-mediated chemotaxis in vitro Although rapamycin specically blocks mTORC1, it has been reported that long-term treatment with rapamycin has also an inhibitory effect on mTORC2 (38). This indirect effect of rapamycin on mTORC2 makes it difcult to dene which of the mTOR complexes are involved in the downstream pathway of CXCR4. To address this question, we used a loss-of-function approach using pools of siRNA sequences to knock down key components of each of the complexes: Raptor to affect mTORC1, and Rictor to affect mTORC2 (16, 17). Therefore, we generated cells that had nonfunctional mTORC1 showing a decrease in S6 phosphorylation, or that had nonfunctional mTORC2 with decreased Akt phosphorylation at serine 473 (Fig. 3A and Supplemental Fig. S1B, C). Similar to the pharmacologic approach, disruption of either mTOR complexes had no effect on CXCR4 expression levels (Fig. 3B) and decreased CXCR4-mediated migration without affecting EGF- or LPA-mediated migration (Fig. 3C). To better understand the involvement of mTOR complexes in CXCR4-mediated migration, we used a single-cell tracking-based strategy, which allowed us to study various aspects of cell migration during chemotaxis. Figure 3D and Supplemental Fig. S1D show dot-plot graphs representing the nal position of individual cells after 24 h chemotaxis in m-Slides. Black dots represent cells that migrated forward, and red dots represent cells that migrated backward to the chemoattractant gradient; the inner panel in each plot is the vector analysis, showed as a rose diagram. We observed that in the absence of chemoattractant, these epithelial-derived tumor cells had limited movement; however, when a gradient of chemoattractant (CXCL12) is applied, they migrate readily in the direction of the gradient (Fig. 3D and Supplemental Fig. S1D). In contrast, tumor cells with a nonfunctional mTORC1 or mTORC2 were still able to move, but they lacked directionality. Indeed, analysis of statistical parameters of m-Slides chemotaxis revealed a minor, albeit signicant, decrease in velocity (Fig. 3E and Supplemental Fig. S1E), as well as accumulated (Fig. 3F and Supplemental The FASEB Journal x www.fasebj.org DILLENBURG-PILLA ET AL. Figure 2. CXCL12 activates mTOR pathway downstream of CXCR4/Gai, and pharmacologic inhibition of mTOR abrogates CXCR4-mediated migration. A) Rapamycin (100 nM) and Torin2 (100 nM) decreased the phosphorylation of mTOR downstream targets S6 (mTORC1) and AktS473 (mTORC2) in HeLa cells grown in complete media. B) CXCL12-induced mTORC1 and mTORC2 activation in serum-free conditions. S6 and AktS473 phosphorylation induced by CXCL12 is PTX sensitive, showing that CXCL12 activates the mTOR pathway through a CXCR4/Gai axis. C) CXCL12-induced mTOR activation was blocked by mTOR inhibitors rapamycin (mTORC1) and Torin2 (mTORC1 and mTORC2). D) Blockade of mTORC1 and mTORC2 by Torin2 decreased CXCR4-mediated chemotaxis of HeLa cells. E) Inhibition of mTORC1 by rapamycin was sufcient to abrogate CXCR4mediated migration in HeLa cells. F) FACS data showing membrane expression of CXCR4 in control, rapamycin-, and Torin2treated HeLa cells. In each case, ANOVA was performed on 3 independent experiments. Data represent mean 6 SEM. ***P , 0.001. Fig. S1F) and Euclidean (Fig. 3G and Supplemental Fig. S1G) distances; however, the major defect observed in Raptor and Rictor knockdown cells was in migration directionality, as judged by a forward migration index similar to siControl cells in the absence of CXCL12 (Fig. 3H and Supplemental Fig. S1H). Taken together, these data show that mTOR activation downstream CXCR4/Gai is required for chemotaxis (directional migration) but not for chemokinesis (random cell movement). Moreover, Raptor knockdown was sufcient to decrease CXCR4-mediated directional cell migration, suggesting that pharmacologic inhibition of mTORC1 could potentially be sufcient to decrease CXCR4-mediated migration/metastasis. Pharmacologic blockade of mTORC1 by rapamycin decreases primary tumor growth and CXCR4-mediated lymph node metastasis, and increases animal survival We next used our CXCR4-dependent metastasis model to test whether our in vitro observation that blocking mTORC1 is sufcient to decrease CXCR4-mediated migration were relevant in the context of metastasis. Mice bearing tumor xenografts were treated with vehicle or rapamycin (5 mg/kg) daily. As shown in Fig. 4AD, all animals developed primary tumors; however, tumor size in the rapamycin-treated SDF-1/CXCL12 INDUCES DIRECTIONAL CELL MIGRATION group was signicantly smaller than in the vehicle-treated group. Moreover, histologic analysis of cervical lymph nodes revealed that the incidence of invaded lymph nodes among the rapamycin-treated group was dramatically decreased (Fig. 4E), suggesting that pharmacologic blockade of mTORC1 is sufcient and effective to decrease CXCR4mediated metastasis. As a consequence of decreasing primary tumor size and metastasis, animals from the rapamycin group had a major improvement in survival, with 100% of animals alive 100 d after the tumor xenograft was induced, while all mice from the vehicle-treated group had to undergo euthanasia due to tumor size to minimize animal suffering before d 90 (Fig. 4F). These data suggest that mTORC1 blockade by rapamycin decreases primary tumor growth and CXCR4-mediated metastasis. Stable disruption of mTORC1 by Raptor shRNA is sufcient to decrease cell proliferation and CXCR4-mediated migration in vitro In order to study the long-term inhibition of mTORC1 and mTORC2, we generated stable Raptor and Rictor knockdown cells by infecting HeLa cells with lentivirus expressing Raptor and Rictor shRNA-targeting sequences. After selection of cell pools resistant to puromycin, we 1061 0 10 0 10 1 10 2 10 3 Figure 3. Loss-of-function and single cell tracking approaches reveled that mTORC1 and mTORC2 are required for migration directionality during CXCR4-mediated chemotaxis. A) Western blot analysis showing Raptor and Rictor knockdown and their effect on the mTOR downstream targets S6 and AktS473 after transfection with control or with Raptor or Rictor siRNA (50 nM). HeLa cells with nonfunctional mTORC1 or mTORC2 upon Raptor and Rictor knockdown, respectively, were tested for CXCR4 expression and challenged in chemotaxis assays. B) FACS data showing unchanged membrane expression of CXCR4 upon Raptor or Rictor knockdown. C ) Chemotaxis was measured after 16 h exposure to CXCL12 (50 ng/ml), EGF (50 ng/ml), or LPA (1 mM) in Boyden chamber. Raptor and Rictor knockdown decreased CXCL12-mediated chemotaxis. D) Dot-plot graphs representing the nal position of individual cells after 24 h chemotaxis in m-Slides as described in Materials and Methods. Black dots represent cells that migrated forward, and red dots represent cells that migrated backward to the chemoattractant gradient. Rose diagrams of each group are shown in the inner panel of each dot-plot. EH ) Statistical analysis of m-Slides chemotaxis showing a small decrease in velocity (E ), accumulated distance (F ), and Euclidean distance (G ) and a major defect in directionality in Raptor and Rictor knockdown cells, as judged by a forward migration index that was similar to siControl cells in the absence of CXCL12. In each case, ANOVA was performed on 3 independent experiments. Data represent mean 6 SEM. *P , 0.05, **P , 0.01, ***P , 0.001. analyzed Raptor and Rictor expression by Western blot analysis to validate knockdowns, and mTORC2 and mTORC1 downstream signaling by analyzing S6 and AktS473 phosphorylation status. As expected, Rictor shRNA 1062 Vol. 29 March 2015 abrogated AktS473 phosphorylation (Fig. 5A) and Raptor shRNA decreased S6 phosphorylation (Fig. 5E), indicating that these cells had stable nonfunctional mTORC2 and mTORC1, respectively. Consistently, stable Rictor The FASEB Journal x www.fasebj.org DILLENBURG-PILLA ET AL. Figure 4. Rapamycin decreased primary tumor growth, decreased CXCR4-mediated lymph node metastasis, and increased animal survival. AD) HeLa xenografts were induced, and vehicle and rapamycin (5 mg/kg per d) treatment started after the primary tumor was established (2 mm3). A) Primary tumor growth curve. B) Representative images at the experimental end point. C, D) Histologic analysis of the tumor area showing a decrease in primary tumor size upon rapamycin treatment. E) Number of invaded lymph nodes per mouse at the experimental end point. F) Rapamycin treatment increased animal survival. Statistical analysis was performed by ANOVA. n = 10 from 2 independent experiment. Data represent mean 6 SEM. ***P , 0.001. knockdown cells showed defects in CXCR4-mediated chemotaxis without affecting EGF-mediated migration (Fig. 5B) or CXCR4 expression levels (Fig. 5C). Interestingly, cells with nonfunctional mTORC2 exhibited no changes in proliferation rate in vitro (Fig. 5D), as they had similar population doubling rate compared to the pool of shControl cells. Regarding cells with stable nonfunctional mTORC1, defects on CXCR4-mediated chemotaxis were observed, corroborating the pharmacologic and transient knockdown approaches, with no effect on EGF-mediated migration (Fig. 5F) or CXCR4 membrane expression (Fig. 5G). Nonetheless, Raptor ablation signicantly decreased the proliferation rate of the cells. As shown in Fig. 5H, shRaptor+ cells required almost twice the time to double their population compared with shControl cells. These data suggest that in addition to be sufcient to decrease CXCR4-mediated chemotaxis, targeting mTORC1 to impair tumor progression and dissemination also confers growth disadvantages to tumor cells, thus limiting the ability to establishing primary and metastatic colonies. Stable disruption of mTORC1 by Raptor shRNA is sufcient to decrease tumor burden, angiogenesis, lymphangiogenesis, and lymph node metastasis To rule out the possibility that an indirect effect of rapamycin long-term administration in mTORC2 could contribute SDF-1/CXCL12 INDUCES DIRECTIONAL CELL MIGRATION to the decrease in tumor burden and metastasis, we took advantage of our stable Raptor and Rictor knockdown cells. We induced tumor xenografts using the CXCR4-mediated spontaneous metastasis model by injecting shControl, shRictor, or shRaptor cells and monitored animals weekly. At the experimental end point, primary tumor and cervical lymph nodes were collected for histologic analysis. Surprisingly, the disruption of mTORC2 by Rictor knockdown did not affect tumor progression in vivo. As seen in Fig. 6A, B, shControl and shRictor cells generated primary tumors with similar size. Moreover, despite affecting CXCR4-mediated migration in vitro (Fig. 6B), Rictor knockdown did not prevent CXCR4-mediated spontaneous metastasis in vivo (Fig. 6C). Interestingly, cells with nonfunctional mTORC2 were still able to induce changes in the tumor microenviroment and induce angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis, as shControl and shRictor tumors showed similar levels of the endothelial marker CD31 and the lymphatic marker LYVE1 (Fig. 6DF). A completely different scenario was observed upon mTORC1 disruption in the tumor cells. Primary tumors from cells with nonfunctional mTORC1 due to Raptor knockdown were signicantly smaller compared to the shControl group (Fig. 6G, H). Interestingly, disruption of mTORC1 function had a major effect on CXCR4mediated metastasis, as Raptor knockdown tumors showed a signicant decrease in lymph node metastasis, with most of the animals (16 of 20) free of metastases at the end of the 1063 0 10 0 0 10 0 101 10 2 103 101 10 2 10 3 Figure 5. Stable disruption of mTORC1 by Raptor shRNA was sufcient to decrease cell proliferation and CXCR4-mediated migration in vitro. A) Western blot analysis showing decreased expression of Rictor and down-regulation of mTORC2 downstream pathway upon stable knockdown of Rictor using shRNA. B) Boyden chamber chemotaxis assay showing decreased migration of shRictor cells to CXCL12 (50 ng/ml) and unchanged migration to EGF (50 ng/ml). C) FACS data showing unaltered CXCR4 membrane expression upon Rictor stable knockdown. D) Down-regulation of Rictor and mTORC2 downstream pathway had no effect on cell proliferation in vitro. E ) Decreased expression of Raptor and down-regulation of mTORC1 downstream pathway demonstrated by Western blot analysis in cells expressing Raptor shRNAs. F ) Stable Raptor knockdown decreased CXCL12mediated migration without affecting the ability of cells to migrate to EGF. G ) Membrane expression of CXCR4 assessed by FACS was not changed upon stable Raptor knockdown. H ) Raptor stable knockdown was sufcient to decrease cell proliferation in vitro. In each case, ANOVA was performed on 2 to 3 independent experiments. Data represent mean 6 SEM. **P , 0.01. observation period (Fig. 6I). In addition, a dramatic impact of a dysfunctional mTORC1 within the tumor cells was observed in the tumor microenvironment. Primary tumors from the shRaptor group had a signicant decrease in the number of CD31+ endothelial cells (Fig. 6J, K) as well as LYVE1+ lymphatic vessels (Fig. 6J, L). Taken together, our data show that mTOR is activated downstream CXCR4/Gai axis and that it is essential to CXCR4-mediated directional migration and metastasis. Our data also suggest that although mTORC1 and mTORC2 are activated upon CXCR4 stimulation, mTORC1 seems to play a more important role in tumor progression in vivo (Fig. 6M). While mTORC2 blockade affected chemotaxis, disruption of mTORC1 signicantly decreased CXCR4-mediated migration and metastasis. In addition, mTORC1 disruption using pharmacologic or loss of function approaches also impacted cell proliferation, which is required for primary tumor growth and the establishment of secondary colonies. The ability of tumor cells to modify their microenviroment was also compromised by Raptor ablation, thus suppressing angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis, which limits the access of tumor cells to circulation. DISCUSSION In the present study, we used HeLa cells that express high levels of CXCR4 endogenously as an experimental model 1064 Vol. 29 March 2015 system to investigate the downstream signaling mechanism involved in CXCL12-mediated migration and metastasis. Our data show that binding of CXCL12 to CXCR4 induces mTOR pathway activation in these epithelial-derived tumor cells. Moreover, mTOR activation downstream of CXCR4 is strictly required for CXCL12-mediated migration and is completely dependent of G proteins from the Gai family. Similar ndings were observed in human breast cancer cells exhibiting Gai-dependent migration and signaling downstream from CXCR4. Because mTOR exists in 2 different complexes, mTORC1 and mTORC2, and because CXCL12 induces phosphorylation of downstream targets of both complexes, we used pharmacologic and loss-of-function approaches to address the contribution of mTORC1 and mTORC2 in CXCR4-mediated directional migration. We demonstrated that disruption of either mTORC1 or mTORC2 has a profound effect on directionality during chemotaxis. To study the CXCR4/ mTOR axis in vivo, we developed a model of CXCR4dependent spontaneous metastasis in which 70100% of the animals have lymph node metastasis at 1 month after cell inoculation. Surprisingly, mTORC1 blockade was sufcient to decrease CXCR4-mediated metastasis as well as tumor cell proliferation, angiogenesis, and lymphangiogenesis, whereas mTORC2 impairment had no demonstrable effect in tumor growth or dissemination in vivo. The FASEB Journal x www.fasebj.org DILLENBURG-PILLA ET AL. B Tumor area (mm2) shRictor 1 25 shRictor 2 ns 20 ns 15 10 5 0 shControl 1 0.0004 0.0003 0.0002 0.0001 0.0000 shControl J shControl shRictor shRictor 40 20 0 1 2 H 0.3 0.2 shRaptor 1 shRaptor 2 0.1 25 20 15 10 ** *** 5 0 0.0 shControl 1 2 shRaptor shRictor CD31 K LYVE 1 L * 80 ** 60 shControl shControl 40 20 0 shControl 1 2 0.008 0.006 0.004 ** 0.002 0.000 shRaptor LYVE 1 positive cells/mm2 100 CD31 positive cells/m2 Invaded Lymph nodes (%) I shControl shControl 0.4 shControl shRictor 60 shRictor G LYVE 1 80 shControl 2 CD31 100 shRictor F 0.0005 LYVE1 positive cells/m2 CD31 positive cells/m2 E D Tumor area (mm2) shControl C Invaded Lymph nodes (%) A shControl shRaptor shRaptor 0.3 0.2 0.1 ** 0.0 shControl shRaptor shRaptor M SDF-1 CXCR4 i mTORC2 Directional migration mTORC1 Directional migration Growth Angiogenesis Lymphangiogenesis Metastasis GDP i GTP Figure 6. Stable disruption of mTORC1 by Raptor shRNA was sufcient to decrease tumor burden, angiogenesis, lymphangiogenesis, and lymph node metastasis. A) Histology of 4 representative primary tumors from shControls and shRictor (dashed lines represents the tumor limits). B) Tumor area assessed at the experimental end point. C ) Percentage of invaded lymph nodes per mouse showing that disruption of mTORC2 by Rictor knockdown did not affect CXCR4-dependent lymph node metastasis. Immunohistochemistry data revealed similar expression of CD31+ blood vessels (D, E ) and LYVE1+ lymphatic vessels (D, F ) within the primary tumor. G ) Histology of 4 representative primary tumors from shControls and shRaptor (dashed lines represent tumor limits). H ) Tumor area assessed at the experimental end point. I ) Percentage of invaded lymph nodes per mouse showing that disruption of mTORC1 by Raptor knockdown decreased CXCR4-dependent lymph node metastasis. Immunohistochemical data showing decreased expression of CD31+ blood vessels (J, K ) and LYVE1+ lymphatic vessels (J, L) within the primary tumor. M ) Schematic representation of CXCR4/Gai/mTOR pathway in CXCL12-mediated migration and metastasis. In each case, ANOVA was performed. n = 10 from 2 independent experiments. Data represent mean 6 SEM. *P , 0.05, **P , 0.01, ***P , 0.001. The PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway is a major player in many tumor types. It regulates cell metabolism, growth, survival, and proliferation as well as cytoskeleton organization (9). Although many functions that are regulated by mTOR are easily associated with tumor progression, the precise mechanisms by which the mTOR pathway SDF-1/CXCL12 INDUCES DIRECTIONAL CELL MIGRATION mediates tumor development and dissemination are not fully elucidated. Most of the effects of mTOR in cell migration have been attributed to mTORC2 (17, 18, 3942) due to its ability to activate small GTPases, such as Rac, and to control actin cytoskeleton organization (18). Recently, Liu et al. (40) reported that in neutrophils mTORC2 is also 1065 critical for cell migration through a mechanism that is dependent on cAMP and RhoA activation. Concerning mTORC1, little is known regarding its role in cell migration and metastasis. In particular, as a result of its important function in protein synthesis (43, 44), mTORC1 has been described to inuence cell migration mainly by regulating expression of key components of the migratory machinery, such as small GTPases and chemokine receptors (26, 45). By use of loss-of-function strategies, our study shows that both mTOR complexes are important for cell migration downstream of CXCR4. Of note, no changes in CXCR4 or in small GTPases RhoA, Rac, or CDC42 expression were observed after rapamycin and Torin2 treatment or Raptor/Rictor knockdown (data not shown). Moreover, by use of a single-cell tracking strategy, we showed that blockade of mTORC1 or mTORC2 decreases the ability of cells to migrate directionally toward CXCL12, but it does not abrogate the ability of the cells to move, indicating that mTORC1 and mTORC2 are essential for chemotaxis but not for chemokinesis. The underlying mechanism of such an effect is not yet known, but it is tempting to speculate that it might be related to the ability of the cells to polarize and sense the chemoattractant gradient, as cells lose directionality and not motility upon mTOR inhibition. Supporting this hypothesis, the connection between mTOR pathway and cell polarity has already been reported, as an mTOR-regulating kinase, LKB1, is the human ortholog of Drosophila melanogasters PAR-4 (46, 47), and it has been shown that once activated, LKB1 can fully polarize a single cell in the absence of cellcell contact (48). However, similar to 20% of all cervical carcinomas (49), HeLa cells do not express LKB1, suggesting the existence of a yet-to-be identied mechanism linking mTOR and cell polarity, which warrants further investigation. Although tumor cell migration is a key and rate-limiting event in metastasis, it does not fully recapitulate the complex and multistep biologic process of metastasis. Therefore, we aimed to study the role of CXCR4/Gai/mTOR axis in vivo. Unfortunately, the limited number of spontaneous metastasis models, together with the long-term duration and low incidence of advanced disease in most of the current protocols, represent substantial challenges in the study of metastasis (50). To overcome these difculties, experimental approaches such as injection of tumor cells in the heart or in the tail vein of experimental animals have been established. Even though these models have been largely used in cancer research, injecting cells directly into the bloodstream does not fully recapitulate the complete process of tumor spread. In fact, how tumor cells gain access to blood and lymphatic vessels represents a key regulatory step for tumor metastasis (50). Considering that HeLa cells express high levels of CXCR4, and considering our observation that they spontaneously metastasize to cervical lymph nodes after injection in the tongue (29), we hypothesized that CXCR4 could be the driver of HeLa cells spontaneous metastasis. Of interest, the rationale behind the tongue xenograft model relies in 3 important elements: 1) the tongue is a highly blood and lymphatic vascularized organ, 2) the neck area is fairly close to the primary tumor site and holds about one third of the bodys lymph nodes (51), and 3) carcinoma from uterus cervix metastasize to lymph nodes similarly to most carcinomas, including those from the 1066 Vol. 29 March 2015 head and neck, suggesting that the mechanism underlying lymph node metastasis could be shared by different carcinomas (52). Combining this model with a loss-of-function approach, we observed that HeLa require CXCR4 to metastasize. Indeed, shCXCR4+ cells showed severe defects to migrate to CXCL12 in vitro and were not capable of invading lymph nodes in vivo. Of note, the requirement of CXCR4 for metastasis, together with the complete absence of distant metastasis, especially considering lung and liver, which are common target organs when tumor cells are injected directly into the bloodstream, strongly suggest that this is an active and chemokine-regulated process, which requires tumor cells to gain access and follow a gradient of chemokine to reach secondary organs. Furthermore, as a result of the easy access, live imaging from primary tongue tumor and cervical lymph node metastasis are possible using 2-photon microscope, which allows multiple and sequential real-time images from primary and metastatic sites. Taken together, we can expect that this CXCR4dependent spontaneous metastasis model, which results in a large fraction of mice exhibiting lymph node invasion, may provide a suitable experimental model for the future evaluation of antimetastatic agents. Certainly, careful standardization will be required for the future development of similar spontaneous metastasis models for each human cancer cell line of interest. In this context, we took advantage of the CXCR4-dependent spontaneous metastasis model to investigate whether mTOR activation was required to tumor spontaneous metastasis in vivo, and more importantly, what the contribution of mTORC1 and mTORC2 are to the process. Indeed, our data show that although both complexes are essential for CXCR4mediated directional migration in vitro, mTORC1 may play a more important role in vivo. In this regard, disruption of mTORC1 function by either rapamycin or by Raptor knockdown decreased several features of aggressiveness, such as cell proliferation and chemotaxis in vitro, and tumor burden, vascularization, and ultimately lymph node metastasis in vivo. Although it is not possible to dissociate at this stage the effects of mTORC1 disruption on the primary tumor growth from tumor dissemination, it is important to consider that this may resemble the clinical scenario. In fact, standard cancer therapies successfully decrease primary tumor size, but often they have a more limited impact on treating or preventing metastatic disease, and consequently, metastasis remains the cause of more than 90% of all cancer-related deaths (50). More studies are needed to understand the mechanisms by which mTORC1 contributes to CXCR4-mediated migration and metastasis; however, one possibility is that in addition to the loss of directionality in cell migration, tumors with nonfunctional mTORC1 are also inefcient in inducing changes in their tumor microenvironment and in eliciting autocrine/paracrine cytokine-initiated feedback loops that stimulate tumor progression and dissemination (33, 53, 54). Indeed, the remarkable effect of mTORC1 blockade in the primary tumor, and possibly cytokineinduced feedback loops, could help to explain the fact that only mTORC1 and not mTORC2 disruption have major consequences in CXCR4-mediated metastasis. Consistently, we have observed a signicant decrease in angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis in tumors with nonfunctional mTORC1 but no impact in endothelial or The FASEB Journal x www.fasebj.org DILLENBURG-PILLA ET AL. lymphatic vascular network in response to Rictor knockdown in cancer cells. Although CXCR4 itself does not currently represent a drug-directed target for cancer therapy, identifying downstream targets involved in CXCR4-mediated migration and metastasis may afford a new window of opportunity for pharmacologic intervention for aggressive tumors. Taken together, our data suggest that mTORC1 blockade is sufcient to decrease primary tumor growth and CXCR4/Gai/mTORC1-dependent migration and metastasis in vivo. Therefore, drugs that block mTORC1, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administrationapproved rapamycin, RAD001, and Torisel, then could be explored as an option for highly aggressive and metastatic tumors that rely on CXCR4 to spread. Of note, rapamycin has not been reported to promote expulsion of bone marrow stem cells from their niche (24, 25), a side effect observed when targeting CXCR4 itself (58). Indeed, if these ndings can be translated into the clinic, such an approach would provide an opportunity to target both primary and metastatic tumors, thereby potentially improving patient outcome in the case of multiple highly aggressive malignancies that use CXCR4 for their metastatic spread. This research was supported by the Intramural Research Program of U.S. National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. The authors apologize to all of their colleagues for not citing some of their original studies as a result of space limitations. 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... ARTICLE Scientific Process Flowchart Assessment (SPFA): A Method for Evaluating Changes in Understanding and Visualization of the Scientific Process in a Multidisciplinary Student Population Kristy J. Wilson* and Bessie Rigakos Department of Biology and Department of History and Social Science, College of Arts and Sciences, Marian University, Indianapolis, IN 46222 ABSTRACT The scientific process is nonlinear, unpredictable, and ongoing. Assessing the nature of science is difficult with methods that rely on Likert-scale or multiple-choice questions. This study evaluated conceptions about the scientific process using student-created visual representations that we term flowcharts. The methodology, Scientific Process Flowchart Assessment (SPFA), consisted of a prompt and rubric that was designed to assess students understanding of the scientific process. Forty flowcharts representing a multidisciplinary group without intervention and 26 flowcharts representing pre- and postinstruction were evaluated over five dimensions: connections, experimental design, reasons for doing science, nature of science, and interconnectivity. Pre to post flowcharts showed a statistically significant improvement in the number of items and ratings for the dimensions. Comparison of the terms used and connections between terms on student flowcharts revealed an enhanced and more nuanced understanding of the scientific process, especially in the areas of application to society and communication within the scientific community. We propose that SPFA can be used in a variety of circumstances, including in the determination of what curricula or interventions would be useful in a course or program, in the assessment of curriculum, or in the evaluation of students performing research projects. INTRODUCTION Many representations of the scientific method show the linear arrangement of tasks presented as the path that all science will follow. This linear flow typically contains the following terms arranged from top to bottom: question, hypothesis, experiment, and conclusion. This incomplete representation fails to illustrate the scientific process, as it is used mainly to gain generalizable knowledge. The scientific process contains ideas from the scientific method and from the nature of science (NOS) and experimental design (Figure 1). In practice, the scientific process is nonlinear, unpredictable, and ongoing (Lederman et al., 2002; Schwartz et al., 2004). Science often relies on collaboration between many different disciplines and the communication of scientific results (Duschi and Grandy, 2013). The scientific method presented in a linear manner generally ignores publication, peer review, and the communication of results necessary for scientific advancement and neglects to address how science influences and is influenced by society (Lederman et al., 2002; Schwartz et al., 2004). A current push in science education aims to instill more comprehensive ideas of the NOS and the scientific process in students, including an emphasis on next-generation science standards for K12 students (Duschi and Grandy, 2013; Next Generation Science Standards [NGSS] Lead States, 2013). The Museum of Paleontology of the University of California at Berkeley created a website applying this approachUnderstanding CBELife Sciences Education 15:ar63, 114, Winter 2016 Peggy Brickman, Monitoring Editor Submitted October 7, 2015; Revised August 14, 2016; Accepted August 15, 2016 CBE Life Sci Educ December 1, 2016 15:ar63 DOI:10.1187/cbe.15-10-0212 *Address correspondence to: Kristy J. Wilson (kjwilson@marian.edu). 2016 K. J. Wilson and B. Rigakos. CBELife Sciences Education 2016 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an AttributionNoncommercialShare Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-sa/3.0). ASCB and The American Society for Cell Biology are registered trademarks of The American Society for Cell Biology. 15:ar63, 1 K. J. Wilson and B. Rigakos alternative assessment to evaluate students conceptions about the scientific process using student-created visual representations that are variations of a concept map that we term flowcharts. Student visualizations play a key role in student thinking and problem solving (Novick, 2001; Novick et al., 2011; Hurley and Novick, 2010; Hegarty, 2011; National Research Council, 2012; Leenaars et al., 2013; Smith et al., 2013; Ortega and Brame, 2015; Quillin and Thomas, 2015). Student-created visual represen tations are an important tool in developing and assessing student understanding, as they represent a students cognitive processes. Knowledge is represented in cognitive structures, or schema. These structures can change to accommodate new knowledge through the process of accretion, wherein new information is added to the existing cognitive structure without significantly changing the cognitive structure (Ifenthaler, 2010; FIGURE 1. Venn diagram of the scientific process representing the overlapping ideas of the NOS, experimental design, and the scientific method. This diagram shows a holistic view of the Ifenthaler et al., 2011; Dauer et al., 2013; Speth et al., 2014). Tuning is scientific process. The scientific process contains the ideas of the NOS, experimental design, and the scientific method. The NOS is a description of science as a way of knowing, how the alteration of single components in science is conducted, and the everyday aspects of the influences of science (University of a cognitive structure. If there is no cogCalifornia Museum of Paleontology, 2012; NGSS Lead States, 2013). Experimental design is the nitive structure present or if the new systematic approach to develop experiments that will gain interpretable understanding of the information does not fit within an problem or question the experiment addresses (Sirum and Humburg, 2011). The ideas of the existing cognitive structure, it underscientific method completely overlap with the NOS, experimental design, or both. goes reorganization to create new cognitive structures. These cognitive Sciencethat contains flowchart animations and still diagrams structures exist in long-term memory. Students construct a that present ideas about the NOS and its nonlinear flow (Unimental model in working memory from these cognitive strucversity of California Museum of Paleontology, 2012). This tures that allows them to understand a specific problem or instructional tool contains specific stories of scientific discovery, prompt. However, such models have to be expressed and made such as the article Asteroids and Dinosaurs, which shows observable in order to be evaluated. The process of expression how the scientific process was used to develop the theory of or making these mental models external occurs through speakextinction. ing, drawing, or constructing a diagram, graph, or other visual Many of the methods developed to assess students underrepresentation (Ifenthaler, 2010; Ifenthaler et al., 2011). Dauer standing of parts of the scientific process and the NOS rely on et al. (2013) articulated some assumptions about cognitive Likert-scale and multiple-choice questions (Gogolin and Swartz, structures and how they can be assessed: 1) cognitive struc1992; Weinburgh and Steele, 2000; Stuhlsatz, 2010; American tures, composed of ideas and their relationships, reside in longAssociation for the Advancement of Science, 2015). In his 2011 term memory and can be changed; 2) mental models develop paper, Allchin argued that these methods rely too heavily on in response to a prompt and are a product of the students cogdeclarative knowledge instead of conceptual understanding, nitive structure; and 3) students visual representations are parwhich oversimplifies the NOS (Allchin, 2011). These assesstial reflections of their mental models. ments reveal a students grasp of facts and concept definitions Visual representations such as concept maps and variations but do not evaluate the way students structure this knowledge on concept maps like box-and-arrow plots or our flowcharts pro(Novak, 2003). Likert-scale and multiple-choice questions also vide valuable tools for assessing student understanding. Concept generally require large sample sizes to achieve statistically sigmaps are tools for organizing and representing knowledge and nificant results. This may not be possible when evaluating are used to show relationships among multiple concepts in a research programs or small classes. Other methods of evaluatdomain by arranging conceptual nodes, links between nodes, ing the NOS understanding use open-ended short-answer/ and labeled links (Allen and Tanner, 2003; Novak, 2003; Novak essay questions in combination with time-intensive interviews and Canas, 2007; Quillin and Thomas, 2015). Nodes are sepa(Lederman et al., 2002; Schwartz et al., 2004), which are rated in boxes and represent ideas, processes, and physical strucequally challenging in certain contexts. We propose an tures. The linkages represent a relationship between the nodes. 15:ar63, 2 CBELife Sciences Education 15:ar63, Winter 2016 Scientific Process Flowchart Assessment These approaches allow educators to assess the students knowledge, reveal their unique thought processes, and observe change in students understanding of concepts over time. Concept mapping and other visual representations illustrate both students deep content understandings and their misconceptions (Mintzes et al., 1999; Yin et al., 2005; Stautmane, 2012; Tas et al., 2012; Burrows and Mooring, 2015; Dauer and Long, 2015). Concept maps have assessable units known as propositions. Propositions include a node, a link, and another node that can be evaluated for accuracy. The linkages (one way, two way, or nondirectional) between the nodes allow students to demonstrate hierarchical representations of their mental models of an entire body of knowledge using temporal or causal relationships between concepts. Box-and-arrow plots represent a subset of ideas that are relevant to a given function and specify that the nodes are structures and the linkages are behaviors between the structures (Dauer et al., 2013; Speth et al., 2014). Because box-and-arrow plots represent the nodes and links relevant to a function, they may have a specific context. This is in contrast to concept mapping and the flowchart, which are more generalized. Both concept maps and box-and-arrow plots require training and practice for their construction due to their use of specific symbols and regulated construction; in contrast, the only guidance for construction of a flowchart is the limited instruction within the prompt itself, and in this study, students only drew a flowchart for assessment. As a result, the flowchart requires less instructional time, linkages are not required to be labeled, and there is typically more variation seen in the structure of this representation. However, students with prior experience drawing other models or representations may be better able to represent their understanding during this evaluation. The flowchart discussed in this paper uses an open-ended prompt. Open-ended prompts give students opportunities to 1) think about the connections between the terms, 2) organize their thoughts and visualize the relationships between key concepts in a systematic way, and 3) reflect on their understanding (Vanides et al., 2005). Assessment of these representations by how the concepts are organized reveal a holistic understanding that individual terms alone may not convey (Plotnick, 1997; Yin et al., 2005). In this paper, we will evaluate students conceptions about the scientific process using student-created visual representations (flowcharts). This tool, the Scientific Process Flowchart Assessment (SPFA), will include a prompt and a rubric. To our knowledge, this is the only tool to use an open-ended prompt and visual representations to assess student understanding of the scientific process. We will evaluate the inclusion of scientific process ideas as represented by nodes. We will also evaluate how students visualize and organize the connection of information as represented by links. This paper will show the development of an open-ended prompt and a rubric applicable in multiple disciplines that allows for a reliable assessment of these visual representations of the scientific process in an effort to understand students cognitive structures and mental models pertaining to their perceptions of science. METHODS Prompt and Prompt Revision To evaluate student understanding of the scientific process, we developed a four-sentence prompt that laid out instructions on CBELife Sciences Education 15:ar63, Winter 2016 how students should construct their flowcharts and guidelines by which their work would be assessed (Figure 2A). The prompt is designed to reflect the basic structure of the flowchart to increase similarity in its construction by students. This tool was developed for use with a broad set of students with respect to grade level and science experience. Therefore, a diverse focus group was used to optimize the specific language, ensuring communication validity such that the students understood the prompt as intended. The focus group was composed of two Introduction to Sociology classes from a small liberal arts university in the Midwest. These classes were selected because Introduction to Sociology is a general education course and contains a wide range of different majors and fields of study. The prompt had not been used as an assessment tool in this class. This focus group was given the prompt to interpret (Figure 2A). They were also asked to provide their gender, major, and age and to indicate whether they were freshmen, sophomores, juniors, or seniors. The focus group consisted of mainly freshmen and sophomore students and had a mix of majors (Supplemental Material 1A). Owing to the time of day when the courses were offered, there was a higher representation of athletes, and as a result, there was a greater proportion of males and business and sports performance/marketing majors in the sample than in the general university population. We collected 43 responses from the focus group. The focus group questionnaire broke down by sentence into four sections shown in alternating underlined text in Figure 2A. For each section, the focus group students were asked what they thought the prompt meant. The interpretations of the prompt were coded as 1) understood prompt, 2) did not understand prompt, or 3) did not follow focus group instructions/did not provide an interpretation. The prompt sections coded in the last category (number 3) are excluded from data analysis. However, exclusion of one prompt section did not exclude the rest of that students data from analysis. Representative quotes were collected from the students who understood the prompt, and all quotes were collected for the students who did not understand the prompt. Representative samples of both types of quotes are displayed. For each focus group participant, a percentage of prompt coded as understood was calculated. This was determined by dividing the number of prompt boxes coded as understood by the total number of prompt boxes completed according to focus group instructions. This percentage of prompt understood was then compared with major, gender, and year. Additionally, the focus group was asked whether any of the words in the prompt were confusing and what they thought the words meant in this specific context. Overall, the prompt was very well understood, with an average across all of the prompt sections of 92.4% understood (Figure 2B). Even though the prompt was well understood, the focus group comments were very useful in revising the prompt. For prompt section 1, the comments focused on not understanding what the student was supposed to draw. This misunderstanding derives from an inability to understand what is meant by flowchart. This portion of the prompt was left as is, but revisions from prompt section 3, described below, may address this misunderstanding, as it provides instructions on how to build a flowchart. Prompt section 2 was understood by 97% of the focus group and was modified only slightly. 15:ar63, 3 K. J. Wilson and B. Rigakos FIGURE 2. Prompt focus group and revision. (A) Original prompt with alternating underlined text representing how the prompt was split for interpretation by the focus group. The first sentence that is underlined is prompt section 1 and the next sentence that is not underlined is prompt section 2, etc. (B) Evaluation of focus groups understanding of the prompt boxes. (C) Finalized prompt text. (D) A cross-table analysis of percentage prompt understood compared with major. In prompt section 3, a few students were confused about when to use circles or arrows. Some example quotes are I do not understand any colors & arrows that go in the same way or both ways, and How do you use circles to specify a direction? The prompt was revised so that the shapes were followed by instructions of how shapes could be used to separate terms or ideas (Figure 2C). Likewise, the prompt was revised to state that the arrows could be used to connect terms or ideas and included a visual representation of arrows. This change was made to increase the clarity and conciseness of the prompt. Prompt section 4 accounted for the largest percentage of focus group participants coded as not understanding (14.3%). The last bullet point of prompt section 4 was separated into two bullets and prepositions were removed to increase clarity. Also, the comments involving interpretation of the You may include phrase from the original prompt indicated that the students 15:ar63, 4 thought they did not need to follow this direction. Therefore, the prompt was modified to Please include, so students would understand that these elements are being assessed. Because the focus group consisted of students from a variety of majors, we wanted to demonstrate that there was no major-dependent difference between the levels of understanding. A cross-table analysis and chi-square test were performed comparing the students major with the percentage of prompt understood (Figure 2D). The chi-square test had a p value that indicated no significant difference by major in the percentage of the prompt understood. Likewise, chi-square analysis comparing gender and age showed no significant difference in percentage of prompt understood. This means that the prompt has multidisciplinary applicability, so the method may be used to test understanding of the scientific process in many different classes across a variety of disciplines. CBELife Sciences Education 15:ar63, Winter 2016 Scientific Process Flowchart Assessment Flowchart Sample Multidisciplinary applicability for SPFA including both the prompt and the rubric was demonstrated by the collection of 40 flowcharts from two Introduction to Sociology classes that included students from a large variety of majors (Supplemental Material 1B). This sample was a different group of students from the focus group. Additionally, 26 flowcharts, consisting of 13 paired pre and post flowcharts, were collected during a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research program for middle and high school students held in the summer of 2013 (examples in Figure 3). The pre flowchart, given the first day the students enter the program, was a baseline measure of the students understanding of the scientific process. The post FIGURE 3. Example pre and post scientific process flowchart. Representing two students pre (A and C) and post (B and D) flowcharts in response to prompt. CBELife Sciences Education 15:ar63, Winter 2016 15:ar63, 5 K. J. Wilson and B. Rigakos flowchart was given after their research experience and curriculum on experimental design. Students performed authentic research projects that they designed with faculty guidance. The program included an exploration of the scientific process using both the Understanding Science teaching model (Supplemental Material 2) and targeted activities, such as variables, controls, data analysis, and accounting/controlling for bias (Supplemental Material 3). In addition to completing the flowchart, both the multidisciplinary students and the summer students were asked applicable demographic questions about their majors, class rank, and ethnicity. Rubric Development A rubric for evaluating and assessing the flowcharts was developed first by addressing the central concepts and common FIGURE 4. Rubric used to analyze scientific process flowchart. 15:ar63, 6 features of flowcharts, such as one-directional arrows and two-directional arrows. The central concepts assessed by this rubric are 1) science is ongoing, unpredictable, and nonlinear; 2) science and society affect each other; 3) experimental design is critical for interpretable scientific findings; and 4) a scientific community is necessary for scientific progress (communication, collaboration, and theory building). This rubric was revised and updated throughout the flowchart assessment coding process to ensure that the rubric accounted for the variation in the student-generated flowcharts. After the rubric revision process, all flowcharts were recoded. The rubric has five basic dimensions with a sixth summary dimension (Figure 4). The dimensions are 1) connections, 2) experimental design, 3) reasons for doing science, 4) nature of science, and 5) interconnectivity rating. Rubric dimension 6 is not a stand-alone dimension. Instead, it is an overarching parameter covering the overall sum item count and sum rating that becomes the students item and rating scores. The learning objectives about the NOS are evaluated throughout the rubric, including dimensions 1, 3, 4, and 5. For example, the dimension titled nature of science allows evaluators to rate the students understanding of the connections between society and science, how the scientific community works together, and the concept that multiple lines of evidence are necessary to answer a question. The reasons for doing science dimension also addresses the NOS, in that it measures recognition that science is not just theoretical or esoteric but can lead to improvements in daily life. This demonstrates an understanding of the connection between society and science. Additionally, the connections and interconnectivity rating assess formatting of the flowchart that can demonstrate a students understanding of science as a nonlinear, unpredictable, and ongoing process. The experimental design dimension incorporates ideas from the general terms representing the scientific method, including question, hypothesis, experiment, and conclusion. In addition to these ideas, there are key experimental design features that are important in experimentation regardless of the field of study, including research ethics, controlling experiments, and minimizing bias. An understanding of these experimental design features is important not only for students when designing their own experiments but also for determining the quality of completed experiments in CBELife Sciences Education 15:ar63, Winter 2016 Scientific Process Flowchart Assessment journal articles. This sections list of possible items allows for variation between fields. It is unlikely that a student would happen to include all of these terms, but including this variety would allow for assessment of students who possess a broad understanding of science. Each flowchart is ranked in each dimension as 1) nave, 2) novice, 3) intermediate, 4) proficient, or 5) expert. Dimensions 2 through 4 are evaluated based on rubric guidelines concerning item counts within the flowcharts. Dimensions 1 and 5 are evaluated by the rater of the flowchart using the rubric-suggested criteria. Rubric dimension 5 contains the overall sum item count and sum rating that becomes the students item and rating scores. Detailed instructions for rubric use can be found in Supplemental Material 4. Overall, the prompt and rubric will be called the Scientific Process Flowchart Assessment (SPFA). Determining Interrater Reliability Scanned flowcharts were randomized before identifying numbers were assigned, so raters could not tell which flowcharts were paired and which were pre- or postinstruction. (Although handwriting could make evident which charts were paired; this was unavoidable.) The flowcharts provided were printouts instead of originals, so each rater could mark his or her copies in the process of tallying each idea/item/phrase when using the rubric. The raters included three faculty members, one from each of the following disciplines: biology, sociology, and psychology. Three undergraduates, two work-study students and one student who had previous experience with education research, also rated the flowcharts. All raters met for 1 hour to discuss the rubric and its instructions and then rated one flowchart that was not a part of the experimental sample set. This flowcharts rating was discussed, and the raters were provided with the flowcharts, instructions, and an Excel file to record their rubric scores. The data from each evaluator were then analyzed for variance and significant differences between pre and post flowcharts from the summer program. The data were also analyzed for significant differences between evaluators. This was done to evaluate the interrater reliability. The overall average variance between evaluators was low for both sum ratings and sum item number (Supplemental Material 5A). The variance was calculated for rating and item number scores between primary evaluator and other faculty and undergraduate evaluators. A positive variance indicates higher sum rating or sum item number scores, and negative variance indicates lower rating or item number scores. The average variance is 0.2 for the rating score and 0.9 for the item score. All the evaluators ratings of the flowcharts showed a significant difference between pre and post flowcharts from the summer program for the average sum ratings, and all but one evaluator rating showed a significant difference between pre and post for average item number (Supplemental Material 5, B and C). The magnitude of the change between pre and post flowcharts and the absolute sum ratings and sum item number vary slightly by evaluator. However, there is no significant difference between any of the evaluators for average sum ratings and average sum item number as calculated by a Friedman test with a Dunns multiple comparison test. The low variance and lack of significant differences between evaluators demonstrates that this rubric has high reliability. CBELife Sciences Education 15:ar63, Winter 2016 Assessing Specific Connections and Multiple Structures Specific connections were identified as important to understanding the scientific process. For each identified specific connection, the flowcharts were coded as 1) terms not present, 2) terms are present but not directly connected, or 3) terms are present and connected as detailed. The presence of multiple structures within a single flowchart was also assessed. A flowchart with multiple structures has nodes/ideas that are unconnected to the flowchart, in the form of either additional lists or separate flowcharts. Flowcharts were coded for having multiple structures and represented as a percent of the overall flowcharts in a sample. Some examples of flowcharts with multiple structures are in Supplemental Material 6. Data Analysis The cross-tables and chi-square analysis for the focus group data were performed using SPSS. The p values for the comparison of pre and post sum ranking and sum item number were determined with a Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test (a nonparametric paired analysis) using GraphPad Prism. The web figures displaying the individual or program average ratings were made using Microsoft Excel. A Friedman test with Dunns multiple comparison using GraphPad Prism was performed on interrater data to evaluate differences between evaluators. RESULTS SPFA Is Applicable to a Multidisciplinary Group SPFA was used to analyze two separate groups of students. The first, a multidisciplinary group of undergraduates from a variety of majors, created flowcharts based solely on prior education; and the second, a group of middle and high school students in a STEM summer research program, created flowcharts pre and post their curriculum and research experience. The multidisciplinary group of undergraduates was found to be demographically similar to the university population of traditional undergraduates, having a similar distribution of majors (the university having 24.4% majoring in business, 23.8% majoring in liberal arts, 7.9% majoring in exercise science or sports performance, 7.6% majoring in education, 14.3% majoring in math or science, 18% majoring in nursing, and 4% exploratory), and a similar distribution of ethnicities (1.3% Asian, 9.3% Black/African American, 75.2% white, 6.5% Hispanic/ Latino, 5% other, and 2.7% identifying with multiple ethnicities). However, the undergraduate group was found to be slightly more female when compared with the university population (51.5% female; Supplemental Material 1B). The purpose of these analyses was first to determine baseline flowchart characteristics and then to determine whether the SPFA was applicable to a variety of undergraduate majors and differing levels of student skill. In these applications, SPFA was used to determine similarities and differences between and among the groups of flowcharts. The rubric revealed that, without intervention, the different undergraduate majors were similar in their overall item sum and overall rating sum (Figure 5A). The total average sum rating and SE was 9.6 0.3 for all undergraduates. This corresponds to a novice rating (Figure 4). In practice, the undergraduate students rated an average of 2.9 0.1 for connections, 1.8 0.1 for experimental design, 1.7 0.1 15:ar63, 7 K. J. Wilson and B. Rigakos FIGURE 5. Sum item number and rating by major and class rank for multidisciplinary students completing the flowchart. Overall comparison of pre and post flowchart sum of the ratings displayed by (A) major and (B) class rank. 1 = nave; 2 = novice; 3 = intermediate; 4 = proficient; and 5 = expert. The total possible rating total is 25, and the lowest possible rating is 5. for reasons for doing science, 1.5 0.1 for nature of science, and 1.7 0.2 for interconnectivity. These individual ratings correspond to nave, novice, or intermediate ratings. Divided into undergraduate majors, the major with the lowest average sum was education (9.0 2) and the highest major was math and sciences (11.7 0.8). This does not represent a large range in the average sum ratings, and we believe that this sum rating can be viewed as a baseline for this population. Analysis reveals that there was little difference in average sum ratings when examining class rank (Figure 5B). No statistically significant difference was observed between the average sum ratings of the high school pre flowchart and college senior samples (9.9 0.7 and 12 2, respectively). The lack of difference between the seniors and the high school students is surprising. However, it is important to note that this group of high school students is unlikely to be representative, because they self-selected to participate in a summer research program and are likely working at a higher level than most middle/high school students. The seniors were, on average, at the novice rankings; this implies that improvement in understanding of the scientific process does not occur without direct intervention. 15:ar63, 8 Analysis of Connections Reveal Opportunities for Intervention In addition to examining the overall item and rating scores as evaluated by the SPFA rubric, we also evaluated flowcharts on specific connections. The connections examined are detailed in Figure 6A. The connections were chosen as a metric in order to recognize specific features of how and why science is done that are often overlooked or missing in representations. These factors also have been recognized as critical by science standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013). These connections are categorized as input, output, and society connections. The presence of these connections in student flowcharts demonstrates higher-order understanding of the scientific process in terms of Blooms taxonomy in how to apply, analyze, and evaluate the scientific process (Crowe et al., 2008). These connections were evaluated on a three-point scale, with 0 representing that one or both terms were not in the flowchart, 1 representing that the terms were present but not connected as illustrated, and 2 representing that the terms were both present and connected as illustrated. Input connections represent the inspiration motivating the experiment and the facts/information collected to inform experimental design. The first encompasses either interpretation or a problem connected to a scientific question. The second encompasses background research connected to a hypothesis. For our undergraduate sample, the flowcharts largely did not incorporate the inspiration that motivates the asking of a question from which the experiment is designed. Only 9.4% of the flowcharts had problem or inspiration connected to the question. In contrast, 47.2% of this sample connected background research to hypothesis (Figure 6B). Many students are able to define a hypothesis as an educated guess. Many students recognize that this means that the prediction inherent to the hypothesis is informed by previous work done. The output connection examines a common feature of many representations of the scientific method; the conclusion reconnects to the hypothesis. This shows that the hypothesis can be revisited in response to conclusions drawn from experimental data. A second output connection is the connection of the conclusion to a communication with the scientific community, including terms like communication, peer review, publication, theory building, or collaboration (Figure 6A). For the multidisciplinary undergraduate sample, conclusion was connected back to hypothesis in 15.1% of the flowcharts. This was surprising, considering how common this feature is in representations of the scientific method. Conclusion was connected to communication in 22.6% of the flowcharts, indicating a majority of the students did not recognize the importance of communicating scientific results and conclusions (Figure 6C). This is a significant deficit in a students understanding of the scientific process. Society connections are defined by a larger number of terms, not limited to the list provided (Figure 6A). Differentiation between society connection inputs and outputs is determined by adjacency and connection to position in the flowchart. A society connection input would be closer to question/ problem/hypothesis. A society connection output would be closer to data or conclusion. Conceivably, with an interconnected flowchart, society connection inputs and outputs could not be differentiated and could count for both. In practice, the students in the multidisciplinary undergraduate sample had CBELife Sciences Education 15:ar63, Winter 2016 Scientific Process Flowchart Assessment after the completion of the research experience and curriculum on experimental design. Data indicate differences from pre to post flowchart in both the overall item and overall rating scores. The increase in average number of items per flowchart indicates a statistically significant improvement from pre to post (Figure 7A). The average value increased from 13 1 to 21 2 items per flowchart. Similarly, the overall average rating score per flowchart shows a statistically significant improvement from pre to post (Figure 7B). Specifically, the pre flowchart rating score was 8.7 0.5, indicating a novice rating over the five dimensions. The post flowchart showed improvement, with a rating score of 14 1 that indicates an intermediate rating over the five dimensions. This average rating score was examined to determine how the increase was reflected across the five dimensions. For example, the largest increases occurred in the nature of science and interconnectivity ratings. The average number of items for nature of science increased from 0.1 to 2.4 (Figure 7C). This is a statistically significant improvement pre to post. This dimension encompasses ideas of multiple lines of evidence, the interaction between society and science, and the involvement of the scientific community. Of these ideas, the involvement of the scientific community represented FIGURE 6. Input and output functions for multidisciplinary students completing the flowchart. 66% of the items in that category on (A) Illustration of connections that were examined and counted for the following analysis. the post SPFA; peer review, publica(B) Percent of students with specific input connections. (C) Percent of students with specific tion, and collaboration were the items output connections. (D) Percent of students with connections related to society. frequently included. An examination of the flowchart interconnectivity ratings terms representing society present in their flowcharts but not revealed a statistically significant improvement in average ratconnected as either inputs or outputs. These terms were often ings, pre to post (Figure 7D). On average, the pre rating for in separate structures outside the main body of the flowchart. interconnectivity was 1.3 0.2, corresponding to a nave rating, Terms representing society were only present in 18.9% of flowindicating a linear arrangement of items in the flowchart. The charts, and only 1.9 and 3.8% of flowcharts had these terms average post rating was 3.3 0.3, an intermediate rating, indiconnected as an input or output, respectively (Figure 6D). cating a circular flow of items. This demonstrates the students These analyses show areas that could be targeted for curricular recognition that science is not linear and is interconnected. intervention or incorporated into authentic experiences like The five assessed dimensions of SPFA were graphed using mock study sections for grant review or peer review for student web plots to show the changes in ratings from pre to post. A papers. green line represents pre and a blue line represents post, with each web terminus labeled with the dimension number and The Scientific Process Flowchart Shows Significant title (Figure 8). The central axis has the ratings starting at 1 Difference Pre to Post and each webbed line represents an increased rating up to 5. SPFA was applied to flowcharts made by the students in a sumThese ratings correspond with the nave to expert ratings mer research program. The pre flowchart was taken as the baseevaluated by SPFA. Flowcharts that are farther from the cenline measure of the students understanding of the scientific protral point indicate a increased rating and a better understandcess upon entry into the research program. The post flowchart ing of that dimension of the scientific process. Figure 8, A and was examined to determine any differences in understanding B, are web plots of the two flowcharts in Figure 3, A and B, CBELife Sciences Education 15:ar63, Winter 2016 15:ar63, 9 K. J. Wilson and B. Rigakos FIGURE 7. Significant differences pre to post flowchart. p Value was calculated using a Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test. (A) Overall comparison of pre and post flowchart sum of items from rubric dimensions 2 through 4. (B) Overall comparison of pre and post flowchart sum of the ratings, where 1 = nave; 2 = novice; 3 = intermediate; 4 = proficient; and 5 = expert. The total possible rating total is 25, and the lowest possible rating is 5. (C) Average number of items in the NOS, rubric item 4, in pre and post flowchart. (D) Average interconnectivity of pre and post flowchart. and Figure 3, C and D, respectively. The web plot can also be used to display average changes in the flowchart ratings (Figure 8C) making it easy to assess which dimensions showed the most improvement. Change in Terms Used to Describe Experimental Design but Not Classic Scientific Method Pre to Post Flowchart The summer program students pre and post flowcharts were examined for changes in the specific terms used to refer to experimental design (dimension 2 of the rubric). No significant difference was found between the average number of items representing classic terms in the scientific method pre to post flowchart (Figure 9A). These classic terms to describe the scientific method are based on the terms frequently present in instructional materials, including: question/problem, hypothesis, background research/planning, method/materials/procedure, and experiment/observation/test/measurement. It is interesting that, as interventions were applied and curriculum covering the scientific process was presented, it did not result in replacement or shifting of terms. Analysis of the pre and post flowcharts for terms associated with experimental design did reveal some differences. There was a statistically significant increase in terms associated with data analysis (Figure 9B). Data analysis terms from this summer program include interpreting data, statistics, data graphing, analysis, correlation, comparing with expected results, and 15:ar63, 10 building charts. Other relevant terms that were not observed could include analysis of mean/average, SD/SE, and names of specific statistical tests. In addition to the noted increase in associated terms, there was a trend for the increased mention of controlled experiments and repeatable experiments. Terms included in controlled experiments were: positive control, negative control, placebo, and standardized variables. An advanced experimental design term that did not significantly increase despite curriculum presentation was bias (including types of bias; sampling, measurement, or interpretation, or methods to control bias; double-blinded design or randomized assignment to groups). The experimental design terms that increased in use seemed to be connected to the things the summer research students actually did as opposed to those they were only told about. For example, the students had to design controls into their experiments, repeat their experiments multiple times, and do significant data analysis. Curriculum and Authentic Experience Resulted in an Increase of Important Connections Connections from the summer program pre and post flowcharts were assessed using the method described for the multidisciplinary sample. There was a shift in the percent of flowcharts that had the terms and had them connected in the way pictured in Figure 6A. In the case of the input connection between inspiration/problem and question, there was a threefold increase from 7.7 to 23.1% in flowcharts (Figure 10A). Likewise, with output connections, there was a large shift, with conclusion connected back to hypothesis present in twice as many flowcharts, increasing from 15.4 to 30.8%, and conclusion connected to communication present in 3.5 times as many flowcharts, increasing from 15.4 to 53.8% (Figure 10B). These dramatic increases in incidence show recognition of the idea that the experiment does not end with the conclusion but with sharing and communication of findings. From pre to post, society connections increased for both the defined input and output functions, increasing from 0 to 30.8% on the input and from 7.7 to 30.8% on the output (Figure 10C). Analysis for the Presence of Separate Structures The prompt describes a list of elements for students to include in their flowcharts. When drawing their flowcharts, some students chose to put these elements in separate structures instead of in the main body of the flowchart. For example, a student would have a flowchart and then a bulleted list containing reasons for doing science. The presence of these separate structures indicates a lack of integration in their understanding. In CBELife Sciences Education 15:ar63, Winter 2016 Scientific Process Flowchart Assessment FIGURE 8. Web representation of change in ratings from pre to post flowchart. A green line represents the pre flowchart and a blue line represents the post flowchart. (A) Web of individual ratings from example flowchart in Figure 3, A and B, showing both pre and post flowchart data. (B) Web of individual ratings from example flowchart in Figure 3, C and D, showing both pre and post flowchart data. (C) Web of average ratings for both pre and post flowchart. the multidisciplinary sample, 60% of the flowcharts contained separate structures. In the summer research program, 31% of the pre flowcharts contained separate structures and 15% of the post flowcharts contained separate structures. The intervention in the summer research program decreased the presence of separate structures. DISCUSSION To evaluate students understanding of the scientific process, experimental design, and the NOS, we developed the Scientific Process Flowchart Assessment, or SPFA, consisting of a prompt and rubric. SFPA was successfully applied to assess a multidisciplinary sample of students. The flowcharts examined showed consistent construction and rubric scores. Additionally, SPFA was very effective in measuring the changes in understanding from a pre to a post flowchart. Rubric analysis for overall complexity and structure and analysis of specific terms or connections demonstrate how this tool can be used to achieve multifaceted data showing the effects of curricula and experiences. CBELife Sciences Education 15:ar63, Winter 2016 FIGURE 9. Experimental design terms pre to post flowchart. Breakdown of sum item count for rubric dimension number 2. (A) Average scientific method terms in pre and post flowchart. (B) Average experimental design terms in pre and post flowchart. On the basis of our findings, we propose four main affordances of SPFA. First, it can be used with a fairly small sample size. Second, SPFA could be applicable to many different disciplines that teach the scientific process, such as sociology, psychology, biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. Third, SPFA can be completed by students without prior training in concept mapping or other representation techniques. Fourth, SPFA rewards parsimony by eliminating double-dipping with repeated items and excluding items that do not fit into specific categories. We propose three main limitations inherent to SPFA. First, students could memorize the instructional figures, like the Understanding Science Teaching model, instead of applying their own understanding of the scientific process. In practice, students did not replicate the Understanding Science Model categories or terms, although some did use the format. This is possibly due to the length of time between presenting this teaching model and the post flowchart. Instead the teaching model serves as an example of how representations of the scientific process can be different from what was likely presented in instructional materials earlier in their education. We would 15:ar63, 11 K. J. Wilson and B. Rigakos FIGURE 10. Input and output functions pre to post flowchart. (A) Percent of students with specific input connections. (B) Percent of students with specific output connections. (C) Percent of students with connections related to society. argue this is not training students to build more nuanced flowcharts, as they are not drawing practice flowcharts throughout the intervention time. 15:ar63, 12 Second, SPFA cannot assess whether or not students can use and apply the ideas they depict in their flowcharts. For instance, including positive controls on the flowchart would not indicate whether or not students could identify a positive control in an experiment or design positive controls for their own experiments. Therefore, SPFA should be combined with other assessment tools to determine whether students fully understand and can apply ideas represented on their flowcharts. Finally, SPFA cannot currently be assessed using computer-aided technology, unlike multiple-choice response categories, Likert-scale response categories, or Scantron tests. Analysis of the flowcharts according to the rubric typically takes less than 5 minutes, with an additional 12 minutes for coding for connections and multiple structures. This time is not dissimilar from assessing short-answer or essay questions. The time investment is further mitigated by the use of undergraduate teaching assistants or research assistants to perform the assessment by collecting the data and conducting preliminary analyses. Furthermore, there is the possibility that this analysis could be made electronic in the future. We propose that others may use this tool in a basic experimental design consisting of a pre flowchart, scientific process education or research experiences, and a post flowchart. The pre flowchart is the baseline measure of students understanding of the scientific process. The pre flowchart then could be used to determine specific intervention topics to discuss tailoring the class or program to the needs of the specific students. The scientific process education may consist of curricula or group/individual research projects. Some examples of curricular options may include the Understanding Science website, experimental design activities/practice, or current event topics that show the connections between science and society. The understanding gained from research projects or curricula can be assessed by comparing the baseline (pre flowchart) with the post flowchart. This experimental design is useful under many different circumstances. For example, it could be used to evaluate the effectiveness of curricula and programs in the context of classes (in part or whole), assignments, and/or research programs. While primarily designed as a programmatic assessment, SPFA can also be used as a formative assessment tool. For example, instructors could keep flowcharts from the beginning of a research program and then ask students to evaluate their own flowcharts midway through a program. Were their flowcharts good representations of how they conducted their research? Was the order representative of what they did? Which parts of their research were not represented in the flowcharts? Following the discussion, students could redraw their flowcharts according to the prompt to reflect their changed views of the scientific process. Alternatively, instructors could make the process each student uses more overt by adding required elements to oral presentations in which students discuss their projects and data. This would enable discussions of not only how their projects are going but also the generalized process of how science is done. Similarly, instructors could provide feedback on flowcharts and allow students to redraw them to reflect their new understanding. This kind of formative assessment may change the utility of this tool made for programmatic assessment, since the opportunity to redraw and practice could train students specifically in the design of improved flowcharts; however, CBELife Sciences Education 15:ar63, Winter 2016 Scientific Process Flowchart Assessment in specific instances, the learning gains may outweigh assessment needs. This assessment reveals student knowledge structures through student-created visual representations. Analyzing these representations allows a holistic understanding that would be difficult to express in individual terms or in the context of short-answer or essay questions (Plotnick, 1997; Yin et al., 2005; Quillin and Thomas, 2015). This format further allows for the demonstration of critical elements of the scientific process, specifically that science is nonlinear, unpredictable, and ongoing (Lederman et al., 2002; Schwartz et al., 2004). Analysis of these flowcharts unexpectedly revealed incidence of separated structures instead of completely integrated flowcharts. We hypothesize that these separate structures indicate the presence of separate cognitive structures of the scientific process. What influences the construction of these separate structures and what leads to an integrated flowchart could be explored in future studies. Another future direction of SPFA should include an examination of the effects of undergraduate research (in or out of the classroom) on students understanding of the scientific process. Specifically, it should be explored in more detail whether undergraduate research helps students link visualizing the connection of information in the scientific process to how they use the scientific process to solve problems or do research. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank Dr. Laurel Camp from Marian University Psychology Department, for helping us with the interrater reliability, and undergraduates Pamela Opeonya, Mary Schubnell, and David Doub. We also thank the summer program directors and administrator, Dr. Kimberly Vogt, Dr. Samantha Oliphant, Ginny Smith, and Marian University School of Mathematics and Sciences for funding for summer program. Thanks also to Dr. Allison Chatterjee from Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine for critical reading of the article. REFERENCES Allchin D (2011). Evaluating knowledge of the nature of (whole) science. Sci Educ 95, 518542. Duschi RA, Grandy R (2013). Two views about explicitly teaching nature of science. Sci Educ 22, 21092139. Gogolin L, Swartz F (1992). A quantitative and qualitative inquiry into the attitudes toward science of nonscience college students. J Res Sci Teach 29, 487504. Hegarty M (2011). The role of spatial thinking in undergraduate science education. Third Committee Meeting on Status, Contributions, and Future Directions of Discipline-Based Education Research, Irvine, CA. Hurley SM, Novick LR (2010). Solving problems using matrix, network, and hierarchy diagrams: the consequences of violating construction conventions. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 63, 275290. Ifenthaler D (2010). Relational, structural, and semantic analysis of graphical representations and concept maps. Educ Tech Res Dev 58, 8197. Ifenthaler D, Masduki I, Seel NM (2011). The mystery of cognitive structure and how we can detect it: tracking the development of cognitive structures over time. Instr Sci 39, 4161. Lederman NG, Abd-El-Khalick F, Bell RL, Schwartz RS (2002). Views of nature of science questionnaire: toward valid and meaningful assessment of learners conceptions of nature of science. J Res Sci Teach 39, 497521. Leenaars FAJ, van Joolingen WR, Bollen L (2013). Using self-made drawings to support modelling in science education. Br J Educ Technol 44, 8294. Mintzes JJ, Wandersee JH, Novak JD (eds.) (1999). Assessing Science Understanding: A Human Constructivist View, Educational Psychology, San Diego, CA: Academic. National Research Council (2012). Discipline-Based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering, Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Next Generation Science Standards Lead States (2013). Appendix H: Understanding the Scientific Enterprise: The Nature of Science in the Next Generation Science Standards, Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Novak JD (2003). The promise of new ideas and new technology for improving teaching and learning. Cell Biol Educ 2, 122132. Novak JD, Canas AJ (2007). Theoretical origins of concept maps, how to construct them, and uses in education. Reflecting Education 3, 2942. Novick LR (2001). Spatial diagrams: key instruments in the toolbox for thought. In: The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, vol. 40, ed. DL Medin, San Diego, CA: Academic, 279325. Novick LR, Shade CK, Catley KM (2011). Linear versus branching depictions of evolutionary history: implications for diagram design. Top Cogn Sci 3, 536559. Ortega RA, Brame CJ (2015). The synthesis map is a multidimensional educational tool that provides insight into students mental models and promotes students synthetic knowledge generation. CBE Life Sci Educ 14, ar14. Allen D, Tanner K (2003). Approaches to cell biology teaching: mapping the journeyconcept maps as signposts of developing knowledge structures. Cell Biol Educ 2, 133136. Plotnick E (1997). Concept Mapping: A Graphical System for Understanding the Relationship between Concepts, Syracuse, NY: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology. American Association for the Advancement of Science (2015). AAAS Science Assessment: Welcome to the AAAS Project 2061 Science Assessment Website. http://assessment.aaas.org (accessed 15 January 2015). Quillin K, Thomas S (2015). Drawing-to-learn: a framework for using drawings to promote model-based reasoning in biology. CBE Life Sci Educ 14, es2. Burrows NL, Mooring SR (2015). Using concept mapping to uncover students knowledge structures of chemical bonding concepts. Chem Educ Res Pract 16, 5366. Schwartz RS, Lederman NG, Crawford BA (2004). Developing views of nature of science in an authentic context: an explicit approach to bridging the gap between nature of science and scientific inquiry. Sci Teach Educ 88, 610645. Crowe A, Dirks C, Wenderoth MP (2008). Biology in Bloom: implementing Blooms taxonomy to enhance student learning in biology. CBE Life Sci Educ 7, 368381. Sirum K, Humburg J (2011). The Experimental Design Ability Test (EDAT). Bioscene 37, 816. Dauer JT, Long TM (2015). Long-term conceptual retrieval by college biology majors following model-based instruction. J Res Sci Teach 52, 1188 1206. Smith JJ, Cheruvelil KS, Auvenshine S (2013). Assessment of student learning associated with tree thinking in an undergraduate introductory organismal biology course. CBE Life Sci Educ 12, 542552. Dauer JT, Momsen JL, Speth EB, Makohon-Moore SC, Long TM (2013). Analyzing change in students gene-to-evolution models in college-level introductory biology. J Res Sci Teach 50, 639659. Speth EB, Shaw N, Momsen J, Reinagel A, Le P, Taqieddin R, Long T (2014). Introductory biology students conceptual models and explanations of the origin of variation. CBE Life Sci Educ 13, 529539. CBELife Sciences Education 15:ar63, Winter 2016 15:ar63, 13 K. J. Wilson and B. Rigakos Stautmane M (2012). Concept map-based knowledge assessment tasks and their scoring criteria: an overview. Paper presented at the Fifth International Conference on Concept Mapping, held in 2012 in Valletta, Malta. Stuhlsatz MA (2010). Final Evaluation Report for University of California Museum of Paleontology: Understanding Science. undsci.berkeley.edu/ BERKreport_7_12_10.doc (accessed 14 May 2014). Tas E, Cepni S, Kaya E (2012). The effects of Web-supported and classic concept maps on students cognitive development and misconception change: a case study on photosynthesis. Energy Educ Sci Technol Part B Soc Educ Stud 4, 241252. 15:ar63, 14 University of California Museum of Paleontology (2012). Understanding Science: How Science Really Works. http://undsci.berkeley.edu/index .php. (accessed 5 December 2012). Vanides J, Yin Y, Tomita M, Ruiz-Primo MA (2005). Using concept maps in the science classroom. Science Scope 28, 2731. Weinburgh MH, Steele D (2000). The modified Attitudes toward Science Inventory: developing an instrument to be used with fifth grade urban students. J Women Minor Sci Eng 6, 8794. Yin Y, Vanides J, Ruiz-Primo MA, Ayala CC, Shavelson RJ (2005). Comparison of two concept-mapping techniques: implications for scoring, interpretation, and use. J Res Sci Teach 42, 166194. CBELife Sciences Education 15:ar63, Winter 2016  ...

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... The American Catholic Church Censors the Movies Traces the rise of the movie industry from its raffish nickelodeon roots in the late nineteenth century to enormous popularity in the first half of the twentieth century. Self-censorship by the movie industry to satisfy its moralist critics having failed, Hollywood found it in its interests to use Catholics to censor those motion pictures the Church judged dangerous to souls. That effort was a double-barreled one: Faced with having to comply with expensive and diverse demands from city and state censorship boards to delete scenes, in 1930 the movie industry accepted an elaborate prescriptive film code, written by a Jesuit monsignor, describing what could and could not be shown and said. For the first four years enforcement was lacking, but by 1934, the Production Code Administration (PCA), led by an energetic Catholic layman and his staff, was empowered to scrutinize a films theme, script, language, costuming, etc., at every step of the process. Movie producers had to negotiate with the PCA to earn a Seal, evidence that the movies would not undermine the morals of its patrons. The second barrel was the Legion of Decency, in which a group of Catholic women in New York, members of the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae, (IFCA), led by a priest, served as a second jury with its own processes; it identified films acceptable for all audiences from children to adult, with the morally objectionable for particular groups identified and those unsuitable for any audience condemned. A special feature of the Legions influence was the widespread practice of the laitys yearly recitation of a pledge at Mass promising to avoid all condemned movies and the theaters which showed them, a promise which many laity believed, mistakenly, that to disobey constituted a mortal sin. The heyday of the effectiveness of the PCA and the Legion lasted from 1934 to the mid-1950s when movie producers and the movie audience began to resist. By 1949, Hollywood, facing an existential threat from television, had to provide what the box could not--blockbuster epics, technicolor, 3Dimensional, drive-in theaters--all would be tried, but the quickest path to successfully compete was more boundary-breaking motion pictures, especially sex and crime. Television was only one of the industrys problems. Inevitably, for good reasons and bad, what the public wanted affected the social mores and were reflected on the movie screen. Whatever the 1950s may have lacked, the American people were more sophisticated and confident than the Great Depression generation had been, and the movie audience for more realistic, cerebral, and artistic movie fare had grown. Two Catholic movie critics are featured: the convert, William H. Mooring, syndicated columnist for Tidings, the Los Angeles archdiocesan newspaper, and James W. Arnold, syndicated in the Indianapolis archdiocesan paper, Marquette University associate professor in journalism, and self-described movie nut. Mooring, the older man, was especially wary about the dangers of communism in the movies and in 1 real life in postwar World War II America, while Arnolds habit was to find reasons to praise the films of the 1960s and 1970s he reviewed. To illustrate the issues involved and the changes over time in the PCA and Legion of Decency rulings, a number of films are given extended discussion, among them, She Done Him Wrong, 1933, The Farmers Daughter, 1947, The Miracle, 1950, The Outlaw, 1943, The Streetcar Named Desire, 1951, The French Line, 1953, The Moon is Blue, 1953, Martin Luther, 1953, La Dolce Vita, 1960, The Pawnbroker, 1965, Bonnie and Clyde, 1967, and Midnight Cowboy, 1968. The appendices include discussions of Catholics and censorship in other media--books, the comics, political films, documentaries, television, religious films, and the stage. c. William Doherty, Ph.D., all rights reserved, 2019. 2 The Catholic Church Censors the Movies: The Production Code Administration, the Lord-Quigley Code, and the Legion of Decency Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under some omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences. C. S. Lewis It is almost a law of nature that censorship will always sooner or later make a fool of itself. Sean OFailain Something new under the Sun appeared in 1889 when the Thomas A. Edison laboratory produced a battery-operated box for viewing moving pictures. Patented in 1893, kinetoscopes were rapidly installed in arcades everywhere. Drop a penny in the slot, peep through the viewer, turn the crank to see a show of brief seconds up to a minute or so. In Indianapolis in January 1895, the Pettis Dry Goods Store (25-39 E. Washington Street in the 1916 City Directory) advertised five Edison Kinetoscopes (the wonder of the age), for 10 cents a view. A week later the Indianapolis Journal observed that the machines had created quite a sensation. By the end of the month persons who purchased something at Pettis could view for free; otherwise children paid five cents and adults ten.1 In 1896, Edison introduced the Vitascope, a machine for projecting pictures on a screen. Shown first publicly at a New York music hall, the audience--stunned at first, then spellbound, applauded loudly as two young blondes did an umbrella dance, . . . screamed in fright as the angry surf rolled toward them and laughed heartily when two comedians engaged in a burlesque boxing match.2 Moving pictures projected on screens in darkened rooms, like the peep shows it replaced, won immediate and immense popular approval. By 1910 some 10,000 movie theaters--Nickelodeons--drew 26 million people weekly; by 1927 it was 57 million; by 1930 movies with sound drew over 100 million a week. Something of the impact of the new medium is captured by President Woodrow Wilsons remark after a special White House showing of D.W. Griffiths 1915 twelve reel, two- and a half-hour racist masterpiece, Birth of a Nation.: It was like writing history with lightning. The N.A.A.C.P., the president of Harvard, Jane Addams of Hull House, and other 1 2 Indianapolis Journal, 6, 13, 27 January 1895. Paul F. Boller, Jr. and Ronald L. Davis, Hollywood Anecdotes (Ballantine Books: New York, 1987, 3,4. 3 liberals demurred. Fearing riots and racial upheaval, some cities suppressed the film. In Indianapolis, it played at the English Theater, the citys premier theatrical house on the Circle.3 The first movie theater in Indianapolis opened in a vacant storeroom on Washington Street near Delaware in 1906. Called the Bijou (Now Open. Always 5 Cents), it showed prize fighters, horse races, and the New York City fire department rushing to a blaze.4 By 1912 Indianapolis had 29 motion picture theaters; two years later it had 81. North Illinois Street, with five theaters in the 100 block, became known as Movie Lane. The Circle Theater, the citys first building constructed specifically for motion pictures, opened 30 August 1916, was considered at the time the most prestigious theater west of New York. The original board was a whos who of the Jewish community--A. L. Block (Blocks Department Store), president; Robert Lieber (son of the founder of the Lieber Company and later president of First National Pictures), vice-president; Meyer Efroymson (Real Silk, Inc.), treasurer; Arthur Strauss (Mens Clothing), Isadore Feibleman (Bamburger and Fiebleman law firm), and Morris Cohen.5 With the cost of admission for photo-plays in 1915 at five cents, an estimated four-fifths of the citys 275,000 residents were moviegoers. By the 1920s a survey of Indianapolis found over 200,000 moviegoers weekly in a city of 350,000. Of its sixty-four theaters, ten had a capacity of a thousand, one-third were downtown, with the Circle theater and the Murat as opulent as any in the country.6 *** At once an industry, art form, and entrancing entertainment, from the first movies were recognized as having a huge potential to affect social mores. In 1915 the Indiana Catholic asserted that There is no greater educator of the public in our day than the motion picture. It has covered almost every phase of life and imparted knowledge good and bad on a wholesale scale.7 By 1919, the bishops National Catholic Welfare Council (NCWC) saw the influence of motion pictures upon the lives of our people [as] greater than the combined influence of all our churches, schools, and ethical organizations.8 In 1929 the Jesuit, Daniel Lord, on the brink of exercising a decisive influence on what would be shown on the screen, observed that movies, the most popular of modern arts, appeals at once to every class [ital. orig.], mature, immature, developed, undeveloped, law abiding, criminal. Far more than newspapers, books, or 3 Gerald Mast, A Short History of the Movies (The Bobbs-Merrill Company: New York, 1971), 80-87. Anton Scherrer column, Indianapolis Times, 20 September 1949, motion picture file -1939, Indiana State Library. The Indianapolis Encyclopedia states that the Bijou was a converted vaudeville house. 5 For a discussion of early movie-going and theaters in Indianapolis, see Howard Caldwells paper read before the Indianapolis Literary Club, October 6, 1997, Indiana Historical Society. 4 6 Farnesday, et al., Sacred Circles, Public Squares, 26. 7 Indiana Catholic, 9 July 1915, 2. McGreevey, Catholic and American Freedom, 156. 8 4 plays, the mobility, popularity, accessibility, emotional appeal, vividness, straightforward presentation of fact in the film makes for more intimate contact with a larger audience and for greater emotional appeal. Hence the larger moral responsibilities of the motion pictures.9 More than any other expressive art form or popular entertainment, the motion picture has had to bear the continuous scrutiny of moral watchdogs.10 There was early proof of this: A New York play in 1896 had the romantic leads kiss at the end of the drama, and no moral outrage ensued. But when the Edison studio had the actors (John Rice and May Irwin) reprise the kiss on the big screen, their large, projected mouths meet[ing] in lascivious embrace, the moralists and reformers showered the local newspapers with letters and the local politicians with petitions.11 When and where the first censorship of moving pictures in the U.S. took place is not clear: One version has a U.S. senator from New Jersey was shocked by a kinetoscope of Carmencita in Her Famous Butterfly Dance at a resort parlor on 17 July 1894. He complained to the Newark mayor who ordered the peep show operator to discard the film or close his shop. Another version involves a minister in Atlantic City in 1896. Observing long lines of men waiting to get into a penny arcade, the clergyman discovered that the attraction was Doloritas Passion Dance. He took his objections to the mayor who banned it. A third source states that the movie was Dolorita in the Passion Dance, the year 1894, and the place the boardwalk in Atlantic City.12 That sex sells movies was established early on: A filmmaker inquired about the days receipts at one penny arcade and was told that the kinetoscope of a battleship won 25 viewers, Rip Van Winkle, 43 paying customers, ballet dancer, 105, and Girl Climbing Apple Tree, 365. The filmmaker concluded that we had better have some more of the Girl-Climbing-AppleTree kind.13 Early movies were often frank and lurid, with plots ranging from political corruption, the exploitation of immigrants and labor, to crime, violence, and sex. Moralists also feared the film industrys capacity to undermine American institutions and national icons by raising doubts about the status quo. Its influence on the young was particularly worrisome. Clergymen and social workers, policemen and politicians, womens clubs and civic organizations joined in accusing the movies of inciting young boys to 9 Gregory D. Black, The Catholic Crusade Against the Movies, 1940-1975, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, England, 1998), 247. 10 James M. Skinner, The Cross and the Cinema: The Legion of Decency and the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures, 1933-1970 (Praeger: Westport, Connecticut, 1993), 1. 11 Mast, Short History of Movies, 38. 12 The three sources, in order, are: Katz, Film Encyclopedia, 1165; Miller, Hollywood Censored, 24; Paul S. Boyer, Censorship, Encyclopedia of American Political History, Jack P. Greene, ed., vol. 1, 166. 13 Boller and Davis, Hollywood Anecdotes, 7. 5 crime by glorifying criminals, and of corrupting young women by romanticizing illicit love affairs.14 Since the silent film appealed especially to the lower classes, the non-English speaking immigrant, and the uneducated, it was essential that self-appointed moralists monitor and censor it. The teeming millions, already suspect in the eyes of the elite, had to be saved from their baser instincts and the likes of Cupids Barometer, An Old Mans Darling, Gaieties of Divorce, Beware, My Husband Comes, and The Bigamist.15 They had to be saved as well from the political radicalism prompted by such films as Capital vs. Labor, The Long Strike, The Girl Strike Leader, From the Submerged, and Lily of the Tenements. The 1913 drama Why showed workers pleading with an indifferent boss sitting beside a bag of gold, while children labored to provide the motive power on literal treadmills. The movie ends with protesters burning down the Woolworth Building, the film hand-painted in red to depict the flames; to certain minds, this was truly inflammatory fare.16 *** Censorship as the answer to policing behavior and morals, had the approval of both the Catholic and Protestant traditions since the Gutenberg revolutionCatholics with the sixteenth century Index Librorium Prohibitorum and Protestants through blue laws. Thanks to the Puritans in English America there was precedent for policing morals dating from colonial times. To go no further back than the Gilded Age, in 1873, after less than an hour of debate, Congress passed the Comstock Law, after Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, founded the previous year. The law authorized postal authorities to exclude from the mails books or materials seen as lewd, indecent, filthy, or obscene. The distribution of contraceptive devices as well as information on birth control and abortion fell under the ban. (In the late nineteenth century Protestant elites were worried about falling birth rates among the native-born and rising ones among immigrants. Physicians were interested in raising their status and closing out the competition from midwives.) Appointed special investigator by the post office with powers of arrest, for over forty years Comstock was a law unto himself, wielding an ax and carrying a rifle, traveling the country at public expense in pursuit of purveyors of suspect materials. At the end of his life Comstock estimated that he had caused the criminal conviction of enough people to fill a passenger train of sixty-one coaches. Birth control advocate Margaret Sanger alone was indicted eight times under the law. To fight Comstockery in the movies, in 1915 the Mutual Film Corporation argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that movies, like the press, were protected by the First Amendment. Writing for a unanimous court, Joseph McKenna, a Catholic, determined that the First Amendments protection of free 14 15 Black, Catholic Crusade, 6, 7. Skinner, The Cross and the Cinema, 1, 2. 16 Boller and Davis, Hollywood Anecdotes, 6; Vol. 3, 1823, Encyclopedia of Social Sciences. 181. 6 speech did not apply to movies for as a business pure and simple they were not part of the press nor organs of public opinion. Purely an entertainment, the court did not regard movies as a vehicle for ideas and, like the theater and the circus, they may be used for evil.17 One of the first films to come under the Mutual decision was Birth Control, a film narrated by Margaret Sanger banned in New York City. In 1907, Chicago was the first major city to enact a film censorship law, authorizing the police to deny a permit to any film judged immoral or obscene. Two policemen supervised a committee of political appointees--all women--which controlled film content in the Midwest. They could ban or cut a film for immorality and impose age limits. Chicagos board also had the unique power to cut or ban racially insulting material.18 Soon, a host of municipal and state censorship boards appeared and by 1925 over ninety cities and more than a dozen states had similar boards.19 What was forbidden differed widely: Chicago edited out bootlegging and firearms; Kansas vetoed drinking scenes; in Ohio only such films as are in the judgment and discretion of the board of censors of a moral, education or amusing and harmless character could be exhibited. Judging too many punches in a prize fight as neither moral, educational, amusing, nor harmless, Ohio limited the number of blows that could be shown. Memphis excised black performers (Lena Horne, Cab Calloway), and barred the Our Gang comedies for integrating black and white children in school.20 Maryland would not show poisonings (its chief censor was a druggist). In New York, at least in the movies, even an unsuccessful bribe could not get by the censors (for fear of giving elected officials ideas?) Pennsylvania routinely cut any reference to pregnancy, a woman could not even be shown knitting baby clothes; after all, The movies are patronized by thousands of children who believe that babies are brought by the stork, and it would be criminal to undeceive them.21 Strangely, given its overwhelming number of Protestant citizens, neither Indianapolis nor Indiana ever adopted a movie censorship law. In Indianapolis, general agreement existed between Catholic and Protestant spokesmen on the legitimacy of censoring motion pictures: In 1910, Joseph P. OMahony, then manager of the Indiana edition of the Catholic Columbian Record, supported film censorship because many movies (problem plays in miniature), dealt with the relation of the sexes, the temptations of illicit love, with bohemian life, . . . the wild West, with stage [coach] robbery and other evidences of vice and 17 Black, Catholic Crusade, 7, 8. Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 7; Miller, Hollywood Censored, 43. 19 Skinner, Cross and Cinema, 3. 20 Boller and Davis, Hollywood Anecdotes, 186. 21 Frank Miller, Censored Hollywood: Sex, Sin & Violence on Screen (Turner Publishing: Atlanta, 1994), 42. 18 7 crime. They are sadly in need of supervision and restraint.22 The Church Federation of Indianapolis, founded June 1912, favored movie censorship and claimed the endorsement of all the Protestant churches in the city. In 1913, it attacked theaters showing indecent movies and campaigned to stop all showings on Sunday, (a city ordinance dating from the 1870s banning Sunday theatrical performances was still on the books). While OMahony favored banning indecent films and even supported the establishment of a local censorship board, he drew the line against closing movie houses all day Sunday, as the Church Federation wished. He also opposed a 1913 bill to remove all legal obstacles to theaters on Sunday, and another in 1917 that would establish a board which could ban immoral, indecent, or licentious moving pictures and, like the 1913 bill, also permit showings before 2:00 p.m. The Sunday closing issue gave OMahony the opening to tweak Protestant churches (something he took great pleasure doing), for being so poorly attended as to wail over the prospect of losing still more of their congregation unless Sunday showings were outlawed. Blatantly contradicting his own desire for showings after 2:00 p.m. on Sundays (so Catholics could attend after Mass), he insisted that Catholics did not patronize the theater on Sundays anyway. The legislature should reject the bill and no Catholic should vote for it.23 The governor vetoed the 1917 version, winning OMahonys praise.24 Given Hollywoods sensational fare--marital infidelity, heroized crooks, murderers, and suicides-the Indianapolis archdiocesan newspaper complained that three-fourths of the novels put on the screen were on the Index and that the movies routinely burlesqued the Church. Yet Catholics--and everyone else, trooped to the pictures, a mania the newspaper dubbed, movieitis. Admitting that movies were one of the great inventions of the age, the Indiana Catholic insisted that effective movie censorship was needed and no child should attend movies more than once a fortnight.25 The reality was that salacious fare attracted the biggest audiences. In August 1918, OMahony complained of the adults only movies and the nude pictures advertising them on South Illinois Street. Yet in the absence of an ordinance creating a movie censorship board, such as Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York possessed, neither the police nor the mayor could be blamed.26 In 1919 OMahony was still pretending in print that Catholics would not be found at the movies on the Sabbath, but many non-Catholics, he gracelessly argued, would 22 Catholic Columbian-Record, [Columbus, Ohio], 6 May 1910, 4. Later that year, backed by five local Irish-Catholic businessmen, OMahony became the founding editor of the diocesan paper, the Indiana Catholic, A home journal devoted to the interests of the Catholic clergy and laity. (It became the Indiana Catholic and Record in 1915, and in 1960, the Criterion). 23 Indiana Catholic, 14 February 1913, 4. 24 Indiana Catholic and Record, 16 March 1917, 4. 25 Indiana Catholic, 10 September 1915, 4. 26 Indiana Catholic and Record, 30 August 1918, 4. 8 find far more edification at a good show than at services at which the name of God and his gospel is rarely heard.27 When the Indiana General Assembly again failed to pass a censorship bill in 1921, OMahony thought it a good thing, since most such laws were framed by busybodies and fanatics. Before supporting a censorship board, he would have to know who the censors were. He favored a system proposed by the American bishops National Catholic War Council (NCWC), and the [Protestant] Church Federation which placed on exhibitors the duty to expurgate from a film everything offensive to public morals. Pictures to be avoided were those in which unwholesome sex appeals, marital unfaithfulness, moral laxity, indecent dressing and undressing, crime, [and] disrespect for law, for religion and for plain morality, have been shamefully portrayed. It was up to the exhibitors to remove everything offensive to public morals; for failing to do so, the review board would hold the exhibitors license forfeit.28 The complexity of the issue rendered subsequent efforts to adopt legislation in 1923, 1925, and 1927 failures.29 Until fall 1919, the American bishops took no official notice of movies, neither condemning the industry nor supporting Protestant demands for federal regulation. That changed when their new National Catholic Welfare Council [NCWC] announced that if the moral content of films was not improved, it would support a blue law--no Sunday movies. Two years later the NCWCs motion picture department called on Catholics to support decent pictures and oppose those in which vice and crime are exploited, where law and patriotism and religion or its ministry are ridiculed, and where public morality is flouted.30 *** In light of Mutual v. Ohios denial, in 1915, that the cinema was protected by the First Amendment, censorship boards and insistent demands for movie entertainment fit for family viewing multiplied across the nation. Hollywoods answer the following year was industry-wide self-censorship--a thirteen-point program of the newly established National Association of the Motion Picture Industry (NAMPI), which producers were to follow. Widely ignored, Hollywood turned to the English film industry, which had established its own British Board of Film Censors (BBFC), in 1919. Having in view discouraging local government councils from independently censoring films, under a czar as chief censor, the BBFC 27 Indiana Catholic and Record, Good and Bad Motion Pictures, 31 January 1919, 4. IC&R, 4 March 1921. 29 Justin E. Walsh, The Centennial History of the Indiana General Assembly, 1816-1978 (Indiana Historical Bureau: Indianapolis, 1987), 292. Charles R. Morris, American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built Americas Most Powerful Church, (Random House, Inc., New York: 1997). 202. 30 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 20. 28 9 centralized the process of vetting movies and drew up a list of 22 reasons to cut or suppress films.31 The British board rated movies either U for universal audiences or A adult, not for children. Although it never developed a written code, the BBFC exercised considerable influence on American movies, especially in meeting its demands to cut and reshoot scenes to qualify for release in Great Britain. Even decades later, a 1938 American comedy, The Mad Miss Manton, showed a caretaker and his wife waking up in the same bed. The BBFC objected; to show it in England RKO had to darken the scene so that the actors could barely be seen. Prudence led U.S. producers to invent the Hollywood bed, twin beds with a single headboard, but the BBFC was unimpressed and forced the studio to reshoot scenes with properly separated beds at a cost to Columbia of $30,000.32 Two developments determined the timing of more effective movie censorship: The sense that the moral tone of society suffered after the Great War, 1914-1918, and that the decline was made manifest in the movies. Between 1918 and 1921, Cecil B. De Milles series of melodramas of passion and infidelity (Old Wives for New, We Cant Have Everything,1918; Dont Change Your Husband, For Better for Worse, Male and Female 1919, Why Change Your Wife? 1920, The Affairs of Anatel, 1921), constituted one mans research into the temptations warned against in the Sixth and Ninth commandments. In his sex comedies the wife kept her husbands affection only by beating the sexual allure of the other woman at her own game. Even De Milles later Bible epics featured bedrooms and bathtubs:33 In The King of Kings (1927), Mary Magdelane, clothed in little more than a headdress, orders her servants to harness my Zebras, and sets off by chariot to meet her Savior.34 In the opinion of one critic, his racy films flirt with naughtiness and sell conventionality; his religious films flirt with righteousness and sell lewdness.35 De Milles was far from the only game in town: His colleagues films included such shockers as Why Be Good?, Sinners in Silk, Women Who Give, Luring Lips, Her Purchase Price, etc. Self-censorship wasnt working. As bad as its lurid films was the film communitys disastrous reputation: In real life Mary Pickford, after a quickie Nevada divorce in 1920, three weeks later married Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., (he, having just shed his first spouse). Such behavior was at odds with lives as memorialized in the fan magazines and it did not help that Nevadas attorney-general tried to have Pickfords decree overturned, which would have made Americas Sweetheart a bigamist. Later that year scandal struck Pickford again as her sister-in31 Matthew Sweet, Inventing the Victorians, (St, Martins Press: New York, 2001), 35. (In the same way, the YMCA, settlement houses, the Salvation Army, and the Boy Scout movement also originated in England). 32 Miller, Hollywood Censorship, 33. 33 Boller and Davis, Hollywood Anecdotes, 11; Moray, Hollywood Outsiders, 108; Katz, Film Encyclopedia, 1169. 34 New York Times, 15 April 2004. 35 Mast, Short History of Films, 139. 10 law committed suicide in Paris. The next year Charlie Chaplins first marriage (a girl of 16, he was 32) ended in divorce after only two years. Chaplin went on to major in young brides: a 16-year-old in 1924 at age 35; at age 44 with Paulette Goddard, 19, and age 54 to Oona ONeills 18. Then the story broke that Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, the popular comedy star, paid $100,000 in hush money to a Massachusetts district attorney after a wild party there in 1917. Far more ignominious was the charge months later that the obese Arbuckle had raped and caused the death of a young actress during a weekend orgy in San Francisco. After three stormy trials Arbuckle was acquitted, but his films were withdrawn, his career ruined. More bad publicity followed: in 1922, an unsolved murder of a film director (its malodorous details ended the careers of two actresses); separate suicides of an actor and an actress; and another actor committed to a sanatorium as a drug addict.36 Having become conflated with Sodom and Gomorrah, with NAAMPI a failure, in 1921 the movie moguls tried again with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). The MPPDAs ABC ratings were simplicity itself: A, unobjectionable for all; B, objectionable in part for all, and C, condemned. Following baseballs example after the 1919 Black Sox scandal, for their czar Hollywood lured Indianas Will H. Hays, in 1922. A power in the national Republican Party, Postmaster General, Presbyterian elder, and inveterate joiner of fraternal societies. At a salary of $100,000, his task was to show that the industry could regulate itself, thereby fending off local censorship boards and federal regulation. Clean up the movies, Mr. Hays, called the Indiana Catholic and Record.37 Hays began by inserting a clause in actors contracts permitting studios to cancel for even a hint of moral turpitude. Only Rin Tin Tins contract was said to lack the clause, (presumably, Rinny could fool around with Lassie and Asta ad libitum). Hays also produced a Doom Book, a blacklist of over a hundred actors unfit for the screen because of drug addiction, illicit sex, and sundry other disreputable behaviors. To deal with producers, the key to any real control, Hays negotiated a gentlemens agreement of thirteen-points dealing with sex and crime, which grew in 1927 to twenty-five donts and be carefuls drawn from the most common red flags of the censorship boards: Among the donts were prohibitions against profanity, nudity, narcotics, prostitution, venereal disease, miscegenation, child birth scenes, ridicule of the clergy or willful offense of any nation, race, or creed. The be carefuls covered treatment of the flag, arson, use of guns, tuition in crime methods, (how to crack a safe, etc.), hangings and electrocutions, human or animal brandings, sympathy for criminals, surgical operations, drug use, lustful kissing, rape. Cried one foreign director after reading the list, What a marvelous scenario!38 Violators 36 Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America (Random House: New York, 1975), 78, 79. 37 IC&R, 20 January 1922, 4. Boller and Davis, Hollywood Anecdotes, 183. 38 11 were threatened with expulsion from the organization. The results did not quiet the moralists because the MPDDAs producers jury of three usually passed contested films and by January 1930, only one in five movies were being reviewed at all. The movie men, seeing no need to compromise with the censors, simply ignored the donts and be carefuls. The result, as Herman Mankiewicz in 1926 explained Hollywood scriptwriting to journalist Ben Hecht, the hero, as well as the heroine, has to be a virgin. The villain can lay anybody he wants, have as much fun as he wants cheating and stealing, getting rich and whipping the servants. But you have to shoot him in the end. Hence, nothing prevented Metro Goldwyn Mayer [MGM] from distributing The Callahans and the Murphys, in 1927. Based on a series of short stories by Kathleen Norris, this silent film was intended as a Romeo-Juliet comedy of two feuding slum families.39 Set in an urban tenement lacking indoor plumbing (made clear by shots of a chamber pot), amid crucifixes, references to St. Patrick, multiple signings of the Cross, and a Callahan daughter having the child of a Murphy son, the eponymous families related to each other in a manner suggestive of Finnegans Wake, with a donnybrook and the arrival of paddy wagons and ambulances. The son, a bootlegger, disappears; the daughter gives birth in the country, then clandestinely places the infant at her mothers door. Mother Callahan unknowingly adopts the foundling; (Shell discover in the recut version that the infants legit after all, the couple having married secretly). At the St. Patricks Day picnic the intoxicated matriarchs (Marie Dressler as Mrs. Callahan and Polly Moran as Mrs. Murphy) pour beer on each other. Mrs. Callahan: This stuff makes me see double and feel single. Clearly, the film gave willful offense to a nation, race or creed, and failed to avoid putting any nations religion, history, etc., in an unfavorable light, let alone respecting the admonishment to show good taste and eliminate vulgarity. The critics were amused, but not the Emerald Isle set. This was the 1920s, the decade of the Klan, immigration restriction, and the nativist revival. Together they had the effect of increasing selfconsciousness and militancy among targeted communities, not least the Irish. 40 The bishops National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) took umbrage in that the film attributed to Irish-Catholics the vices of drunkenness, immorality and many violations of the law. The National Catholic mens and womens groups were called on all over the country to protest to local managers against this film.41 The Hibernians, the Knights of Columbus, and other Irish organizations responded. The Indiana Catholic and Record (IC&R), attacked the movie as a distortion of the novel and of having a deliberate purpose to travesty the Irish people and to discredit the Catholic Faith. On a darker note, editor OMahony lamented 39 John Douglas Eames, The MGM Story (Crown Publishers: New York, 1975), 41. Frank R. Walsh, The Callahans and the Murphys; a case study of Irish-American and Catholic Church Censorship, Historical Journal of Film, Radio & Television, 1990, vol. 10. 40 41 America (27 August 1927), 475. 12 that the film contributed to the sort of bigotry and hatred that the Irish, as well as the race which profits from this nastiness, [a reference to the Jews who headed the studios], have suffered at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan . . . .42 Real anti-Semitism erupted when a Jewish judge in New York City, faced with an Irish-Americans refusal to pay a fine for rioting against the film, was handcuffed to a Negro and sent to jail. Taken as the ultimate insult, Irish charges against Hollywoods Jewish Trust erupted and aspersions were cast on the Rebeccas and Marthas of Jewish families. In the original version, Mother Callahan worries, What if the baby is a Black Protestant? What if its a Jew? Lifting the diaper, smiling, It aint a Jew Baby.43 Flesh and blood Irish-Catholics imitated art by rioting, pelting the screens with rotten produce, ink, acid, rocks--even tear gas at one theater. City officials, police departments, and censor boards across the country pleaded with MGM to withdraw the picture and pressured local theaters not to screen it. MGM toned down its vulgarity in re-release, but nothing satisfied the critics and The Callahans and the Murphys was finally withdrawn, November 1927. The industry learned: In future, Hollywood would flee such risible Irish stereotypes for the manly priest, the genial cop, the feisty colleen. *** When it came to what could be read or said, no other institution could claim the centuries of experience of the Catholic Church. The New Catholic Encyclopedia traces the roots of ecclesiastical censorship to the late second century when the decisions about which books to include in the New Testament were made. From the 5th to the 16th century many decrees banned particular texts, but it was after the Gutenberg revolution and the ensuing Protestant Reformation that Pope Paul IV (1555-1559), entrusted the Congregation of the Index with the task of drawing up a complete catalog of forbidden books. Published in 1559, it was the first document to carry the title Index Librum Prohibitorum. For the next four hundred years, in the absence of special permission, Catholics were forbidden to read listed books under pain of excommunication. While Protestant reformers had also banned books, by the 19th century the Index had become a source of ridicule and an embarrassment. The list would grow to 5,000 titles and include works by Descartes, Frances Bacon, Pascal, Voltaire, Gibbon, Hugo, Zola--books which in some way defended heresy or schism, undermined religion or morality, attacked the hierarchy, interfered with discipline, or were obscene or lascivious.44 The real work of censorship was done by the Holy Office of the Inquisition; in theory the most powerful of Vatican congregations, in 1908 the name was changed to Congregation of the Holy Office (today, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). Although Benedict XV abolished the Congregation of the Index in 1917, the 42 Indiana Catholic and Record, 29 July, 18 November 1927, 4. 43 Walsh, Callahans and the Murphys. Apparently, the child had been circumcised. 44 IC&R, 19 January 1951, 4. 13 list of prohibited books remained.45 (The last edition of the Index appeared in 1948 and, right up to the Second Vatican Council, 1962-1965, it was used to silence such twentieth century Church notables as Yves Congar and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.) When it came to censoring motion pictures, the grounds for condemning a book--contrary to faith or morals or dangerous to the souls of the faithful--could be readily extended to cover the new medium. Indeed, movies were more dangerous than books: their cheapness excluded almost no one (only a nickel) their silence put the deaf on an equal footing with the hearing (even the illiterate could follow well enough), their novelty gave the cinema enormous popularity (advertised as coming attractions), and they left nothing to the imagination (Dolorita in Her Passion Dance). Drawing upon centuries of experience, the Church would be a confident censor. Both the bishops and IFCA leaders opposed national or state government censorship, as did the Jesuits America magazine, albeit for different reasons: America condemned the meddlesome Matties and the Paul Prys who wanted government involvement because it distorted the Constitution to permit government censorship of what, in itself, is a legitimate form of expressing an opinion. Suiting its arguments to its desire, America argued that political censorship (meaning by governmental bodies) was rarely effective, uncertain, too subject to corruption, and dangerous to allow government to interfere in human relations which normally do not concern it.46 For the bishops, government involvement would preclude the Churchs role in determining what films could be shown, denying the Church the power it sought. The drive to clean up the film industry would not go away. The continuing attacks on movie sex and violence by the Church and others was one reason. The expense of cutting and pasting films to satisfy different censorship boards was another. Sound, which came to the movies in 1927 with the parttalkie Jazz Singer, brought its own financial cost. The stock market crash of 1929 was worrying; would movies be Depression-proof? As the Roaring Twenties neared its end a number of factors conspired to bring Hollywood and the Catholic Church into something like partnership. In some ways, the affinity was perfectly natural: The Church regarded the moves as lawful entertainment, even on Sunday afternoons. After all, the Church did not condemn liquor out of hand, or card playing, or dancing, only their abuse. Catholics, twenty million strong, were concentrated in cities, the biggest market for films, and the laity liked them, as did most priests. Most important to the movie moguls was Catholicisms centralization--the vaunted discipline and unity of a hierarchical church blessed with an obedient laity. It meant that if the 45 Owen Chadwick, A History of the Popes, 1830-1914, Oxford University Press: New York, 1998), 370, 371. 46 America (November 15, 1930), 132; (April 11, 1931), 7. 14 Church supported Hollywood and a new code, it could deliver protection from other critics and fend off government regulation. Moreover, given the concentration of the movie industry in such few hands, the ideal of producing a state of mind where the citizen of his own accord obeys the moral law seemed possible. For these reasons, an alliance between the hierarchy and Hollywood promised to be effective and mutually beneficial.47 As it happened, certain Catholics were ideally circumstanced to influence the movie industry. Of long-term significance to the Churchs role in rating movies was the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae (IFCA). Beginning in 1922, the women of the IFCA, with the help of volunteers from Catholic high schools and colleges, reviewed 11,000 films (nearly every film released in the United States-features, foreign films, documentaries, short subjects). Its white list rated artistic quality, suitability for Catholic school audiences, and identified films for mature audiences (no film with divorce could be recommended).48 With Let Your Theater Ticket Be Your Ballot for Better Pictures as its slogan, the IFCA list of endorsed motion pictures was broadcast over ten radio stations and carried in about two dozen diocesan papers. On average, four women of its eighty previewers evaluated a film by majority vote. Understanding that to point out an evil thing is to attract new audiences to it, it rated acceptable films as fair, good, very good, or excellent, and ignored the rest. The monthly list went to Protestant ministers, YMCAs, Knight of Columbus, public libraries, churches, and the film industry itself. Reviews of bad films were sent to the companies, directors, and studios involved. It was not unusual for the company to make changes--new title, episodes cut, scenarios modified--to gain IFCA endorsement. While the IFCA prided itself on not taking money from the industry, the Motion Picture Producers and Directors Association (MPPDA), printed the IFCAs white lists and sent them out as good cheap advertising.49 The IFCA womens experience and availability would be crucial were the Church and the industry ally. Even more important, as chance would have it, the stock market crash of 1929 found a number of film companies under the control of Halsey, Stuart and Company of Chicago. Financial advisor and frequent lunch companion of George Cardinal Mundelein, the citys archbishop, it was Mundelein who suggested that Halsey, Stuart pressure the film companies to adopt a new code. The publisher of the Motion Picture Herald, the industrys leading trade paper, Martin J. Quigley (a son a Jesuit), asked only 47 A Code for Motion Pictures, America (April 19, 1930), 32, 33. 48 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 32. 49 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 34, 51; Black, Catholic Crusade, 10. Edward S. Schwegler, Whats Next, Legion of Decency? Commonweal (November 16, 1934), 84-86; America (March 15, 1930), 559, 560; (November 15, 1930), 133. 15 that films provide wholesome family entertainment, avoid social commentary as well as nudity and any glorification of crime. Only a strict code could make that happen. To provide such a code, Quigley put Hays in touch with Fr. Daniel A. Lord, S.J., a St. Louis University professor, playwright, pamphleteer, theologian, and a consultant on 1927s King of Kings.50 Quigley and Chicagos Fr. FitzGeorge Dinneen, S.J., the leading figure on the Chicago film board (dominated by Catholics), had begun to develop a code. In 1930, Fr. Lord took their notes, with contributions from Wilfred Parsons, S.J., (an old friend of Quigleys and editor of America), and Hays donts and be carefuls, and in three days wrote the Lord-Quigley Code.51 The Codes central principle was that while primarily entertainment, movies could either improve or degrade the audience. Its basic rule was that no picture shall be produced that lowers the moral standards of those who view it. To justify the Church right to censor, Fr. Lord naturally turned to Aquinas, for whom natural law is nothing other than the participation of eternal law in rational creatures. The imprint of Gods providential plan on mans natural reason [which has] written in the hearts of all mankind the greater underlying principles of right and justice dictated by conscience. Humans discover the natural law by employing right reason, and thus discover how to act morally. It does not mean, however, that the dictates of ones conscience is the final arbiter for as the custodian of divine revelation the guidance of the Church is necessary for an adequate knowledge of the natural law. The rational adult knows right from wrong pretty well and when there are difficulties the Church could be depended on to show the way. Knowing the truth means that the Church has an obligation to tell everyone and see that evil is shunned, for immortal souls are at stake.52 Q.E.D. None of the men involved in shaping the Code was nave: They understood that without sex and crime pictures, there wouldnt be enough patrons to sustain a movie business. The trick was to give fairly wide leeway in depicting behavior considered immoral by traditional standards--adultery or murder, for example--so long as some elements of good in the story balanced what the code defined as evil.53 Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin. Sin and evil are valid subjects of drama, but evil must not be alluring, nor evil confused with good. Crime need not always be punished, as long as the audience is made to know that it is wrong. The movies should not show the courts as unjust nor provide training in crime methods (how to crack a safe, 50 Morris, American Catholics, 205, credits Quigley with being the moving force behind the Code and notes that he wrote the first draft of Vigilanti Cura, 1936. 51 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 54-65. 52 New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 10 (The Gale Group: Farmington Hils, Michigan), 179. Mary E. Hull, Censorship in America (ABC-Clio: Santa Barbara, California, 1999). 53 Sklar, Movie-Made America, 173, 174. 16 hiding machine guns in violin cases), and illegal drug traffic was never to be presented. Clergymen were not to be used in comedy, as villains, or unpleasant persons. Used reverently, you could say God, Lord, and Jesus, but not as pointed profanity; you could not you say hell, S.O.B, or damn. Since nations and peoples were not to be ridiculed, you could not use insulting terms for blacks, Jews, Italians, or any other group. (Despite the rule, blacks were regularly lampooned in movies of the thirties and forties.) Also impermissible was divorce as a solution to marriage breakdown, adultery as acceptable behavior when divorce was not possible, nor birth control, euthanasia, or suicide to end unendurable pain. Repellent subjects--hangings or electrocutions, third-degree methods, brutality, branding of people or animals, apparent cruelty to children or animals, prostitution, surgical operations--should not offend good taste. (How to demonstrate good taste by showing apparent cruelty to children is a poser. Long-time MPAA staffer, Jack Vizzard, had an interesting explanation for the Codes greater emphasis on sex rather than violence by pointing out that to the Irish [the American Churchs most influential ethnic group by far] violence was not necessarily connected with the debasing of human life, but rather frequently a sign of manliness. Irish culture was infected with Jansenism, which dreaded sex as being identified with the darker forces, but which did not fear brutality, since this was not as catching and it contained its own remedy in that it hurt.54 Put simply, fighting was the proof of ones manhood.) The Codes longest section dealt with sex, with the sanctity of marriage the rule. Low forms of sex relationships were not to be inferred as the common or accepted thing. Thus, adultery was not to be explicitly treated, or justified, or attractively presented; scenes of passion should not stimulate the lower and baser element; seduction and rape can never [be] more than suggested; sex perversion (homosexuality), was never to be shown, nor white slavery, nor miscegenation (because immoral);55 Sex hygiene (including references to contraception or venereal disease), childbirth or exposure of childrens sex organs were prohibited. Impure love must not be made attractive or a subject of comedy, or arouse passion, or made to seem permissible. Nudity is never permitted, and brothels also ruled out. Locations dealt entirely with bedrooms and, in effect, established the movie custom of twin beds for married couples. (The Code did not dictate twin beds for married couples nor place time limits on kisses, but the easiest way to avoid problems were to employ both.) 54 Vizzard, See No Evil, 129, 130. Both the PCA and the Legion of Decency regarded miscegenation as immoral; the latter opposed the 1949 film Pinky on that ground. 55 17 Enthused Hays, the Code was The very thing I was looking for. It will ensure respect for law, respect for every religion, respect for every race, and respect for every nation.56 The heads of the studios duly ratified it, March 1930. Its Catholic provenance was hidden; for example, America magazines statement that Mr. Hays was very instrumental in winning adoption for the Code, we are told, and his own organization gave it to the public, was deliberately misleading. Fr. Parsons knew full well the details of the Codes origin, as did Cardinal Mundelein, who admitted to being intimately acquainted with the Code . . . . Editor OMahony at the Indiana Catholic and Record was also probably aware of the Churchs role yet kept up the pretense by praising Hays for telling movie makers to clean up the cinema. It seems we are in for a revolution in the movies and talkies--if Mr. Hays commandments are to be kept. Ironically, hiding its Catholic source fooled some Catholic publications into attacking the Code for being insufficiently strict.57 In fact, until 1934 the Production Code was ignored by the studios and weakly enforced by the Hays Office. During this lackadaisical enforcement period MGM released Red Headed Woman, 1932; it had the blond Jean Harlow in a red wig as gold digger, blackmailer, and marriage wrecker; she could shoot a lover and still end up in Paris marrying a rich, aging Frenchman with a Rolls Royce.58 Under the Code, immorality was not supposed to prosper the immoralist. A major effort to enlist Catholic opinion makers to support the Code was launched. The Jesuits America magazine had the highest hopes for success if the Catholic molders of public opinion, from whom the world has come to expect leadership got behind it.59 One such leader was yet another IrishCatholic, Joseph Ignatius Breen. A soldier enlisted in the Church militant, Breen had headed press relations for the extraordinarily successful 1926 Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. While employed by Quigley in New York, Will Hays hired him in 1931 as public relations consultant to sell the Code. An energetic man, Breen contacted three-fourths of the Catholic publications in the U.S.60 Shifted to Hollywood, fall 1933, he handled the MPPDAs public relations and became Hays assistant in charge of censoring films and scripts. Stung by the arrogance of the movie moguls, the pugnacious Breen was ready to enlist the power of the Church to bring the industry to heel. As politically conservative and 56 Hollywood Censured: Movies, Morality and the Hollywood Production Code (WGBH, Educational Foundation, 1999. 57 IC&R, 4 April 1930, 4. See also the summary of Americas editor, Fr. Parson. America (April 19, 1930), 32, 33; Mary Hull, Censorship in America (ABC-Clio: Santa Barbara, California, 1999), 129-140. 58 Thomas Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. 59 60 America (April 19, 1930), 32, 33; (November 15, 1930), 132. Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 63. 18 devoutly Catholic as Quigley, Breen would prove to be the key censor of the movies. In the Production Code Administrations first fifteen months it reviewed 1,275 scripts, watched 1,440 screenings, held 1,812 consultations, and produced more than 6,000 corrective notes and comments. 61 That Breens appointment coincided with the depths of the Great Depression complicated his job. At the high point of 1920s, weekly movie attendance, which had reached 100 million, fell to 40 million in 1933, then leveled off at around 60 million a week. Close to one-third of the movie houses, (5,000 of 16,000), closed their doors.62 With receipts down, after 1930 the studios turned to crime and fallen women to lure audiences. Among the gangster films destined to be classics were Little Caesar, one of nine crime films released in 1930; in 1931 there were 26, among them The Public Enemy, (the scene where Mae Clark gets a grapefruit face rub from James Cagney was cut in Ohio and Maryland--the objection was not brutality to women, but that both actors were in pajamas), and Scarface, 1932, one of 28 gangster films that year.63 Initially, the Lord-Quigley Code had some effect; for example, adding a prologue condemning gangsters and changing the ending of Scarface, starring Paul Muni: In the original, Muni dies courageously; a second version has him begging to live; in the third iteration, he is condemned after a trial and his execution is shown, to drive home the moral that crime does not pay, as the Code required. In I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, however, also 1932, Muni is an unemployed war veteran implicated in a robbery. Unjustly sentenced to hard labor in a southern state, he escapes and prospers as an engineer, but is tricked back into chains by a false promise of early release. Thus betrayed, he escapes and lives on the run. Asked by the woman he loves how he survives, in the movies last line he answers, contrary to the Code, I steal. The villain is the state and the Muni character has all the sympathy of the audience. In these and other ways, the Code was ignored by the industry in the years 1930-1934. If a producer refused to make demanded cuts, the matter was appealed to a revolving group of three producers acting as a jury. Of the ten films the reviewers refused to pass, the producers jury overturned all ten.64 As for fallen women, there was Mae West. Credited with introducing the shimmy to Broadway in 1918, her 1925 play dealing with homosexuality, Drag, could not gain a booking. In 1927 she was arrested while performing in a play titled, Sex, a bildungsroman of a prostitutes rise from the gutter to 61 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 137. 62 63 Doherty Pre-code Hollywood, 28; Skinner, Cross and Cinema, 16. Black, Catholic Crusade, 16. 64 Miller, Hollywood Censorship, 53. 19 high society, complete with gunplay, knockout drops, a jewel robbery, bribery, an offstage suicide, and blackmail. The court found Mae guilty of indecency, fined her $500, and sentenced her to ten days in the workhouse on Welfare Island. The warden, a bon vivant, transferred her to his house and the two boated over to Manhattan in the evenings for the nightlife.65 The following year her new play, Pleasure Man, was closed by the police after two performances and the cast arrested for public immorality. Fortunately, Mae did not have an acting role.66 Her great hit, Diamond Lil, concerning sex and crime in the Bowery, ran nine months in New York and then successfully toured the country. When Mae West left Broadway for Hollywood in 1932, age forty, the industry knew what it was getting. In her first film, a cameo role, a hatcheck girl rhapsodized over her jewelry: Goodness, what lovely diamonds! In one of many lines she made classic, Mae quips, Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie. Her 1933 film She Done Him Wrong produced a cascade of sexual innuendo and off-color references: On meeting Cary Grant she asks, Are you packin a rod or are you just glad to see me? and the immortal line, Why dont you come up some time n see me. As Grant stares, she adds Aw, you can be had. Grant asks if she hasnt ever met a man who could make her happy; Sure, lots of times. Later she remarks, When women go wrong, men go right after them. In the picture she sings A Guy What Takes His Time (Im a fast movin girl who likes them slow/Got no use for fancy drivin/Want to see a guy arrivin in low). Another song was I Wonder Where My Easy Riders Gone? (easy rider meaning pimp and ride slang for sexual intercourse). Other Mae Westisms: Its better to be looked over than overlooked; its not the men in my life that counts; its the life in my men; and When Im good, Im very good. But when Im bad, Im better.67 Morality aside, the economics were clear: She Done Him Wrong, which cost about $200,000 to make, grossed $2 million in the U.S. and another $1 million abroad, making West an immediate box office favorite.68 The chief censor in 1933, Joseph Wingate, realized that some would object to its general low tone, but he did not. Mae West, held Wingate, was a comic satirist poking fun at the small, narrow, and picayunish people. Just as a preview audience had enjoyed it, so did secular critics who praised the movie for its honesty and lovable vulgarity. When Fr. Lord went to Hollywood and saw She Done Him Wrong he was horrified, writing to Hays that he had written the Code expressly to make such a film impossible.69 65 Emily Wortis Leider, Becoming Mae West (Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York, 1997), 136. New York Times, 14 February 2004, A 29. 67 Skinner, Cross and Cinema, 16; Boller and Davis, Hollywood Anecdotes, 184, 185, 212. Sklar, MovieMade America, 185. 68 Miller, Hollywood Censored, 73, 74. 69 Black, Catholic Crusade, 17. 66 20 Fr. Lord proved the better prophet than Mr. Wingate as criticism of Hollywood erupted: A 1933 study, Our Movie-Made Children, sponsored by a pro-censorship organization, blamed the movies for leading children to delinquency, corrupting their values, and disrupting their sleep.70 In Indiana, the Episcopalians, a Baptist State Convention, and the Methodist Episcopal Church attacked motion pictures as, for the most part, un-Christian, un-American, and a menace to our social and moral life. One Sunday in fall 1934, the states Protestant ministers joined together to alert their congregations to the evils emanating from Hollywood.71 In 1932 and 1933, Variety reported that 352 of 440 movies had some sex slant, with 145 having questionable sequences, and 44 being critically sexual. 72 The Indiana Catholic and Record, then edited by a board of ten priests, saw movies as making their greatest appeal to those who want filth, as the moral value of most motion pictures is nil.73 Despite a code written by a priest, the movies remained largely occasions of sin. The IC&R blamed the laity for patronage of bad films; they will not act as a unit.74 As a good Catholic and a good company man, Breen had the idea to pressure the major banks in California and New York to stop underwriting films the Church and others found objectionable. To drive the threat home, a scripted dinner meeting of Hays and his staff with the studio heads took place in August 1933, where a prominent lawyer with industry ties read the riot act to the movie executives. Conflating them with communists and anarchists, he accused them of ingratitude and disloyalty to the country, reminded them of Nazi success in Germany, (Hitler had become Germanys chancellor the previous January), and threatened that if the Catholic Church were to publicly chastise the industry, their box-office receipts might be the least of their worries. According to Breen, only an independent producer and the head of United Artists resisted the message, calling the bishops narrow-minded bigots, and stated he would continue to make the kind of pictures the pubic wanted to see. 75 It needs to be said that an important part of the Catholicisms animus against Hollywood was its thinly veiled anti-Semitism that charged the moral deficiencies of the movies to the un-Christian Jews 70 71 Miller, Hollywood Censored, 76. Madison, Tradition and Change, 300. 72 Doherty, Pre-code Hollywood, 125. 73 IC&R, 20 January 1933, 4 . 74 Indiana Catholic and Record, 7 July 1933, 4. 75 Frank Walsh, Sin and Censorship: The Catholic Church and the Motion Picture Industry, (Yale University Press: New Haven, Connecticut), 84, 85. 21 who were once again poisoning the wells of a Christian nation.76 While Hays himself was able to use the Code to keep Fr. Charles Coughlin, Detroits radio priest, from indicting Jewish studio heads for immoral films, Los Angeles Archbishop John J. Cantwells attacks on the movie industry extended to its Jewish leaders. In an article OMahony published in the IC&R, the Irish-born Cantwell, (founder of the Catholic Motion Picture Actors Guild of America, in 1923), bluntly asserted that the responsibility for the debauchery of the youth of the land lay with the seven of the eight major companies under Jewish influence (the eighth was the Nebraska Methodist, Darryl F. Zanuck. In Cantwells calculation, even one hour of watching an evil film nullifies years of careful training on the part of the Church, the school, the home. In a later article timed for the Legion of Decency campaign, Priests and the Motion Picture Industry, Cantwell charged that the Jewish executives could keep the screen free from offensiveness, but that seventy-five percent of the writers they hired were pagans from the Broadway stage.77 The implication was that Jews and New Yorkers, and especially Jewish New Yorkers, could not represent a moral America. Like Cantwell, Breens hostility to Hollywood was rooted in a streak of puritanism saturated with a strong strain of anti-Semitism founded on the notion of Jewish deicide and the supposed punishment of having to wander the world lacking their own country. Breen went further, however, sprinkling his correspondence with anti-Semitic statements and insults, not least the K word; Hollywood was a den of iniquity filled with perverts which he blamed on lousy Jews . . . 95 percent of whom are Eastern Jews, the scum of the earth . . . whose only standard is the box office. Members of the hierarchy, priests, and others who received such missives, many of whom shared Breens anti-Semitism, made no protest.78 (In defense, the film scholar Thomas Doherty praised Breens hard work and talent, noting that anti-Semitic remarks disappeared from his correspondence after the Nuremberg Laws were adopted in September 1935, and that Breen also took out a mortgage on his home to help Sam Spiegel at a time of the latters financial difficulties.)79 Anti-Semitism is a Christian staple, but not incurable: an interesting example of the latter is the young Jack Vizzard. Having spent sixteen long sequestered years, twelve of them with the Jesuits, he became a perfectly programmed mechanism who imagines himself a St. George slaying evil. Fleeing casuistries he was coming to despise, in 1943 he left the seminary without ordination to go right into the arms of what he was trying to escape--enforcing the Code. In his 1970 memoir Vizzard mocks his mindset 76 Mast, Short History, 130; Originally published in Ecclesiastical Review, Cantwells article appeared in the IC&R in two parts: 18 May 1934, 4; 22 May 1934, 4. 77 Ecclesiastical Review 90 (Feb 1934), 136-146. Indiana Catholic and Record, 15 June 1934, 1,7. 78 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, chapter 4, Disillusion. 79 Doherty, Pre-code Hollywood, 98, 327-331; selfstyled.blogspot.com, has an extended discussion of Breen et al. and anti-Semitism (accessed 15 September 2018). 22 of those years in which Hollywood was the symbol of sin and entanglement in things carnal, with himself rushing out of the theological hills to save the world from those goddamned Jews. The Jews were the deceivers who presented the delights of the world, a world destined to be transitory and therefore a great snare. Over time, the fact of the Holocaust, the Second Vatican Council, and the gift of the Jews to me, from having lived among them so long, saved Vizzard from a childs world, a closed world, to one not fixed and absolute, but in flux.80 Believing themselves duped by Hollywood, Breen, in conference with Quigley and the bishops, hit upon the strategy of using the Church to enforce a strict code on the industry. Their weapon, a Legion of Decency, a pressure group which began to take shape in October 1933, with Romes appointment of a new apostolic delegate to the U. S., the Most Reverend Amleto Giovanni Cicognani. In his first public statement, (a speech to the National Conference of Catholic Charities in New York, edited and revised by Quigley and Breen), Cicognani indicted the movie industrys incalculable influence for evil. What a massacre of innocent youth is taking place hour by hour! How shall the crimes that have their direct source in motion pictures be measured? Hence God, the Pope, the bishops and the priests summoned the laity to a united front and vigorous campaign for the purification of the cinema, which has become a deadly menace to morals.81 Thus prompted, at their annual November meeting the bishops formed the Episcopal Committee on Motion Pictures (ECMP) chaired by Cincinnati Archbishop, John T. McNicholas. Soon, the formation of a national Legion of Decency was announced to deal with the pest hole that infects the entire country with its obscene and lascivious moving pictures. It would arouse the laity to avoid and oppose immoral motion pictures.82 The following March, McNicholas launched a pledge campaign in his archdiocese, with the laity signing statements in duplicate, keeping one copy for themselves and sending the other to the chancery. The Legion was formally established, 11 April 1934, and with the ECMPs approval, pledge sheets were distributed nationwide.83 As evidence of the need of the Legion, in May 1934 the Detroit Legion of Decency produced a list of 63 condemned films, 43 of which had been passed by the industrys toothless Studio Relations Committee.84 80 Jack Vizzard, See No Evil: Life Inside a Hollywood Censor, (Simon and Shuster: New York, 1970), 13- 21, passim. 81 Thomas Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 19301934, (Columbia University Press: New York, 1999), 320; Skinner, Cross and Cinema, 34. 82 Miller, Hollywood Censorship, 79. 83 Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood, 320; Skinner, Cross and Cinema, 57. 84 Miller, Hollywood Censorship, 82. 23 In June, the four ECMP bishops met at Archbishop McNicholas home with Breen and Quigley representing the movie industry. Interrogated closely by the bishops, Breen offered the producers a plan for self-censorship of the moral content of films and disclosed new teeth in the Production Code, among them the threat of $25,000 fine for films released without the PCA Seal.85 As a reminder that the movies were a business, amendments to the Code gave the financiers in New York the last wordno Seal, no loan. In the August issue of the Ecclesiastical Review and in a September radio address over the NBC network, McNicholas kept the pressure on: Practically speaking, people must have amusement, and the motion picture is the chief amusement of millions of our people, and especially the poor. At the same time, with films incalculable influence for good or ill, the Legion of Decency makes one demand only, clean pictures, clean speech, and wholesome recreation for the masses . . . .86 Circumstances lent power to the Churchs arm: Early optimism that the movie industry was depression-proof had evaporated. With the Legion in the field, the prospect of 20 million Catholics withdrawing their patronage, concentrated as they were in the major cities of the Midwest and Northeast (where the studios owned the first-run houses), meant disaster. Bishops pastorals inveighed, priests harangued, and the laity marshalled to boycott indecent movies and the theaters which showed them. Echoed in the Catholic press and nearly a hundred diocesan newspapers, this was a serious menace to revenues. Nor was it an idle one: In a letter to be read at all the Masses, in May 1934, In Philadelphia, Cardinal Dennis J. Dougherty, always one to go his own way, persuaded that three-fourths of films dealt with sex and crime, and eschewing any distinction between decent and indecent movies, issued a positive command to his 823,000 parishioners, binding all in conscience under the pain of sin, to boycott all movies houses in the diocese:87 Philadelphias theater receipts immediately fell forty percent.88 The Motion Picture Producers and Directors Association (MPPDA), (after 1945 and still in 2019, known as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), agreed to the new system in July 1934, ending the period known afterwards as Pre-code Hollywood, 1930-1934. Only weeks after the bishops announced their intentions for the Legion, Hays named Breen head of the new Production Code Administration. The PCA would issue a seal of approval to films that satisfied the Code; no member 85 Morris, American Catholic, 204. 86 Mosaic of a Bishop: addresses, sermons, and correspondence of Archbishop John T. McNicholas (St. Anthony Guild Press: Paterson, New Jersey, 1957), 173-178. 87 Indiana Catholic and Record, 11 Jan 1935, 1; Morris, American Catholics, 165 ff. Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 110-117. 88 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 110-117. Attendance rebounded after five months, demonstrating strong attraction of motion pictures. Miller, Hollywood Censorship, 82. 24 the studio could release, distribute, or exhibit a film without the Seal; to do so brought a $25,000 fine. The banks insisted that the studios get a letter of clearance from the PCA stating that the script was basically acceptable before releasing funds for production; this was Joes secret weapon. 89 To appeal unfavorable decisions, producers had to carry their case to a New York board made up of bankers, not filmmakers. As a matter of housekeeping, movies already in release fell into three categories: those which posed no danger to the Code, could stay in release; films which did pose problems could complete contracted runs, but could not be extended; unsalvageable, immoral films, were to be withdrawn immediately. To get a problematic film released, it had to go persuade the PCA it met the Code.90 For new films, the PCA vetted which books, plays, and stories could be bought by the studios. Every morning the staff met with Breen to discuss scripts and problems; the rest of the day the staff reviewed scripts, met with filmmakers, and drafted letters concerning the scripts suitability for production. All such letters carried Breens signature. Each script had two reviewers, with Breen brought in to settle differences. He could compel plot changes, have scenes reshot, dialogue rewritten, insist on voiceovers to draw desired lessons, affect ad campaigns and revenues, and insist on bad ends for evildoers. He could prevent films being made, completed, or released.91 Between 1934 and his retirement in 1954, Breens office reviewed 98 percent of the movies released in the U. S., the cull of some 7,000 submitted scripts.92 His influence was not wholly negative; as an employee of the movie industry much of his time was spent helping writers and directors with problems and running interference with censorship boards. For example, he supported the Churchs social justice agenda by defending Black Fury, a 1935 expose of organized crimes negative effect on the coal miners. The National Coal Association objected, but Breen told Hays that the movie was fair to both sides. His stance kept both Pennsylvanias and New Yorks boards from banning the film. In any event, the attacks of the Catholic hierarchy and the threat of federal censorship under the new Roosevelt administration vigorously consolidating power in Washington, D.C. forced the motion picture industry in 1934 to adopt in fact what in 1930 it had adopted in name.93 Improving movie revenues followed, solidifying Breens standing; Pius XIs encyclical Vigilanti Curas praise of the Legion of Decency and Hollywood for taking action also helped. *** 89 Vizzard, See No Evil, 94. 90 Miller, Hollywood Censored, 89, 92. Black, Catholic Crusade, 141. 92 Miller, Hollywood Censored, 80. 93 Doherty, Pre-code Hollywood, 320. 91 25 The second barrel in the Churchs censorship shotgun, was the Legion of Decencys debut, April 1933. A confederation of dioceses funded by the bishops with a director for each (usually a priest), its success would depend on the importance the bishop attached to it, the energy of the director, the level of enthusiasm of the parish priests, and at the grass roots, the laity, the programs real target. Once a year at Mass (after 1938 on the Sunday within the Octave of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th), the laity made the sign of the Cross and recited: I condemn all indecent and immoral motion pictures, and those which glorify crime or criminals; I promise to do all that I can to strengthen public opinion against the production of indecent and immoral films, and to unite with all who protest against them; I acknowledge my obligation to form a right conscience about pictures that are dangerous to my moral life. I pledge myself to remain away from them. I promise, further, to stay away altogether from places of amusement which show them as a matter of policy. It was assumedand certainly the laitys impression--that the Legion had the power to constrain which movies they should not, could not see on pain of mortal sin. As well see, a Ritter, a Spellman, will say or imply exactly that and so no doubt did a great many parish priests, too, yet from the Legion of Decencys founding, in 1934, that belief stood on shaky ground. Commonweal magazine was sure that the Legions and other guides did not oblige any one in conscience to follow them than we are to accept the judgments of the secular presss ratings of a movies quality.94 In a 1946 article in Ecclesiastical Review, a priest at Catholic University had agreed,95 and in the mid-1950s, a private, undated memorandum to the U.S. bishops from Fr. John C. Ford, S.J., a leading conservative moral theologian, who believed that no church law bound the laity under pain of mortal sin to stay away from films the Legion condemned. Such statements simply went unnoticed at the time or were quietly ignored as part of a general refusal to discuss the point; either way, it was the crux upon which the influence of the Legion of Decency rested. Located in New York, near St. Patricks Cathedral, under the guidance of a cardinal and headed by a priest, the Legion of Decency office received the early prints of finished movies which had been given the Production Code Administrations Seal, the industrys stamp of approval. After November 1935, women of the International Federation of Catholic Alumnae (IFCA) vetted films for the entire country based on their influence on morals judged solely on the Catholic standard of morality . . . .96 (The IFCAs Motion Picture Bureau had been advising Catholic schools since 1922. Back then it did not rate films it 94 Commonweal, We Are All Censors (21 December 1934), 226. Black, Catholic Crusade, 146, 147. 96 Skinner, Catholics and Cinema, 47. 95 26 considered bad, only a white list of recommended movies for mature audiences, graded good, very good, or excellent, and a separate list for school showings. In 1935, the IFCA agreed to produce the New York archdiocesan evaluations and ratingsat first secretly, with Mary Looram, as head of its motion picture bureau. The bishops agreed that the IFCA would provide a national list, ending the tussles between the censorship boards in Chicago, New York, and other dioceses, who were keen to remain in the rating business. Some ten women of the forty IFCA members reviewed and rated each film. The first ratings were: A-I, general approval; A-II, approved for adults; B, unsatisfactory in part, neither recommended nor condemned; C, condemned. Its first list was issued February 1936. 97 Those the IFCA judged condemnable required consultation with a panel of six laymen and three priests. The Legions ratings informed the faithful which movies they could patronize in good conscience and those that they must avoid on pain of mortal sin. This was no IFCA white list of recommended fare as in former times, but on condition of its willingness to condemn films: The evil films must be branded as such, and companies making them and theatres showing them must be made to suffer.98 Not that the business-minded producers complained much at the tme: Enforcement of the LordQuigley Code saved Hollywood huge sums previously lost in the editing and distribution of prints formerly needed to satisfy censorship boards in the handful of states and the scores of cities which had them. Conversely, any but a condemned rating opened the nations theaters to all films and protected Hollywood from European filmmakers who had to meet the Legions standards. Early on, a C rating was a financial death sentence which confined such movies to the art houses in big cities.99 Moreover, wholesome pictures proved box office successes, as the movie industry enjoyed a financial rebound beginning at the end of 1934.100 From its first year of operation from summer 1934 to summer 1945, only three or four movies had to be condemned by the Legion, 85 to 90 percent of all Breen-screened films received either A-I or A-II ratings, and all the notorious pre-code films were either modified or withdrawn. The Legion inspired incredible hopes: The lay-edited Commonweal magazine greeted it as an avatar of an apocalypse, potentially enabling the American Catholic Church to infuse its redemptive lifeforce into the whole body of our society. By inspiring a vast multitude of Catholics to follow their leaders in one campaign, a Catholic consciousness may well be awakened which will vivify the Catholic Action [movement] of America all along the far-flung battle line. The Legion will become an army and the army will go on crusade. More ominously, if the movie producers truly reformed, good; if not, there would be 97 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 137. 98 Commonweal (29 June 1934), 225, 226. Black, Catholic Crusade, ch. 8. 100 Doherty Pre-code Hollywood, 335, 336. 99 27 such an intensification of the moral and spiritual force of the vast body of the Catholic laity that the problem of implementing that force in appropriate action will be solved completely. How the complete solution would come about and what it would look like was left vague, but a Catholic ban on the movie industry was probably what the editor had in mind.101 That force would flow outward to other moral problems--government, war, peace, economic. Implicit in such language and such hopes, was do as we say, or else. The priests-editors at the Indiana Catholic and Record were similarly apocalyptic, declaring that Indecency upon the screen must entirely cease or the moving picture industry will be entirely crushed. We can do without the pictures . . . . There will be no compromise, no armistice, no peace treaty with the Screen save the peace of a victor.102 From June to December 1934, every issue of the IC&R featured the Legion of Decency. According to one editorial, Children and the Movies, 11 million children 13 and younger attend movies weekly. Since so many dealt with sex, illicit love, and crime, parents must keep their children away from movies. Blaming the parents for years of neglect, indifference, even stupidity, the bishops and priests had had to establish the Legion.103 Better the Legion than legislative censorship for the latter would be political not moral, public opinion being a safer guide than a federal agency.104 Boycotts, picketing, and public condemnations would supply the whip that would drive movie makers to produce on the Legions terms.105 Non-Catholics, the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU), and producers were outraged, but could only complain. Rubbing salt into the wound, the executive secretary of the Legion, Fr. John J. McClafferty, insisted that the Legion was not a censorship body.106 Bishop McNicholas likewise held that since the Legion only monitored films after they had been made it was not censorship, an admission that the Breen Office was the guilty party).107 Others would claim twenty years later that neither the Code nor the Legion impose censorship, because the ratings were only binding on Catholics.108 What these arguments forget is the Churchs role in producing the 1930 Code in the first place, its capture of the industrys censorship board, the PCA, and the latters hand in glove relationship with the Legion of Decency. The new arrangements seemed to 101 102 Commonweal (17 August 1934), 375, 376. IC&R, 1 February 1935, 4. 103 IC&R, 18 May 1934, 4; 29 June 1934, 4, 7; 15 June 1934, 1, 7; 27 July 1934,1. 104 IC&R, 6 March 1936, 1. Skinner, Catholics and Cinema, 54. 106 IC&R, 1 October 1937, 1. 107 Fortin, Cincinnati Archdiocese, 279. 108 Mooring, Hollywood in Focus, IC&R, 28 May, 3 December 1954, 6. 105 28 promise success, especially since the laitys deference and obedience to their priests and bishops at that time was assured. Added to the millions of Catholics who signed the pledge were millions of Protestants and thousands of Jews. One estimate counted twelve million Legion members, of which four million--one in three--were non-Catholic. The Protestant Film Office of the Federal Council of Churches (FCC) cooperated. The Methodist Episcopal bishop of Chicago printed and distributed the pledge and in many major cities Protestants supported the campaign. Together, Catholics and Protestants exercised considerable control over the information and ideas received by the American people.109 Whether one signed or not, every American would be influenced by it. Strict enforcement of the Code came just in time for Mae Wests 1934, She Done Him Wrong. Absent her usual libidinous wisecracks, her films lost their lovable vulgarity and she became a sterilized, clean-scrubbed caricature of her sexuality, which in its original frankness, was a caricature of sexuality in the first place.110 Her popularity plummeted: Belle of the Nineties, 1934, her first movie to be vetted by the Breen Office, underwent numerous cuts, and even though she gets religion in Klondike Annie, 1936, Hays and Breen insisted on numerous changes, among them that Wests character be a social worker and on no account confused with a minister of religion, ordained or otherwise. At least the Legion had no reason to condemn the result.111 If Mae West couldnt claim that the censors drove her from the screen, the cartoon sexpot Betty Boop could justly blame Breen for ending her career. Introduced in 1930, the pre-Code enforcement era, Betty usually wore a strapless dress so short it showed her garters. She paraded about in her underwear, danced the Hula in a grass skirt and Lei, and even flashed a breast in Betty Boops Rise to Fame. When rescued from a lecherous ringmaster she proclaimed, He couldnt take my boop-oop-a-doop away! Joe Breen could: After 1934, her dress acquired a collar, sleeves, and an apron, a demure woman dealing with domestic matters. Her creators stopped making Betty Boop cartoons after 1939.112 Under the Code, gangsters also fell on hard times in the movies as in real life--Baby Face Nelson, John Dillinger, and Bonnie and Clyde all met with bad ends in the newsreels, and Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly went off to Alcatraz. In the movies, James Cagney (Rocky Sullivan), in 1937s Angels with Dirty Faces, was convinced by Pat OBrien (Fr. Connolly) to act the coward on his way to his 109 Commonweal (21 December 1934), 226; (29 June 1934), 225, 226. Mast, Short History, 289, 290. 111 Miller, Hollywood Censored, 97, 99. Although the Legion had set out to drive West from the screen, she gave generously to the Catholic Church 112 Miller, Hollywood Censored, 100, 101. 110 29 execution (tabloid headline, Rocky Dies Yellow!), thus destroying any chance that his tough guy persona would remain a role model for the Dead-End Kids. After 1934 there was a rise of Government-Man films, with Cagney becoming one himself,113 in G Man, 1935, and Angels with Dirty Faces, 1938. Flush with the influence the Church wielded over motion pictures, in 1937 the priest-editors of the Indiana Catholic and Record (IC&R) were moved to call for Catholic films, Catholic in tone, pictures not only of an instructive but an amusing character which will portray Catholic faith and Catholic morals. Because children cannot be kept from movies, We need and must soon have, Catholic producers of films and Catholic motion picture shows.114 Putting aside the anti-Semitic subtext, that proved to be unnecessary as Hollywood discovered on its own that a priest can be a useful addition to a good many pictures. Nor, after the row over the Callahans and the Murphys, could the Church complain about the way its clergy and religious were depicted during filmdoms golden age of the 30s and 40s. Warm clerical stereotypes ranged, as the novelist Edwin OConnor put it, from the old Galway-born pastor (cranky but lovable, with the wisdom which seems to spring from arthritis), to the more modern native product: the quaint pipe-smoking sportsman who, but for the unfortunate fact of his ordination, might have become a fine second baseman.115 Even after World War II, the priests running the Indianapolis Archdiocesan newspaper remained convinced that there was as much need for Catholic films as for the Catholic press. The IC&R wanted a studio, Catholic in tone, making pictures not only of an amusing character but also instructive in nature to portray Catholic faith and Catholic morals. As it was, the work of the Catholic schools was being undone by motion pictures: We need, and must have, Catholic producers of films and Catholic motion picture shows. Thus, the Catholic ghetto would extend beyond its parish schools, hospitals, professional organizations, charities, et al.--to motion pictures. A year later, in 1947, the IC&R pointed to recently founded Catholic Motion Picture Guild (CMPG) for the production of films of a religious, educational, and entertaining nature for schools and auditorium in the hope of influencing Hollywood movies for good.116 Little came of it because it wasnt needed: Hollywoods priests were real men: Spencer Tracy and Pat OBrien could knock down hoodlums, Karl Malden outface goons; Ingrid Bergman teach boxing and drive a baseball out of the schoolyard. San Francisco, 1936, featuring Tracy as a priest and a leader of men, was followed by Boys Town, 1938, (Tracy as Fr. Edward J. Flanagans Nebraska boys orphanage). Other Catholic themed hits were Angels with Dirty Faces, 1938, The Fighting 69th, 1940, 113 Doherty, Pre-code Hollywood, 338-342. IC&R, 9 April 1937, 4. 115 Edge of Sadness, 105, 106. Little, Brown and Company: Boston, 1961). Referring to Barry Fitzgerald and Bing Crosby, in Going My Way, respectively. 116 IC&R, 22 November 1946, 4; IC&R, 3 October 1947, 5. 114 30 Song of Bernadette, 1943, The Fighting Sullivans, and Going My Way, 1944, Keys of the Kingdom, and The Bells of St. Marys, 1945; Fighting Father Dunne, 1948, Come to the Stable, 1949, and 1954s superb labor film, On the Waterfront put Catholicism cinematically on the top of the world. The five Catholic films made between 1943 and 1945 cited above, garnered 34 Oscar nominations, winning twelve. Unlike The Callahans and the Murphys these Catholic families were close-knit, God-fearing, patriotic, courageous in adversity, and respectful of the authorities, ecclesial and civil. Such films made money. As Church historian Charles R. Morris observes, the social mirror held up by the Catholic movies . . . was one in which all Americans could find a reflection of their better selves. Even Catholics were led to admit that Hollywood is overdoing attention to the Church . . . .117 If the Church didnt become a player in producing films, its influence in Hollywood was such that it was tempted to throw its weight around, an instance being Knute Rockne, All American, (1940), another celebration of Catholicism. The president of Notre Dame University opposed using James Cagney as Rockne because during the just-ended Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, Cagney had publicly preferred the Republican Loyalists over General Francisco Francos Falangists, the Vatican favorite. Warner Brothers acquiesced, and Pat OBrien got the role. The films premier took place on the weekend opening the Notre Dame football season (against Amos Alonzo Staggs College of the Pacific). Some 9,000 residents viewed the movie at four theaters, with 30,000 more crowded into downtown South Bend. Twenty Hollywood stars, including all the leads, attended the opening, more evidence of the value the motion picture industry placed on Catholic moviegoers.118 The mature censorship system developed between 1933 and 1935 constituted a Catholic coup against Hollywood.119 In reality, it was an Irish-Catholic coup. Of the dozen or so who played a prominent role in censoring films (Lord, Quigley, Breen, Dinneen, McNicholas, Cantwell, Mundelein, Hayes, Boyle, Noll, Parsons, Mrs. Looram, and Fr. John J. McClafferty, executive-secretary of the Legion of Decency), Cantwell and McNicholas were Irish-born, Mundeleins mother was Irish, and the rest of Irish descent. In its finished form, the studios were required to conform to a code written by a Catholic monsignor (Lord) and a Catholic movie trade publisher (Quigley), pressured to obedience by the Catholic hierarchy led by four bishops (McNicholas, Cantwell, Boyle, and Noll), with every script vetted by the Catholic head of the industrys censorship office (Breen), whose moral judgments were supported by the 117 Morris, American Catholics, 196-200. 118 Burns, Notre Dame, vol. 2, 120; Indianapolis Star, 5 October 1940. 119 Black, Catholic Crusade, chapter one. 31 reviews of still other Catholic clergy and the phalanx of Catholic college alumnae (IFCA), chaired for over thirty years by Mrs. Mary Looram. And woe betide any film or person in the industry who fell afoul of the Catholic press. In no other area of American culture were Catholics so deeply involved or had more opportunity to exert an influence than motion pictures.120 As if all that wasnt enough, in 1936 the American bishops persuaded Pius XI to write an encyclical on the motion pictures, (Martin Quigley is said to have written the first draft of Vigilanti Cura). Vigilant Care was necessary because the cinema was a two-edge sword: it speaks to multitudes in circumstances of time and place and surroundings which are most apt to arouse universal enthusiasm for the good as well as for the bad and to conduce to that collective exaltation which . . . may assume the most morbid forms. As the most potent way of influencing the masses, when put to evil purposes it is pernicious and deadly . . . to morality and religion and even to the very decencies of human society. Of universal importance among modern means of diversion, providing vivid and concrete imagery which the mind takes in with enjoyment and without fatigue, it appeals to all minds from the most sophisticated to the simplest. As a teacher it is more effective than abstract reasoning. As an occasion of sin, it glorifies the passions, shows life in a false light, clouds ideals, destroys pure love, creates prejudice among individuals and misunderstandings among nations, social classes and races. And yet, good motion pictures can arouse noble ideals of life, impart knowledge, present truth and virtue, promote understanding among nations, social classes, and races, champion the cause of justice. 121 Given its Quigley provenance, little wonder that the encyclical featured the Legion of Decency (that holy regiment), for having provided the best rules and principles, conforming to the standards of natural and of Christian morality . . . . A model to be emulated by the worlds bishops, the Legions methods would frustrate any incentive to evil passion: The laitys yearly pledge to shun bad films and the theaters which showed them; the efforts centered on the churches and schools and publicized in the Catholic press; regular publication of the film listings according to moral content produced by persons knowledgeable about films and morals; and a commission of select diocesan officials, chosen by the bishop and guided by a priest to exercise a severe censorship of films in each diocese. Already in its 120 William M. Halsey, Survival of American Innocence (University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1980), 120. 121 Morris, American Catholics, 205. Signis, 80th Anniversary of Vigilanti Cura and OCIC (Catholic Office for Cinema). Accessed, 22 January 2019. 32 two-year existence the Legion had made inroads on sin and false ideals in motion pictures. Unfortunately, since national customs and circumstances differ, no worldwide list was possible. *** What did censorship look like on the local level? Indianas motion picture market was not insignificant and was certainly of great importance to theater owners and managers, the ones on the frontline. Least able to stand against pressure were the theaters in small towns, especially if Catholics were a significant presence. It was hard enough to stand against angry neighbors and friends who lectured them about some film; worse was criticism from fellow members of the chamber of commerce, a lodge brother, or a local minister or priest who made no bones about instructing the laity on Sunday to boycott some or all of the films on offer locally. As one manager noted, some people like their movies hot, but the ones who did would not keep you in business. In the hinterland, the staid ruled.122 Indianapolis archbishop Joseph E. Ritters unstinting efforts on the Legions behalf attracted national attention. In 1934, he made it a diocesan statute that all the faithful take the pledge, writing his pastors that the bishops have definitely established that there is a willful propaganda being waged to wipe out Christian morality through the movies. With its bold portrayals of the sex question [and] crime, barnyard morality is now the rule. While not a war on all films, the purpose of the campaign, Ritter admitted, was to make immoral films unprofitable.123 Every pastor was to preach against indecent movies on Legion of Decency Sunday, in June. They were to instruct the laity on forming a right conscience, establish a parish committee to solicit advance notice of film programs and admonish the faithful against movies if they are unfit for honest and wholesome recreation. The work must be carried out in all the parochial schools, and bulletin boards with the official ratings placed in the church vestibule and in the school.124 By July, some 37,000 parishioners of the Indianapolis archdiocese had signed the pledge of decency.125 In April 1935, the local IFCA opened a central movie office to provide information on films at St. Johns Church downtown and at three high schools; IFCA film reviews appeared in the diocesan paper, two or three an issue.126 Ritters letter to the theater managers in the archdiocese was less imperative, more carrot than stick: The Church was not opposed to wholesome entertainment, did not support blue laws, nor blame 122 Doherty, Pre-code Hollywood, 325. 123 Ritter Papers, Box A-22, Indianapolis Catholic archives. North Vernon, Indiana, Box VI, Legion of Decency file, 21 November 1935. 125 IC&R, 25 Years, 70; 200 Years of Catholic Education in Vincennes, 67; see also Ritter papers, letter from the Chancery, copy of pledge, 21 November 1935. Indianapolis Catholic Archive. 124 126 IC&R, 5 April 1935, 6. 33 theater managers for immoral shows. The archbishop even offered to publicize wholesome movies, guaranteed to be such by the exhibitors, free of charge in the Indiana Catholic and Record, and urged them to bring the Catholic campaign to the attention of the movie producers. It was not his intention to injure the movie business, but we do insist on decent shows and intend to do everything in our power to compel the elimination of filth and thus safeguard the youth of our country from corruption.127 Since much of the rationale for movie censorship and the pledge-taking was to protect children, the women of the Indianapolis IFCA wanted to know how effective the Legion was in influencing youth behavior. In 1938, it anonymously surveyed 2,821 pupils in all 21 Indianapolis Catholic grammar schools, 5th to 8th grade, and the 1,368 in the six parochial high schools. Of the grammar school pupils, eighty percent went to the movies weekly, many two or three times a week. Only three percent never went. Seventy-eight percent of high school students attended weekly, fourteen percent did so twice a week, and only one percent never attended. In testing the Legions effectiveness in discouraging student attendance at objectionable films, it discovered that while four out of five students supported the Legion, only about half properly understood the ratings: Thirty-eight percent of the high school students mistakenly thought A-II films (adults only) were permitted them; another 14 percent also believed they could patronize B movies (objectionable in part for all). Sixty-four percent of the high schoolers reported keeping the pledge, 11 percent usually did so, 9 percent only sometimes, while 11 percent never considered the pledge in deciding to attend a film, and 2 percent do not take the pledge. Even children in parish grammar schools-a group one would think more likely than their parents to take the Legion seriously, were assiduous movie-goers, but not as devoted to keeping the pledge.128 Father Omer H. Eisenman, bought into the Legions campaign. Pastor to 573 souls at St. Marys, North Vernon, he diligently posted the movie schedules of the three North Vernon theaters (the Ritz, the Park, and the Amusu, all owned by Ritz Amusements), alongside the Legions ratings in the church vestibule.129 No friend to the cinema, he warned parents against the movies because they make dreamers and dull children in all too many instances. The child mind cannot stand frequent doses of that stuff, without damage. He was also careful to note that approval of a play means only that you are not forbidden to go (emph. orig.); it does not mean that our bishops are giving a clean bill of health to every one of these offerings and urging your attendance. Our most Rev. Bishop expects a prompt return of your pledges to attend only clean picture shows. With only 92 pledges in hand, the rest of you must get busy today. We want all our people signed. Never loath to instruct the laity, Eisenman seems to 127 Ritter papers, Box A-22, March 1935. 128 IC&R, 15 April 1938, 8; 26 August 1938, 1. North Vernon, Box IX, Pulpit Announcements, 25 October 1936; 8 December 1935; 15 July 1934. 129 34 have been the kind of old school pastor likely to station his curate outside movie houses to eyeball wayward communicants contemplating a date with Mae West.130 His letter to Mr. F. N. Houppart, the theater manager in North Vernon, was a masterpiece of clarity: He informed him that the Legions purpose was to eliminate the showing of objectionable films throughout the country and that a vast number of our local people have pledged themselves wholeheartedly to its support. We should be very glad, Mr Houppart, to have your assurance that films listed as objectionable will be banned in your theatre, for your own protection in a business way, if for no higher motive. I would respectfully suggest that you take up the matter with your booking agency and have them accede to this request. Honest cooperation on your part will merit approval from us, and it will contribute materially to mutual good-will and the building of a healthy community spirit.131 Fr. Eisenmans concern extended to Birth of a Baby, 1938, a documentary sponsored by Evansvilles Mead, Johnson and Company. While admitting that intrinsically, the movie is moral in theme and meritorious on medical, educational, social, and technical grounds, the Legion rightfully opposed its general circulation. The problem was that movie audiences were mixed in age and gender and theaters were neither clinics nor classrooms. Catholic censors were not the only ones with reservations about the films suitability: When the 11 April issue of Life magazine carried pictures from the film, many cities banned the issue from newsstands132 and the magazines editor was charged with obscenity in New York City (acquitted). When it was shown in North Vernon, Fr. Eisenman lamented the day when the most intimate and delicate things are brazenly dragged into public view. Movie producers and exhibiters have little regard for the ruin of souls, it seems, and he reminded parishioners of their pledge and the obligation to give good example. This warning from your pastor ought to be sufficient.133 Such warnings had not worked with Mr. Albert B. Thompson, president of the corporation which owned the theater showing Birth of a Baby. Eisenman had written the manager of the Park Theatre in North Vernon requesting, in the name of the Catholics in the town and vicinity, that the films showing be cancelled. Such action on your part will obviate a public mention of the affair and prevent embarrassment to the parties concerned. . . . May we have your kind cooperation for a decent community?134 Mr. Thompson regretted that he could not comply, for it was necessary that this film be purchased in order to secure other coming headline attractions, (a reference to the studios practice of block booking which 130 Doherty, Pre-code Hollywood, 321. Eisenman letter, 16 August 1934, N. Vernon, Box IX, Legion of Decency file. There is no reply from Mr. Houppart in the file. 132 IC&R, 15 April 1938, 4. 131 133 North Vernon, Box IX, 28 August 1938, Pulpit Announcements. 134 North Vernon, Box IX, 19 August 1938, Legion of Decency file. 35 prevented theater managers from choosing which films they would screen). With ammunition supplied by the movie industry, Thompson pointed out that the theater editor of the official newspaper of the Ohio and Kentucky Knights of Columbus had supported its recent showing in Cleveland, and went on to list other respectable organizations that had endorsed the film--the YWCA, Federal Council of Churches, Ohio Board of Censors, the Red Cross, Boy Scouts of St, Paul, Minnesota, the Camp Fire Girls of Des Moines, Iowa, the editor of Parents Magazine, a Lutheran society, a Jewish society, and Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Roosevelt. (Mrs. Roosevelt had argued it should be a matter for individuals to decide.)135 Claiming the endorsement of practically all religious denominations, medical societies, government agencies, etc., we feel that the citizens of North Vernon and Jennings County are entitled to an opportunity of witnessing The Birth of a Baby.136 Three years later, Mr. Thompson was more amenable regarding Two-Faced Woman, 1941, starring Greta Garbo in her last film in the dual role of identical twins. The movie revolves around the seduction of the unwitting husband by his sister-in-law. Breen had left the PCA temporarily and in his absence, despite the salacious incestuous story line, a wild rhumba, a bathing suit scene, and an extremely low-cut dress, the movie was the first film given a PCA Seal to be condemned by the Legion of Decency (for its immoral and un-Christian attitude towards marriage and its obligations, suggestive scenes, dialogue, situations [and] suggestive costumes).137 Fr. Eisenman, learning that Two-Faced Woman had been condemned by the Legion of Decency, wanted answers: Thompson pled ignorance, it had not been his intention to show an objectionable picture nor one that was offensive to any group of people.138 He informed the priest that he had learned recently that the movie, in response to New York Archbishop Spellmans condemnation, would be withdrawn by MGM from circulation. Since, a movie condemned by the Legion was still a box-office death sentence, the studio immediately began rebuilding sets for reshoots and retakes for the stars. In appreciation of the cooperation of the studio, the Legion changed its C to B, morally objectionable in part for all. In another case, the Indianapolis Legion asked that Strange Cargo, 1941, be withdrawn from the Fountain Square theater; the manager complied.139 No businessman relishes falling out with local religious leaders and the president of Ritz Amusements, Inc., was no exception. To build good will theater managers were in the habit of sending notices to parish priests when Catholic pictures were showing, such as Going My Way or Boys Town, 135 IC&R 22 April 1938, 1. 136 North Vernon, Box IX, 22 August 1938, Legion of Decency file. 137 Miller, Hollywood Censored, 120. Typed note on The Plain Dealer stationery to Fr. Eisenman from Mary Cassin, N. Vernon, Box VIII, Motion Pictures (Local Movie Theatre) file, 12 December 1941. 139 IC&R, 19 December 1941, 1; 24 May 1940, 1. 138 36 and sometimes enclosed free passes. In 1952, the same motive prompted Warner Brothers to privately screen The Miracle of Fatima for Indianapolis Archbishop Paul C. Schulte. Schulte praised its reverent treatment and arranged for the religious sisters of the city to attend a special showing five days before it opened at the Keiths. When the March of Time company produced a twenty-minute feature on the Vatican, the president of Ritz Amusements informed Fr. Eisenman of its show dates, expressing the hope he would pass the word to his congregation. Thompson similarly informed Eisenman of the dates for Going My Way, at the Park and the Ritz theaters, a film of particular appeal to the members of your church. He would appreciate any publicity the priest would give it and wanted to assure you of our continuing co-operation. Eisenman duly alerted his congregation at Mass.140 When the Ritz scheduled Keys of the Kingdom (1945), Thompson again drew the priests attention to a story very definitely aligned with your church. As an important Catholic picture, the manager appreciated any publicity you may give this showing as we have held up showing this picture till the conclusion of Lent (It was the policy at St. Marys not to post the Legions list during Lent, because good Catholics do not go to [movies] during this season of penance). But even Fr. Eisenman found The Song of Bernadette appropriate for Lenten attendance, and would show such religious movies in the parish hall at no charge, except for a free will offering: The Ten Commandments, King of Kings, The Fugitive, (the latter the life of a Mexican priest persecuted by the secular revolutionary government in that country), were three such titles shown at St. Marys. The idea was to provide edifying films and keep parishioners from regular movie fare during Lent.141 *** The Legion of Decencys effectiveness in its early years cannot be gainsaid; from 1936 to 1939, the percentage of B films, morally objectionable for all, averaged only seven percent and condemned C films were one percent or less.142 Unappeased, the priest-editors at Indiana Catholic and Record still wanted to know why Hollywood, the nations largest industry, was permitted to debauch its patrons. Believing the Legion of Decency too lenient, the IC&R was certain that The moving picture industry will be reformed completely, or it will be destroyed. Twenty-five million American Catholics cannot be 140 Schulte Papers, Box 29. 141 North Vernon, Box VIII, Motion Pictures (Local Movie Theater) file, 16 April 1940; Box VIII, Motion Pictures (Local Movie Theatre), October 1944; Box IX, Pulpit Announcements, 8 October 1944; Box VIII, Motion Pictures (Local Movie Theater) file, March 26th, 1945; Box IX, 6 March 1938, Pulpit Announcements.; Box IX 19 March 1944, Pulpit Announcements.; Box IX, 27 March 1955, Pulpit Announcements. 142 IC&R, 16 October 1936, 7; 31 Dec 1937, 1; 24 March 1938, 1; 24 Nov 1939, 1; Skinner, Catholics and Cinema, 57. 37 wrong.143 Archbishop Ritter had believed that the Legion had improved the moral character of the movies in general, but in December 1941, he noticed a reversion to the old ways, citing a particular C picture without naming it (probably Greta Garbos Two-Faced Woman). Sure enough, by 1941 and through the war years, B and C films combined grew to represent more than ten percent of the releases.144 Matters worsened; 1945 counted an unprecedented 102 B movies, and 22 C films. The editors of the Indiana Catholic and Record, seeing a causal relationship between the commonplace of divorce in Hollywood and the kind of movies produced, became increasingly exercised and even criticized the Legion of Decency; it was evident that the moving pictures must be made clean or that the whole industry must be destroyed.145 North Vernons Fr. Eisenman remarked on Hollywoods moral backsliding by reminding the parents of the obligation to avoid proximate occasions of sin. In 1947, he compared the movies of today to sewers which empty their pollution into the stream of American life, and a lot of careless Catholics who like to swim near those sewer openings. For many of our little ones it is first, baptismal water, and [then] sewer water.146 With more than a thousand movie theaters in the archdioceses thirty-eight counties, there were a lot of sewers. Lapsing into hysteria, the IC&R declared, We have an obligation to save our neighbors . . . . from [evil] movies even more than saving Europe from starvation. We must promise to stay away from B pictures.147 Hollywood failed to cooperate: From 1946 to 1955, the percentage of B films produced more than doubled from 15.35% to 33.45%, the largest number for all films in the Legions history and clear evidence of the erosion of standards.148 Of 275 films reviewed, 82 (29.82%), were found A-I (morally unobjectionable for general patronage); 97 (35.27%), were A-II, (morally unobjectionable for adults); 92 (33.45%), were B, (morally objectionable in part for all); and 4 films were condemned.149 Disappointed by the data, the bishops determined to launch an effort to revivify the Legion by rousing the laity to vigorously protest at the rising tide of immoral pictures. 143 IC&R, 29 December 1939, 4. 144 IC&R, 21 November 1941, 1; Ritter papers, Pastoral Letter, 1 December 1941. 145 146 IC&R, 24 August 1945, 4. North Vernon, Box IX, 9 December 1945, Parish Announcements. 147 IC&R, 12 December 1947, 4. 148 IC&R, 2 December 1955, 6. IC&R, 25 Nov 1955, 1. 149 38 The problematic nature of the hierarchys effort to injure the box office of films deemed unsatisfactory was demonstrated by the publics reception of The Outlaw. Jane Russell, a buxom starlet who had never acted before, was a sensation. Given a PCA seal in 1941, it was not shown until 1943, in San Francisco, where the local Legion of Decency condemned it. While the New York headquarters never received a print and could not rate it, sex and a lurid ad campaign turned a bad movie into the eleventh grossing film of the 1940s. Re-released in 1947, the critics judged the film silly, tedious, and amateurish, but it made record amounts of money wherever it played, including Indianapolis. Msgr. Henry F. Dugan, the archdiocesan director of the Legion, asked Mayor Robert Tyndall (1943-1947) to ban the film. The mayor dutifully watched it, concluded that from a moral point of view hed seen worse, regarded his two hours wasted, and refused to issue a ban. The best the archdiocese could do was encourage pastors to discourage attendance.150 As a measure of its prurient appeal, in upholding Marylands ban of the film, the judge observed that Russells breasts hung like a thunderstorm over a summer landscape. . . . vigorously threaten[ing] to burst forth at any moment.151 The Legion limited its vocabulary to indecent in costuming and gave it a C. The film was again withdrawn until a 1946 release in Chicago, then across the country, again with lurid advertising, but without the PCA Seal. (Howard Hughes, the multi-millionaire producer, simply failed to submit the ads to the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA). After extensive negotiations with the PCA, the seal was restored, and the Legion gave the sanitized, re-cut version a B which played throughout the country in 1949. Each weekday morning in fall 1949 a car full of high school freshmen was driven by the father of one of the boys from Broadview, a Chicago suburb, into the city to the all-boy St. Philip High School at Jackson and Kedzie. Their route took them past a billboard advertising The Outlaw, with Jane Russell leaning forward wearing a low-cut blouse. At thirty-five miles per hour it was impossible to get more than a fleeting look and, with a parent driving, turning around to view the fast-disappearing image wasnt on either, nor, under the circumstances, any remark on Russells achievements. Five mornings a week this occasion of sin was passed in silence--the parent and the boys pretending to be engrossed in Don McNeils Breakfast Club on the radio. Nor could the Churchs capacity to inculcate sexual shame be excised, even when one was alone and anonymous in public. So, if you were traveling on the Chicago EL intending to transfer to the subway north to Evanston, you got off at Wabash in the Loop; descending to street level, before reaching the stairs to the underground, there was Minskys, the gold standard of American burlesque houses. Could a teenage boy approach the photographs of the nearly naked women displayed and stare at ones leisure? Close enough for a good view of the glossies? Not this one. *** 150 151 IC&R, 3 May 1946. Miller, Hollywood Censored, 129. 39 Far from basking in unalloyed self-congratulation as the leader of the free world and reveling in the enjoyments of prosperity and consumerism, the post-World War II era featured a fearsome, worldwide struggle for ideological mastery between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Vatican was an early participant in the struggle. Rome has never forgotten the French Revolution or the Paris Commune, nor would the American bishops have any truck with endangering property rights. Having opposed Roosevelts recognition Russia in 1933 and FDRs efforts to build peaceful cooperation with Stalin, in 1941 the bishops declared that there can be no compromise with Communism.152 On the domestic front the nightmare of communist subversion had given birth in 1938 to the House Un American Activities Committee (HUAC), to investigate private citizens and public employees for fascist or communist ties. Fascism having been defeated, in 1947 HUAC, (made a permanent standing committee in 1945), turned its attention to communist influence in Hollywood. Aware of the danger to its reputation and its profits, in 1947 the industry established the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Cofounded by Walt Disney, the Alliances advice to movie producers was specific: Dont smear freeenterprise, industrialists, wealth, or the profit motive, dont glorify the collective or deify the common man, and avoid communist touches. William H. Mooring, a widely syndicated movie columnist for Tidings, the Los Angeles Archdiocesan newspaper, needed no prodding; Mooring approached anything related to the church with the zeal of the convert he was, seeing matters as the Church and Disneys Motion Picture Alliance did.153 Most remarkable was his ability to espy the presence of the Communist menace when even the most red, white, and blue patriot could not. Any criticism of the Code or the Legion of Decency, in his view, played into the hands of the Hollywood Reds.154 Any hint that the United States exhibited serious faults was unpatriotic and false. Such predispositions led him to attack Loretta Young, (a devout Catholic and friend of a Los Angeles auxiliary bishop), for supposed subliminal communist sympathies in the 1947 film, The Farmers Daughter. Katy for Communism, was how Mooring put it. The movie begins with Katrin leaving her Swedish immigrant parents, her three strapping brothers, and the family farm for the university in the big city to become a nurse. Given a ride by Adolph, a neerdo-well, repellent barn painter, he steals the money intended for her living expenses and tuition. Imbued with her familys values of self-reliance, rather than return home a failure, Katrin finds work as a maid for the Morleys, a politically connected, upper middle-class, Republican household. The son (Joseph Cotton), 152 Hugh J. Nolan, ed., Pastoral Letters of the United States Catholic Bishops (Washington D. C. Catholic University of America Press, 1948: United States Catholic Conference, 1984), I: 41. 153 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 195. 195. 154 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 280. 40 is a congressman, his mother, (Ethel Barrymore), the widowed matriarch of a household which doubles as the political center and meeting place of the local GOP party organization. A death opens a seat in the U. S. House of Representatives. Finley, the man selected, is shown by the well-informed Katy to have opposed breadlines and wanted apple sellers licensed during the Great Depression. The Democrats, learning of Katys viewsthe need for a living wage, the politicians duty to represent all the people, not just those who give them money, free and honest elections--want her to run on their ticket. Adolph shows up and Finley gives him $500 to spread stories to blacken Katys reputation. Its learned, however, that Finley is a member of a secret Organization, made up of 100% pure Americans--white, Protestant, and native-born. (The Ku Klux Klan is not named but there is a reference to Finleys hood.) The movies references to racism, nativism, unscrupulous and corrupt politicos raised questions about the viability of the American democratic system, 155 Mooring saw as disloyalty--giving ammunition to the Reds. In the end, both parties endorse Katy. She wins election as does Congressman Morley and they go to Washington as man and wife. Two other movies, Born Yesterday, 1950, and High Noon, 1952, with quite different storylines from The Farmers Daughter and each other, Mooring found equally subversive: He faulted Born Yesterday for violating every one of the Motion Picture Alliances check list of donts, making it just more Communist propaganda, a clever film satire strictly from [Karl] Marx. His hostile review (which appeared before the movies release), charged it with mis-appropriating the nations treasured symbols in stone--the Jefferson Memorial, the Capitol Building, Statuary Hall, and its founding documents Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Gettysburg Address: Never have human symbols been more subtly molded to carry destructive comment through disarming comedy. Thus prompted, the Catholic War Veterans picketed the film because both Judy Holliday, who starred, and Garson Kanin, who wrote the stage play, were affiliated with groups cited on the U.S. Attorney-Generals list of subversive organizations. Added to that, Broderick Crawfords Harry Brock, chews the scenery as an uncouth, junkyard millionaire-capitalist of limited vocabulary. Visiting Washington, D.C., hes accompanied by his mistress, the dumb blond, Billie Dawn, and a crooked lawyer to bribe a willing congressman. Realizing that Billie isnt up to the mark socially, (unaware of the plank in his own eye), Harry hires Paul Verrall, (always truthful?) William Holden as her tutor. Billie works hard and, ignited by education, emerges as a smart and independent woman. (The truly radical idea for 1950, which Mooring and most males missed, women have untapped mental resources.) In 155 David Manning White and Richard Averson, The Celluloid Weapon: Social Comment in the American Film (Beacon Press: Boston, Massachusets1972), 116. . 41 todays parlance, the new Billie has agency. Angered by her independence, at one point, Harry strikes her. Fortunately, hoisted on his own petard, the crooked lawyer had transferred much of Harrys holdings to Billie to hide them from the IRS, which Billie and Paul use as leverage to gain her independence.156 The movie was a hit and remains highly regarded. Nominated for writing and directing, Holliday won the Oscar for best actress. In High Noon, a newly married Will Kane, (Gary Cooper), the marshal of a small western town, is due to retire when he learns that Frank Miller, an outlaw hes put in prison has been released and will arrive on the Noon train to exact revenge. Millers gang--a brother and two others--await his arrival. Kanes wife Amy (Grace Kelly), a Quaker, issues an ultimatum: if Kane stays to face Miller, shell leave him. Kanes attempts to raise a posse among the tavern habituates and at the church fail either out of fear or anger at the marshal for cleaning up what had been a lawless town. Even his friends cant or wont help. Kane writes his will and waits in the street as the train arrives. He guns down two of the gang but falls wounded. Hearing the gunfire, Amy had left the train and ran to Kanes office for a gun; she shoots the third man in the back, leaving only Frank Miller to be shot dead by Kane. As the townspeople gather around him, Kane throws his marshals badge in the dirt and steps on it, a scene John Wayne called, the most un-American thing Ive ever seen in my whole life.157 For Mooring, having Americans show weaknesss, made High Noon just another commie tainted film; the congregations failure to support the lawman followed the Marxist line that religion, as the opiate of the people, [prevents] people from working against social injustice.158 What happened to High Noons scriptwriter, Carl Foreman, is more instructive of the Second Red Scare of the 1950s than Moorings dismissive gloss. Chicago-born to working class Russian Jewish parents, Foreman, a World War II veteran, was engaged in writing the High Noon script when HUAC called him to testify in 1951 about his communist connections. Foreman admitted being a member of the Communist Party from 1938 to 1942, when he became disillusioned and left the CPUSA. Refusing to name names, he was labelled an uncooperative witness and blacklisted. He responded by turning his script into an allegory of the Red Scare, with himself as the marshal, HUAC as his would-be killers, and the movie moguls and their hangers-on as the cowardly townspeople who ended his Hollywood career. He left the United States for England in 1952 and didnt return except for brief periods. The State 156 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 299. 157 Foreman served in the Signal Corps in World War II, a common assignment for people with his skills, while John Wayne, as is well-known, received numerous exemptions from military service. 158 White and Averson, Celluloid Weapon, 168. 42 Departments harassment began by taking his passport away in 1953, but had to restore it in 1956, having failed to provide him a hearing. In his years in England Foreman was honored with service on a number of distinguished motion picture boards, as a writer-producer of his own films, and as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, C.B.E. Since he and another scriptwriter for The Bridge on the River Kwai were blacklisted and fled to England, (the other was Michael Wilson), neither received writing credit nor the Oscar. (Pierre Boule did, author of the book the film was based on who spoke no English). Foreman returned to California in 1984 and the day before he died was told he would receive his Oscar. *** Nineteen-thirties Hollywood had been a huge, highly profitable, safe industry producing ninetyminutes of make believe; leaving out the very young, the very old, the ill, and the institutionalized, threefourths of the rest of the population went to movies weekly, with the popularity of motion pictures peaking in 1946. Thereafter movie attendance and receipts fell. The immediate reason may have been the baby boom, 1946-1964, which left young marrieds less time for movie-going. Additionally, the European movie industry revived and with college education booming in the U.S. the audience for its films grew. But the main threat came from television. In 1949, with 46.2 percent of family households owning a television set, movie attendance dropped to half what it had been in 1946. Television had many advantages, among them that sponsors paid the cost of the programming, while movies were like book publishing--you could never tell if the product would cover costs. For theater owners profit margins were thin: According to a 1953 survey, about one-third of theaters were profitable from admissions alone, plus another 38 percent thanks to food sales, leaving about 30 percent in the red. From 1946 to 1956, more than 4,000 theaters closed their doors.159 Some of the movie industrys post-1945 problems were self-inflicted: In October 1947, ten writers and directors, believing their First Amendment rights constituted an adequate defense, resisted the call of the House Un-American Committee (HUAC] to testify regarding membership in the Communist Party. The studios quickly announced that they would not knowingly hire communists. All of the Hollywood Ten went to prison for contempt of Congress, some for up to a year. In all, from the late 1940s to the mid1960s--the height of the Cold War, the blacklist of suspected communists rose to more than 200 names. Actors had to get clearance from the American Legion or HUAC by repudiating liberal views or publicly naming former communists. 159 Sklar, Movie-Made America, 269, 272, 274, 278. 43 More generally, the experience of a second helping of total war so soon after the Great War of 1914-1918--its dislocations, shortages, uprooting of populations, trauma, women in the workforce, latchkey children, casualties and deaths, accompanied by such novelties as a Holocaust and Atom Bombs, was bound to bring many things into question. After years of censorship, war patriotism, and propaganda, wasnt it time, finally, to produce serious, mature films of real artistry deserving of a wide audience or would too much real life be reason to limit its audience? Out of the Italian experience, which was hardly that of a good war, came Open City, 1946; The first of a series of postwar gritty European motion pictures, it was not as technically adept nor expensively produced as movies in the United States, but it had a refreshing quality of realism. Lacking money for lavish sets, Europes filmmakers used what remained of the pre-war built environment. Of greater importance was that Europes movie makers, their audience, even the Vatican, were less puritanical when it came to story lines, costuming, sex, and everyday natural functions than the clergy and laity of the PCA and the Legion. Featuring the mostly communist-led Italian resistance against the Nazi Germans and home-grown fascists, the movie begins with the wedding of a pregnant bride and a communist as the leader of the antifascist Italians, the partisans. Theres a drug-addicted mistress, frank sexuality, lesbianism, unrelievedly brutal torture scenes, and a priest is executed. Could its artistry trump the immorality it realistically depicted? Despite his reservation that the film was communist propaganda, the pioneer film critic, James Agee, admired it as the best movie of its year and one of the best and most heartening in many years.160 The Holy See thought so, too; it loved the film--one of the most sympathetic portrayals of the Catholic Church ever seen on the screen, and requested a copy for the Vatican Library.161 Despite deceitfulness being seen as a positive, plus excessive gruesomeness, suggestive costume,. . . and use of narcotics, the Legion gave it a B, equivalent to adults only, for its sympathetic depiction of a heroic anti-Nazi priest. In the U.S., European art films normally played in import houses without the PCA Seal; if they were popular, the distributer applied for a seal from the Motion Picture Associations New York office. In order to qualify, Open City had to make a few cuts, among them, a child shown using a chamber pot.162 .163 *** The first weakening in the Churchs grip on Hollywoods output appeared in 1947, when a Gallup poll revealed that only five percent of moviegoers were willing to stay away from films condemned by the Legion.164 The following year, in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a second blow declaring the industrys vertical integration of movie production, distribution, and 160 Agee on Film, vol. 1, (Grosset & Dunlap: New York, 1969), 236. Black, Catholic Crusade, 77. 162 Miller, Hollywood Censored, 140. 161 163 Doherty, Hollywood Censor, 282, n5. CHECK 161, 162 F,N. 164 Black, Catholic Crusade, 243, 244. 44 exhibition constituted a monopoly. Ordered to sell off their theaters, in a little over a decade the studios divested themselves of their first-run theater chains. This seriously reduced the Churchs influence for it meant that the industry could not enforce the Code as successfully as previously, whether it wanted to or not.165 Moreover, one of the justices in the Paramount case had observed that the court had no doubt that movies had First Amendment rights just as much as newspapers and radio. That threat was fulfilled in a 1952 Supreme Court case, Burtsyn v. Wilson. Burtsyn v. Wilson arose out of a controversy over a forty-minute Italian import screened in a small art theater in New York City, December 1950. In Roberto Rosselinis The Miracle, a simpleminded Italian goatherd (Anna Magnani), meets a bearded stranger dressed in a cloak and carrying a staff. She believes hes St Joseph come to take her to heaven and pleads with him to do so. He gives her wine. Awakening later, she is assured by a monk she meets that saints still appear on earth and so believes the stranger was really St. Joseph. As her pregnancy becomes apparent, convinced she has conceived immaculately, she is ridiculed by the villagers, especially the young, who, in a mock procession singing hymns to the Virgin cruelly crown her with a bucket. She delivers the child in a deserted church outside the village with only a goat for a companion. The Miracle sparked an uproar in the U.S., which meant that it did better than expected business. Devout Christians saw it as an unacceptable satire, a denial of the Incarnation, a mockery of Christ. Martin Quigleys Motion Picture Herald espied the hand of communism. For others, critics and moviegoers, Catholic and non-Catholic, there was no consensus. The New York Times carried a Janus review: The Anna Magnani character could be fairly seen as either a symbol of deep and simple faith, horribly abused and tormented by a cold and insensitive world or . . . as an open mockery of faith and religious fervor.166 The Vatican and Italys Legion of Decency condemned it, while some clerics defended it, as did the pro-Vatican newspaper of the Christian Democratic Party, which found it a beautiful thing, humbly felt, alive, true and without religious profanation.167 In the U.S., Commonweal magazine opposed suppressing a film which had won the New York Film Critics award as the best foreign film of 1950. New Yorks Francis Cardinal Spellman, in a letter read at Mass in all 400 parishes of the archdiocese, called the movie an insult to Christian faith and Italian womanhood, and an atheistic Communism plot. (Actually, the Kremlin banned it as pro-Catholic propaganda.) The theater involved was subjected to bomb scares and picketing by large, vocal crowds of whom few had seen the picture.168 165 Black, Catholic Crusade, 66-71. Black, Catholic Crusade, 93, 94. 167 Miller, Hollywood Censorship, 149. 168 Black, Catholic Crusade, 95, 96. 166 45 The New York Regents granted the film a license, then bowed to pressure by revoking it on the grounds that it was sacrilegious and violated the religious freedom of Christians. On appeal in 1952, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court, Burtsyn v. Wilson, finding that it was not the business of government . . . to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine, reversed the Regents.169 In overturning Mutual v. Ohio, 1915, the court declared motion pictures a significant medium for the communication of ideas, and therefore entitled to First Amendment protection. As a result of Burtsyn, state censorship laws were voided in Ohio (1954), Massachusetts (1955), and Pennsylvania (1956).170 Initially, the Indiana Catholic and Record denominated The Miracle blasphemous, tawdry, and sheer filth, yet the next year found the Supreme Court decision hard to dispute. Its editor since 1947, Msgr. Ray Bosler, supported the decision: it was better to insult religious feelings than accept prior restraint. In any case, the Legion of Decency was not affected, so, good.171 Yet there was a cost: the Legions claim that it was not a censorship board, merely a rating service for Catholics employing Christian standards of morality was exploded. The boycotts, picketing, bomb scares, the crude redbaiting--all efforts to keep non-Catholics from seeing the movie--repelled many Catholics and many more non-Catholics. A Notre Dame University English professor labeled the campaign semi-ecclesiastical McCarthyism.172 Similarly, another 1952 Supreme Court opinion overturned a Texas conviction of a man for screening Pinky, which featured a white actress, Jeanne Crain, as a mulatto in a film centering on miscegenation, racial prejudice, and Jim Crow in the American South. Justice Felix Frankfurter held that requiring a license to show a movie offends the due process of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice William O. Douglas, citing both Near v. Minnesota (283, U.S. 697) and Burtsyn, saw the evil of prior restraint present in flagrant form. Censorship boards defeat the great purpose of the First Amendment to keep uncontrolled the freedom of expression . . . .173 *** A more ham-handed misuse of the Legions power was Streetcar Named Desire, 1951. Taken from the stage play by Tennessee Williams and directed by Elia Kazan, it received the PCA Seal only after being forced to tone down the plays themes of homosexuality, pedophilia, nymphomania, and rape. On the Broadway stage, wife Stella prefers to believe that husband Stanley has not raped her sister Blanche. At the end, Blanche, having been driven insane, is taken away to an asylum. The rape is key for it breaks through Blanches fantasy world. Stella, still sexually besotted with Stanley (and he with her), turns to him at the curtain. Rapist rewarded with stronger marriage!? For the movie version Breen 169 Cooney, Spellman: American Pope, 196-202. Miller, Hollywood Censored, 151. 171 IC&R, 30 May 1952, 1. The harsh condemnation was probably Fr. Courtneys, the associate editor. 172 Black, Catholic Crusade, 101. 173 Black, Catholic Crusade, 116. 170 46 demanded that there be no rape because it was made to seem justified.174 Blanche is more troubled mentally and less sexually omnivorous; scenes showing Stellas seductiveness are absent and Stanley is made to appear as Blanche sees him--boorish, sweaty, crude--an uncaring animal. The moral universe is restored as an enraged Stella carries her baby upstairs to a neighbors apartment and announces she is never going back to her animalistic husband. Stanley, in despair, cries out for Stella. Roll credits. Despite the changes, the PCA-approved version of Streetcar still shocked industry leaders with its raw and lustful carnality. Warner Brothers secretly hired Martin Quigley to re-edit the picture for the Legion, agreeing that he might remove objectionable dialogue and scenes. Kazan fought the changes, but the Legion refused to admit that it did anything more than classify films. Since he had been employed by the studio to do a job, Quigley told Kazan that he had no influence with him. Quigleys Stella is a decent girl who is attracted to her husband the way any decent girl might be. What was important was the preeminence of the moral order over artistic considerations, nine words summarizing the Churchs position that moral claims trump the artists intentions. When Kazan questioned the right of the Catholic Church to impose its moral values on others, Quigleys response, as summarized by the Indiana Catholic and Record, was pinched and puritanical: The Christian purpose of art is to aid the spiritual and moral well-being of man. It is not for the purpose of effecting intellectual or sensory delight. Artistic or cultural values are relatively unimportant. The supreme obligation of films [is] to avoid being a harmful influence upon the moral life of its patrons. As for the Code, based on the Ten Commandments it is sensible, practicable.175 Kazans request that the original version be shown at the Venice Film Festival was refused; if Streetcar was screened anywhere in the world, he was warned, the Legion would condemn it.176 The IC&R reflected editor Boslers liberal position), carried John Cogleys comments in Commonweal: Quoting Aquinas, beauty is that which when seen, pleases, Cogley characterized Quigleys views as pious philistinism. The artists work, whose purposes are his own, should not be judged as apologetics, propaganda, or sermonizing.177 Nearly forty years on the episode still rankled Kazan: he recalled that it was then that he first became aware of the similarity of the Catholic Church to the Communist Party, particularly in the underground nature of their operation. At the time, he had complained to the New York Times that his picture was cut 174 Miller, Hollywood Censored, 155. IC&R, 13 March 1953, 1. 176 Black, Catholic Crusade, 113, 114. Warner Brothers restored Kazans version in 1993. 175 177 IC&R, 10 April 1953, 1. 47 to meet a code that was not his code, nor the code of the movie industry, nor that of the great majority of the audience. Warner Brothers cared nothing for beauty or art--They didnt want anything in the picture that might keep anyone away. At the same time, they wanted it dirty enough to pull people in.178 A movie dirty enough to pull people in describes The French Line. Produced by Howard Hughes in 1953, like The Outlaw The French Line again featured Jane Russells mammaries, this time leaping out at the audience in 3-D and ballyhooed in another prurient ad campaign. In an effort to reach a compromise between the Code and Hughes decided vulgarity, the PCA viewed the film five times. Determined to exploit Russells endowments, Hughes opened it in St. Louis, December 1953, without the PCA Seal or bothering with the Legion of Decency. After viewing a print the Legions staff publicly condemned the film for suggestive dialogue, costumes, and dance routines.179 Geoffrey Shurlock, now de facto head of the PCA, agreed with Legions assessment. Breen sent PCA staffer Jack Vizzard to St. Louis to rally its archbishop, Joseph E. Ritter, against the film. When the citys Protestants and Jews declined to cooperate and the police department refused to seize the film, for want of something better, Ritter instructed his priests to check the religion of the films exhibitors in their area and, if Catholic, deny them the sacraments. In his letter read at all the Masses, St. Louis Catholics were told they must make a concerted effort on a nation-wide scale to ruin the box-office receipts of this picture. No Catholic could see it under penalty of mortal sin and Ritter imposed a grave obligation within the archdiocese to boycott any theater, now or in the future, that showed the movie.180 For his part, Breen levied the $25,000 fine for MPAA members who released a film without the Seal. When some major theater chains refused to book it, Hughes agreed to make cuts and was given a Seal and taken off the Legions condemned list.181 While the fight cost Hughes $1million, the expected gross was $3 million in the U.S. and $2 million abroad. The French Line opened in Indianapolis at six theaters in May 1954. Following Ritters St. Louis policy, the IC&R listed the local movie houses and drive-ins screenings, as well as those in Evansville, Princeton, Bedford, Bloomington, New Castle, Seeleyville, and Richmond. Readers were asked to call the theater managers involved to express their displeasure.182 The newspaper wanted a six-month boycott imposed, which would likely put the erring theaters out of business. Otherwise, Hughes would succeed in destroying the Code and bring on censorship, which none of us wants. By December the list of banned 178 Black, Catholic Crusade, 115. Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 264. 180 Black, Catholic Crusade, 138, 139. The Chicago and Boston censorship boards also banned The French Line. IC&R, 5 Feb 1954, 1. 179 181 Vizzard, See No Evil, 174, 175. 182 IC&R, 21 May 1954, 1. 48 theaters in Indiana had grown to seventeen.183 Such bans, however, were increasingly futile, in that the publicity increased interest, (Ritter learned the lesson and never issued another interdict). A perfectly awful film with terrible acting, it would have been better to publicize that, rather than draw attention to Russells chest. Ranked as one of the worst movies ever made,184 critics and moviegoers passed the word and the film died. Most damaging to the PCA and the Legion was their handling of the 1953 comedy of manners, The Moon is Blue. Produced and directed by Otto Preminger for United Artists, its heroine, Patty Reilly, (Maggie McNamara), age 22, is anxious to get on with life, which to her means marriage and sex. An aspiring actress, proto-feminist, nave but game, she flirts with 40ish Don Gresham (William Holden), on the Empire State Buildings observation deck. Hes a successful, unencumbered architect and she agrees to dine with him at his expensive apartment. There she meets Dons friend, David Slater, (David Niven), another resident of the upscale building, mid-forties, rich, divorced, an aging roue up to no good. Patty cooks dinner for three. Later that evening, alone with David, he offers Patty the $600 hes won from Don on a bet which, after some hesitation, she takes. What, if anything, will be exacted from her is left unexpressed. A Noel Coward-type comedy of manners, The Moon is Blue shows its origin as a stage play: its limited time frameearly evening to late morning the next day, limited locationsthe Empire States observation deck bookends the film, with all the other action taking place in or around Dons and Davids apartments, and its never-ending talkiness, mostly from PattyDo you have a mistress? Is she pregnant? Are you going to seduce me? Dont you want to? (mistress, pregnant, seduce, all red flags for the Legion, as is virgin.). Patty overhears Cynthia, (Davids daughter and Dons ex-girlfriend), call her a professional virgin, and Patty wonders why. Don explains that such women want to sell themselves and therefore, hold out. It was the kind of repartee that violated the Codes canon that a movie must not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing.185 Pattys insistence that shes a virgin is made to seem merely oddball. David shows up half-drunk and Don goes to bed. (In both apartments the drinks cart is heavily in use, with the men constantly refreshing large balloon glasses with generous amounts of some pale liquor, gin or vodka. In one scene, (by my count), David refreshed his drink ten times; Don was more abstemious. Patty, fed up with being a professional virgin, takes a drink and smokes a cigarette. David, realizing that she prefers Don, suggests that she seduce him, and leaves. Patty knocks on Dons door but 183 184 IC&R, 21 May 1954, 1; 3 December 1954, 5. Black, Catholic Crusade, 136. 185 Vizzard, See No Evil, 153. 49 before he has time to open it, she runs out of the apartment. Each, thinking of the other, return separately to the Empire State Buildings observation deck. They kiss. He proposes. Theyll marry. At the Legions office in New York, Msgr. Thomas Little and his assistant, Fr. Paul Hayes, watched the film alongside Mrs. Mary Looram and a group of her reviewers and were scandalized when the women gave it a B classification (morally objectionable in part for all), a rating that by 1953 carried little weight even with practicing Catholics. But two priests could outvote any number of women and they issued The Moon is Blue a C.186 Msgr. Little argued that the sympathetic portrayal of seduction put Patty and the women in the audience on a slippery slopefirst she smokes, then takes a drink, which led her to knock on the bedroom door thereby accomplish[ing] her moral degeneration. 187 That she didnt actually fall, was immaterial. Seeking to make it a test case of its power and to support its C rating, the Legion succeeded in limiting the number of screens The Moon is Blue played. Msgr. Little rallied support from Cardinal Spellman and Bishop McIntyre, who dutifully called attendance at the film a near occasion of sin. The Legion supplied the bishops with sermons for their parish priests to rouse them and the laity to attack the theater owners. Thanks to such pressure, the Jersey City Police Department seized copies as obscene and arrested the theater manager; Chicago limited attendance to adults only; an El Paso priest reported he had put the hate on local exhibiters of the film; an upstate New York priest gathered more than 4,000 signatures unsuccessfully petitioning for an ordinance to ban immoral films like The Moon is Blue; San Franciscos Junior Chamber of Commerce canceled a showing in the interest of good taste. Kansas, Ohio, and Maryland banned the movie, but United Artists fought such bans and thanks to The Miracle precedent won all ten state and local court censorship cases.188 In Los Angeles, the PCAs Geoffrey Shurlock saw the movie as a light-hearted comedy about a girl who preserves her virtue and wins an engagement ring, too, but Joe Breen overruled him, denying it a Seal for its tone of lecherous prurience. 189 The only light Breen saw was an unacceptably light attitude toward seduction, added to the use of words such as pregnant, seduce, mistress, and professional virgin, which Breen found offensive. He also objected to Pattys statement to David: You are shallow, cynical, selfish, immoral, and I like you--the idea being that immoral people could be likeable violated a basic premise of the Code that evil not be shown as attractive. 190 On appeal, the Motion Picture 186 Black, Catholic Crusade, 125. Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 259. 188Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 259, 260. 189 Doherty, Hollywoods Censor, 307. 190 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 258. 187 50 Association of America (MPAA) upheld Breen. Since the PCA had demanded too many changes, Preminger released the film anyway, the first time a major studio had done so; United Artists had to resign from the MPAA and pay the $25,000 fine. Advertised as adults only, the film made $4 million the first year, the 15th most in gross receipts, and Ms. McNamara was nominated for best actress. The movie enjoyed wide popularity: St. Joseph Magazine (Americas Catholic Family Monthly), at one with majority of opinion, praised it as a parable of the pure of heart. An amusing, sophisticated film, in Indianapolis it ran for twenty-eight weeks straight at the Esquire Theater. A year after its release, it reached St. Marys parish in North Vernon and received a different reception: Fr. Eisenman, without the benefit of seeing it, but a good soldier enrolled in the Church militant, announced that occasionally our local theatre books a movie that is outright bad. Such a movie is THE MOON IS BLUE [emph. orig.], coming on next Wednesday and Thursday. Stay away. Dont commit a mortal sin.191 While the intramural Catholic controversy over the ban helped the box office, many felt Breen had overstepped and a Catholic backlash against the Legion ensuedfor the first time a significant number of clergy and laity complained about a C rating. Many who saw it, Catholic and non-Catholic, finding it an argument against promiscuity, came away bewildered and wondering what all the fuss was about. The knee jerk support of religious leaders, Catholic and non-Catholic, heretofore habitual among municipal officials, Catholic and non-Catholic, would no longer be so common or so widespread in future. In the long run, The Moon is Blue was a major turning point and more hurtful than The Miracle. Msgr. Little lamented that the controversy sold tickets and that the Legion could no longer count on the laitys automatic support.192 Its condemnation seemed so pointless and in 1961 the PCA gave it a Seal and the Legion lifted the C rating for showing on television. A different sort of questionable censorship was posed by the 1953 movie, Martin Luther, a straightforward Lutheran version of their founders role in the Reformation (one now long accepted by historians, Catholic and Protestant alike). It received Oscar nominations for art direction and cinematography as well. While the Breen office approved it without reservation, the Legion of Decency could not stomach it. Since the movie contained no sex or violence, the Legion could not give it a C; instead, it invented the separate classification and attacked it for theological and historical references and interpretations which are unacceptable to Roman Catholics--that is, for its unflattering depiction of the Catholic Church in the early 1500s, an abuse which did not go unnoticed.193 191 192 North Vernon, Box IX, 30 May 1954. Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 260, 261. 193 Black, Catholic Crusade, 125-127, 130. 51 Just as the Jewish community was upset with Alec Guinness unflattering depiction of Fagan in Oliver Twist, so, too, many Catholics reviled Luther for its admiring treatment of the founder of the Lutheran Church. Starting in January 1954, the Indiana Catholic and Record began a highly critical seven-part series on the picture. The abuse was compounded when Catholic media hysterically denounced the film: The national Catholic weekly, Our Sunday Visitor, decried it as unhistorical, unbiblical, and unfair, and published a thirty-page booklet explaining why the film was heretical.194 Canadas Quebec Province banned public screenings of Luther and Chicago Catholics successfully forced WGN-TV to cancel a planned broadcast in 1956.195 William H. Mooring, a Catholic convert whose syndicated column Hollywood in Focus appeared each week in the IC&R, gave neither quarter nor charity: Luther was a tyrant, apostate heretic, angry, foul-mouthed and unbalanced, and the movie vitriolic, a slanted, parody of history. Having second thoughts on Martin Luther, the IC&R refused to support a ban on its showing on television, and in 1974, editor Msgr. Raymond Bosler was calling Luther a hero. True, the film was an oversimplification, and Protestant histories were partisan and triumphal, but so, too, had been Catholic histories.196 Truth to tell, Martin Luther is a good film and unexpectedly popular. The Catholic campaign of vilification not only drove away Protestant support from the Legion but exposed the myth that it was concerned only with Christian morality. *** Weakening both the MPAAs Classification and Ratings Administration (CARA), and the Legions ability to hold the line, were the unpopularity of some censorship decisions, growing public support for adult themes, and a box office down by about a quarter from its immediate postwar height. The studios forced sale of their theaters after 1948 meant the loss of an assured market for their pictures. Other factors included the decline of the studio system and a commensurate rise of independent filmmakers, an influx of foreign films, and the film as art movement. Of the greatest importance was the wholly new challenge of television: In 1948, one million television sets were sold in the U.S., (just in time for the widely watched House Un-American Committee (HUAC) investigations into communists in Hollywood).197 Consequently, in the 1950s and the 1960s the Code was questioned, challenged, and ignored,198 as the industry hurried to offer racier fare in compensation. 194 Black, Catholic Crusade, 131, 132. Bredeck, Imperfect Apostles, 184, 185; IC&R, 27 March 1959, 4. 196 Criterion, 12 July 1974, 7. 197 Boller and Davis, Hollywood Anecdotes, 375-378. 198 Doherty, Pre-code Hollywood, 343. 195 52 The balance of power between Hollywood and the Catholic Church shifted in the mid-1950s from the initial compromise, capitulation, and abject fear on Hollywoods part of the 1922 dos and donts, toward resistance, defiance, and cynical exploitation in its dealings with the Churchs censors, the PCA and the Legion.199 It was not mere coincidence that 1954 saw Will Hays death, Joseph Breens retirement, and Fr. Daniel A. Lords retirement the next year. In his first full year running the PCA, Breens replacement, the Episcopalian Geoffrey Shurlock, presided over an 11 percent increase in B films (objectionable in part for all). The Legion could still get many requested cuts, but it was harder to do and less satisfactory; the studios were less willing to cut a B film to get an A-II rating, because a B no longer damaged the box office.200 Missteps like The Moon is Blue and Martin Luther took their toll, as the Production Code Administration and the Legion of Decency passed the apogee of their influence. The bishops own 1956 National Catholic Welfare Conference study showed that the laity did not take the Legion seriously; worse, half of the Legions local directors were not even filing reports. 201 On the one hand, boredom had set in; on the other, people felt patronized. In July 1954 the Indiana Catholic and Record was a bell whether of the change: Editor Bosler began asking, Is Anyone Else Tired of Taking the Pledge? Claiming not to be opposed to the Legion as such, but rather the mass-pressure way in which it is often administered encourages hypocrisy or insincerity. Why stand and recite aloud? People resent being sand-bagged, it is self-defeating;202 This was followed in November 1955 with a page one article and an editorial citing the Legions uncomfortable custom of public pledges. It treats people like children, and not very bright children at that. It is a carry-over from some highly suspect religious strong-arming of grade-school days.203 In April 1957, the IC&R abandoned the Churchs basic premise in stating that Catholics had a right to censor books and movies for themselves, but not for others. We live in a pluralistic society, with no agreement on moral and religious convictions, not even among Catholics on such matters.204 In December 1959, bothered by the administration of the pledge to docile and unheeding congregations appropriate to third graders, it will not be taken seriously by many modern adults. Instead of the Legion, it would be best to adopt a legally enforceable age classification system. Left unsaid, such a system would get the Church out of the film censorship business.205 199 Doherty, Hollywoods Censor, 327. Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 267. 201 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 285. 200 202 IC&R, 30 July 1954, 4. 203 204 IC&R, 25 November 1955, 1. IC&R, 26 April 1957, 4. 205 IC&R, 11 December 1959, 1. 53 Then there were films--Tea and Sympathy, 1956, was one--where the PCA and the Legion fell out: the problems were its homosexual theme, attempted suicide, adultery, and divorce. (It did not run in the main theaters in Indianapolis.) While the PCA gave it a Seal, the Legion condemned it for in dwell[ing] upon carnal suggestiveness it lowered audience morals, disregarded correct standards of life, and undermined natural and human law.206 New Yorks Francis Cardinal Spellman took the unusual step of personally denouncing it from the St. Patricks pulpit, rather than a letter read at all the Masses. Responding to the cardinals pulpit denunciation, in a reprise of The Miracles reception, over a thousand Catholics picketed the New York theater, intimidated patrons, and issued bomb threats.207 In the revised version the housemasters wife who had cured a boy of his fears that he was homosexual by seducing him, wrote him to show the wrong they had done to others, especially her husband--the divorce, her husbands life ruined, etc., driving the point home for the boy and the movie audience that sin is sin. Re-rated by forty new Legion viewers, including 16 priests and a bishop, ranged from A-II (morally unobjectionable for adults and adolescents), to C, condemned; the film was given a B. The Legions basic problem was that a better educated laity very different from the pre-war years was not as likely to accept either clerical direction or the parochialism of the past. What had seemed to many--categorizing movies as to whether they were a danger to souls--as perfectly straightforward and clear, was no longer so. Certainly, Catholic movie critics differed: There was William Mooring proselytizing Catholic members of the Motion Picture Academy to refrain from voting Oscars for B films, while Walter Kerr, drama critic of the New York Tribune and member of Catholic Universitys Drama Department, worried that the Legions concerns about morality were so all-encompassing as to neglect any real consideration of motion picture art. Kerr burlesqued the process in venturing that A film featuring a Saint is a film of majestic technical excellence, . . . a nun driving a jeep is a superbly made comedy, one with a jolly priest, a self-sacrificing Catholic mother and an anti-Communist message must be defended. By then, the Bishops Committee on Motion Pictures itself wanted the Legion to be more positive, to recognize A-I films that supported Christian values, but also wanted cinema of artistic merit recognized. The push to do that came from Rome by way of Havana, Cuba. *** Sponsored by the Churchs International Catholic Film Office (ICFO), In January 1957 Catholic delegates from thirty-one countries met in Havana, Cuba. The Vatican letter to the delegates stated that the ICFO is not a form of censorship imposed from outside but an integral part of the judgement of a well-formed Christian. Through her judgment [the Church] shapes the conscience of the faithful, directs their choice and promotes the success of worthy films. Where the Lord-Quigley Code was designed so that no movie would lower the morals of its audience, the ICFO existed to safeguard youth from adult 206 207 Walsh, Sin and Censorship,? 275. Black, Catholic Crusade, 91-102. 54 fare, foster the education of adults with regard to quality films, and bring about an enlightened Catholic response to movies as a serious art.208 Like the Legion of Decencys home-grown critics, the ICFO wanted moviegoers educated to appreciate the films produced by serious artists. Unfortunately, for the Americans the Havana meeting was a disaster for Msgr. Little, serving as chairman of the English language section. His slightly triumphalistic remarks emphasized the popes praise for the American model--the working alliance between the PCA and the Legion in America for ensuring the presence of a voice for morality and for compensating moral values. This was angrily derided by the other delegations already resentful at Americas dominance of movie making. Beyond resentment, the serious point of the critics was the assumption that morals and art lent themselves to such easy categorization. It was all too easy and simple; so efficient, so American; and so childish and superficial. Attacked in the discussion which followed, the next day Little resigned his chairmanship of English section.209 The American bishops indicated that they had gotten the message; while still defending the Legion of Decency, they declared it must become more affirmative in future. It was in the context of looking to affirm as well as to critique cinema that Martin Quigley suggested to Cardinal Spellman that a Jesuit be appointed to the Legion as a way to quiet the open criticism of the Legion by a number of prominent Jesuits. The orders New York provincial complied and Fr. Patrick Sullivan, S.J., S.T.D. (Gregorian University), was brought on board as Littles assistant. The irony was that while Quigley and Spellman were worried that the Legion needed to hold the line against immoral films, Sullivan was being tasked by the bishops with breathing new life into it; to Sullivan that meant change or die. Besides tracking better with the contemporary zeitgeist, he was to avoid such past gaffes as the condemnation of The Moon is Blue. True, imposing Catholic values on motion pictures in a pluralistic society had been the Legions reason for existence, but Sullivan and many others shared the reservations of his fellow Jesuit, John Courtney Murray, about the right of the Church to impose its values on non-Catholics.210 Exactly a week after Sullivans arrival at the Legion, Pius XII issued the encyclical, Miranda Prorsus, remarkable technical inventions. In wanting state censorship, a Catholic rating system in every country, and in forbidding Catholic theater owners to screen films contrary to Catholic morals, Miranda Prorsus was at one with Pius XIs encyclical on cinema, Vigilanti Cura, 1936. Yet it differed substantially 208 IC&R, 11 January1957, 1. 209 Vizzard, See No Evil, 252-256. 210 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 288. 55 from the earlier statements warning against movies as a a school of corruption. Instead, Pius XII praised motion pictures as one of the most important discoveries of our times and enjoined Catholics to undertake deep and prolonged study of them in schools on every level so that they could judge what they were being presented and therefore understand which were in accord with religion and the moral law and follow the instructions issued by the Ecclesiastical offices. Yet much like Pius XIs Vigilanti Cura, Miranda Proruss paid homage to the power and scope of the mediaradio, television, and motion pictures--for their potential social benefits in providing news, education, and entertainment. They make life easier, faster, more comfortable; help reveal the mysteries of Earth; as forms of art, they are gifts of God. Of course, man must direct their use for Gods greater glory and mankinds good for they can also be used for evil. What was most salient to Sullivan was the popes expressed desire that the applause and approval of the general public will not be wanting as a prize for really worthwhile films;211 meaning, not only did the Legion need to be more positive about motion pictures, it needed to exhibit greater acceptance of realistic films on serious subjects. Sullivan saw the encyclical as a way to put the bishops feet to the fire, helping him by supporting Legion reforms. At their annual November meeting, the bishops took on the problem of the B film--the otherwise good film negated by immoral baggage. The category was simply too broad in that some B movies were lights, of possible danger to adolescents and others, while heavy B films, were borderline C films. The hope was that the evolving B designation, those . . . which can be a moral danger to spectators, would in future be few and limited to the truly objectionable. The bishops solution was to expand the A ratings into A-I, morally unobjectionable for general patronage, A-II, morally unobjectionable for adults and adolescents, with a new category, A-III, morally unobjectionable for adults, that is, the average adult would not ordinarily be in moral jeopardy in seeing the movie. The A-III was to substitute for the heretofore light B films, morally objectionable in part for all. As it turned out, the A-III was simply a relabeling, a public relations exercise; movies previously B were now either A-II or A-III. Absent the latter, there would be more B ratings. Conservatives were not mollified as many thought the new Bs should have been Cs. As for the A-III, the laity wanted to know how the Legion could recommend Peyton Place, 1957, for adult viewing with its unending intramural sexual hijinks in a New England town? In a letter to one such objector, Sullivan defended the producer for removing the objectionable parts of the novel and adding mini-speeches on the difference between love and lust, the proper role of the educator in our society, that teaching about sex was the parents 211 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 289. 56 responsibility, and abortion as an offense against God and the law. Did hearing such exhortations sufficiently balance the immorality displayed on the screen, was the question.212 Realizing that there was real confusion over the A-III rating, Sullivan turned to using the separate class for movies legitimately moral, although some elements were beyond the capacity of some adults. Such a film was Anatomy of a Murder,1959, one of the first mainstream Hollywood releases to deal with graphic sex and rape, one still highly regarded as a complex courtroom drama and for the sensitivity of its treatment of the victim. An army officer beats the murder rap for murdering the man who raped his wife. Its manifold sexual references were problematic, but the PCA issued its Seal when some were eliminated and others reduced. The Legion agreed that the film might shock the sensitive or impressionable, but it was not immoral in theme or treatment and used the separate category to avoid condemning it.213 *** When a literal flood threatens to sweep away the dikes protecting the city, practical wisdom dictates that some of the over surge be released to lessen the pressure; so, too, in the late fifties through the sixties and seventies the PCA and the Legion responded to criticism of their censorious ways by substituting a certain permissiveness for past rigor. Thus, from time to time, the MPAA board reluctantly amended the 1930 Code in small matters and large. For example, neither suicide nor euthanasia being named in the 1930 Code, in 1951 the former was added (never to be justified or glorified or used to defeat the due process of law); euthanasia, it was agreed, would not be named but understood to be unusable as a story line. Abortion, also absent from the Code as obviously contrary to natural law, now appeared as Abortion, sex hygiene, and venereal disease are not proper subjects for theatrical motion pictures. The ban against miscegenation, the sexual mixing of the races, had been taken directly from Hays 1927 Donts and Be Carefuls to placate theater owners in the Jim Crow South. Put in the section prohibiting sex perversions, in 1952 Breen, never happy with its inclusion, moved it to a new category of special subjects--actual hangings, electrocutions, third degree methods, sale of women, surgical operations, and liquor and drinking, all to be treated within the careful limits of good taste. 214 Anything to do with illegal drugs was contentious: Since even an anti-drug plot kindles the curiosity of the susceptible, the 1946 permission for drug trafficking scenarios was withdrawn and replaced with Neither the illegal drug traffic, nor drug addiction, must ever be presented. 215 However, the superlative 1955 film, The Man with the Golden Arm, spared audiences neither the process of shooting up nor the consequences of addiction. Otto Preminger released it without a Seal and was rewarded at the 212 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 290, 291. Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 292, 293. 214 Doherty, Hollywoods Censor, 355. 215 Doherty, Hollywoods Censor, 298-301. 213 57 box office and praise from the critics.216 Understanding that the public would not support a C rating for the Frank Sinatra vehicle, once again the Legion of Decency and the PCA differed: The twenty-five Legion raters grades ran from C to A-II, with the majority giving it a B. In a major overhaul in December 1956, the Code was changed to allow broader treatment of the narcotics trade and other taboo subjects. (Of the four drug films that followed between 1956 and 1959, A Hatful of Rain, 1957, a sophisticated treatment of the medical, familial, and social evils of drug addiction, stood out, winning a gold medal from the International Catholic Film Office. (Another instance of how mismatched Europe and the United States were regarding permissible themes and treatment). Still forbidden in the 1956 Code revisions were nudity, sex perversion, open-mouth kissing, and venereal diseases, while abortion, child birth, white slavery, kidnapping, and drug addiction were no longer banned, yet discouraged, never more than suggested and when referred to, shall be condemned.217 Restrictions on crime scenes were tightened, as was incitement of bigotry toward races, religions, or national origins, complete with a list of specific slurs to be avoided for Jews, Italians, Chinese, French, Hungarian, blacks, and Hispanics.218 Subject matter had widened and the question became not what, but how a subject was presented.219 By the time Easy Rider was released in 1969, drugs were depicted as a necessary accouterment of the hipster. 220 Modifications and changes in emphasis continued: As a result of the climate set by Miranda Prorsus, in 1957 the Legion revised the A-II to permit adolescents to view them by creating an A-III for adults only, leaving B and C still to be avoided as occasions of sin. Two years later, it announced a campaign for good films; it would promote family fare by name, increase the number of its male reviewers, and encourage adult discussion of films and film clubs. Said the Legions Executive Secretary Msgr. Thomas Little, in 1959, Our aim now is to promote better films produced . . . through our approval rather than fear of our disapproval.221 Suddenly Last Summer, 1959, presented its own challenges: In one critics summary, for a single admission, the moviegoer got a practicing homosexual, a psychotic heroine, a procuress-mother, [and] a cannibalistic orgy. Nevertheless, the MPAA appeals board gave it a Seal over the PCAs objections, while the Legion set off a barrage criticism in the Catholic press by again using the separate classification. Liberal or conservative, few were happy with the judgement of the PCA or the Legion or 216 217 218 219 220 221 Doherty, Hollywoods Censor, 298-301. Doherty, Hollywoods Censor, 324. 318-322; Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 281. Doherty, Hollywoods Censor, 324, 325. Getlein and Gardiner, S.J., Movies, Morals and Art), 121, 140, 141, 169, 170. Celluloid Weapon, 233. IC&R, 20 March 1959, 7. 58 with Hollywood: Some Like It Hot, (transvestitism), 1959; Room at the Top (immoral hustler goes unpunished), 1959; Never on Sunday (principled Greek prostitute), 1960; Splendor in the Grass, 1961, (its healthier to satisfy ones sexual needs). After The Childrens Hour, (putative lesbianism), 1961, based on the play by Lillian Hellman, the Code was amended in keeping with the culture, the mores and the values of our time, homosexuality and other sexual aberrations may now be treated with care, discretion and restraint.222 Then there was Lolita, 1961, (older mans sexual obsession with nymphet), in which Martin Quigley, of all people, interceded and helped win it the PCA Seal. The Legion of Decency gave it a separate classification, stipulating that only persons over 18 could see it. (Sue Lyons was Lolita, age 14 when filming started and 15 when it was released). The Criterion explained the Legions tergiversations between 1958 and 1962 as due to its willingness to consider all morally unobjectionable films for endorsement, reasoning that adult Catholics were now sufficiently educated to make their own choices.223 In 1969, even the American bishops dropped their blanket condemnation of nudity in movies.224 In his 1970 memoir, Jack Vizzard, assistant director of the PCA under Geoffrey Shurlock, offered a different explanation: The studio Elephantsthe MGMs, the Columbias, the Paramountshad entered a new era of the independent filmmaker--the result of new tax laws in which individual performers and creators were lured away from the corporations, where they were salaried and governable contractees, and into private ventures, where they could take advantage of the capital gains loopholes. The studios, which had been structured monarchies devoted to production-line mass turnout of films, hung on to be bullied by the new masters, Otto Preminger and his ilk. But as the authority of the studios drained away, so did the Codes, like the sands in an hourglass. 225 Believing that the public pledge was an obstacle to reform, in 1959, Fr. Sullivan had proposed rewriting it to urge that rather than blind obedience to the Legion, the laity take individual responsibility, a step on the way to drop taking the pledge en masse at Sunday Mass; specifically, to replace condemn indecent and immoral pictures, with promote by word and deed what is morally and artistically good in entertainment, and substitute for unite with all those who protest against . . . indecent pictures, (language which had ignited many an unseemly boycott), with work against such films through good example and always in a responsible and civic-minded manner.226 This was too soon for most bishops, who, in November 1961, voted 93-60 against the changes. 222 Black, Catholic Crusade, 191, 192. The word aberrations is key; for a time, homosexuality in films would be treated as freakish. 223 Criterion, 18 May 1962, 8. 224 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 323, 329 225 Vizzard, See No Evil, 210, 211. 226 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 310. 59 In late 1963, however, the dike grew weaker: Citing the work of Vatican II, Msgr. Little himself harshly turned against the pledge as having become an object of criticism, dissatisfaction, indifference, and even hostility. In view of the ecumenical nature of the times, the laity viewed the pledge as a pathetic anachronism, creating the image of the church as a patroness of boycotts. 227 The new pledge urged Catholics to promote good films and work against bad ones in a responsible and civic-minded manner.228 The hostile picketing, boycotts, and bomb threats heretofore employed, were costing the Legion public support and the bishops knew it. The new wording was finally adopted in 1964 and the pledge published on page one.229 By then, however, only three dioceses still favored the old pledge, and half the local Legion directors failed to file yearly reports. In most places the pledge had faded away.230 Even so, there were holdouts: As late as December 1968, Indianapolis Archbishop Paul C. Schulte was still reminding priests to administer the pledge at Mass.231 Well he might: Of 111 films reviewed and rated from January to May 1969 by the MPAA, almost one-third exhibited gross involvement of sex and violence, with less than one-quarter found suitable for family viewing and teenagers and only 11 films rated general audience. The situation led NCOMP to declare the MPAA code a gigantic hoax. The X rating was a come-on, as many theaters did not enforce the ratings, letting anyone with a ticket enter.232 *** To get down to cases during the Sullivan years at the Legion: La Dolce Vita, 1960, directed by Federico Fellini, was put in a separate class, too important as art and intention to condemn, but dangerous to all save those of the strongest character. Gossip columnist Marcello Rubini, (Marcello Mastroianni), undertakes a decadent weeklong tour of Romes nightclubs, cafs, beach houses, luxury homes, and castles. In Roger Eberts summary, the film chronicles the sweet life of fading aristocrats, second-rate movie stars, aging playboys, and women of commerce. Marcello himself, pursues and is pursued by a beautiful rich Italian heiress, a rich American artist, a dancer, a voluptuous movie star (Anita Ekberg), a trio of bikini-clad girls, a waitress, etc. Theres a 227 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 310. 228 Black, Catholic Crusade, 210. 229 Criterion, 1l Dec 1964, 1. 230 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 313, puts the end of road for both CARA and the Legion in 1964. 231 Indianapolis Catholic Archives, Schulte papers, Box 31. 232 Criterion, 16 May 1969, 11. 60 sighting of the Madonna by two children. Taken to be a miracle, the medias presence gathers a crowd, which ends in a melee and the trampling to death of a sick boy brought by his parents in hope of a cure. Theres a failed suicide and a murder-suicide, the latter perpetrated by Marcellos cultured friend, Steiner, an apparently happy family man who inexplicably murders his two children and then himself while his wife is out shopping. Marcellos salesman-father arrives from the country (they were never close), and meets Marcello and Fanny, the dancer and his sons ex-lover. They go to a cabaret and the Dad drinks and dances with Fanny. She takes the old man home, where he has a heart attack, suggesting either recent physical exertions or too much champagne. 233 A group of party-goers, led by Marcello, loath to have the evening end, break into a luxurious beach house at an early morning hour; the prevailing atmosphere is a sort of cruel bitchiness. Looking older, but not wiser, a drunken Marcello calls a woman unsexy, pulls her hair and throws water in her face. He rides another woman around the room like a horse, hitting her with a pillow and throwing the feathers around the room, thoroughly disgracing himself and giving the lie to movies title, The Sweet Life. Shocking to many for a 1960 movie is the presence of homosexuals, cross-dressers, drug use, and an amateur strip tease. The owner arrives and evicts them. Its dawn; washed up on the beach is a huge, repellent fish, caught in a net, dead on the beach. Some suggest the carcass might be worth selling. What it signifies is left to the viewer; likewise, Marcello sees a girl some distance away on a spit of land but is unable to communicate with her. Roll credits. A massive hit in Italy (13 million admissions), and France (3 million), Roger Ebert called La Dolce Vita Fellinis best. New York Times critic, Bosley Crowther, praised it as an awesome picture licentious in content, but moral and vastly sophisticated in what it says. James Arnold, the Criterions movie critic, commended the movie for showing the repulsiveness of sin,234 citing a priest-expert in drama who praised the picture as a classic example of how a Christian artist should handle the problem of evil. The Vatican newspaper, LOsservatore Romano, condemned it as a parody of Christs Second Coming (the movie famously begins with a helicopter carrying a statue of Christ high over Rome), and for being pornographic. (Much worse for the Church in this writers eyes was the travesty Fellini made of the miracle of the Madonnas appearance to the children, an episode that ends with the mobs attack on the miracle tree where she appeared, stripping it of its branches and leaves for personal relics.) 233 La Dolce Vita, Daily Illini, October 4, 1961; 5 January 1997. Accessed April 14, 2017. 234 Criterion, 20 October 1961, 8. 61 The practical minded Arnold wondered in how many parish halls could La Dolce Vita be shown,235 (one of the considerations for the Churchs approval specified in Miranda Prorsus). It was emphatically not for children: At 174 minutes its too long, too difficult to follow, and as a catalog of adult misbehaviordrugs, drunkenness, a dishabille woman bathing in a fountain unsuitable for those of tender years. Oddly, for a movie depicting moral decadence, behavior of a sexual nature is almost entirely absent. Granted, when Ekberg jumps into the Trevi Fountain her spectacular dcolletage is on display, but she keeps her clothes on. Even when Marcello and the rich Roman heiress, Maddalena, are shown in bed sleeping in each others arms theres nothing prurient about it. Lots of sin but remarkably little skin, even in the strip tease. To rate the film, Sullivan gathered 95 viewersdiocesan priests, seminary professors, eight film critics, an editor of a Catholic publishing house, a judge, a television producer, and the few IFCA holdovers remaining. The subjectivity of the ratings process showed: 23 voted for A-III; 22 for B; 22 for C; and 28 (including 14 priests) for separate classification. Sullivan made the best of it, pointing out that 73 of the 95, (including 38 of the 44 priests), voted against a C. It was also true, he noted, that it would be shown no matter what the Legion said, thanks to recent court rulings against censorship bodies. The Legion got the distributor to limit audiences to adults, to use subtitles rather than dubbing in English, and to refrain from exploiting the pictures sordid aspects in its advertising. For the rest, the Legion warned of the serious moral problems the movie posed for the immature and intellectually passive viewer. Its saving graces were its bitter attack upon . . . a hedonistic society of leisure and abundance, its salutary recognition of evil as evil and sin as sin.236 *** There were other signs of growing resistance: The Legions 1960 annual report admitted widespread apathy and indifference to its ratings. Up to about 1960, the Legion could influence what was shown in movie houses, acting as a sort of revising chamber or upper house for the Production Code Administration (PCA), but not afterward. Filmmakers and distributors no longer cared what the Legion said because few moviegoers did.237 Harold C. Gardner, S.J., co-author of Movies, Morals, and Art), 1961, observed that as a matter of common sense some good movies will cause moral problems for some and some bad ones wont. He was willing to leave the decision to attend a mature film to ones conscience and judgment,238 a very Vatican II thing to say avant la lettre. In 1964, if few were listening, the Legion hadnt given up: As a substitute for the separate classification, the A-IV category was invented for pictures which, while not morally offensive in themselves, require explanations as a 235 Criterion, 21 December 1962, 7. Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 296, 297. 237 Black, Hollywood Censored, 213; Black, Catholic Crusade, 220. 238 Frank Getlein and Harold C. Gardiner, S.J., Movies, Morals, and Art), (Sheed and Ward, New York, 1961), 142, 148. 236 62 protection against false conclusions. Of the 270 films the Legion classified that year, only 52 were A-I, acceptable for family viewing, the fewest in its thirty-year history.239 Some Catholic conservatives blamed Communist influence for the liberalizing trend. Mooring called out Sullivans ultra-sophisticated staff for having an un-Catholic tolerance for immoral movies. The Legion had lost its way by subordinating moral standards to cultural and artistic considerations. Granted, the mores had changed, but Sullivan had backed down. 240 Quigley, worried about Sullivans subordination of moral standards to cultural and artistic considerations, blamed the Jesuits: The staff was forgetting that their job was to provide moral guidance for young and less sophisticated moviegoers. Quigleys solution--to give the ratings the force of church law (making violations a mortal sin), was always a non-starter. Decades after its release most influential critics concur that La Dolce Vita is a landmark film, a consensus top ten motion picture of all time. The opening of the Second Vatican Council the next year would make for an entirely different climate going forward. One small sIgn of such change was the Criterions replacement of Mooring in 1961 with an antiMooring movie critic, James W. Arnold, M. A. An associate professor of journalism at Marquette University, Arnold was aware of the pressure on moviemakers to make films whose treatment and subject matter is suitable for children, adolescents, and adults, but also knew that the competition from television necessitated that Hollywood offer something that television could not. The difficulty was that superior films, that something better, didnt always pay off at the box office. Teenagers, the core audience, wanted horror movies and Elvis Presley.241 As Arnold saw it, the problem with the Legion was using ratings as guides to good movies, when its purpose is to point out occasions of sin. In consequence, we see a lot of bad movies and the makers of good movies lose money. Perhaps we make moral judgments too much in terms of sex and not enough in terms of artistic quality, combined with meaning and ultimate values. We seem to think too little of exposing children or ourselves of shabbiness of the spirit.242 A self-described movie nut, Arnold found films of the 1960s and early 1970s more exciting, more creative, and [for having] attracted the most talented people to work in the industry. Never in the history of art has creative work found such a large, eager audience cutting across all social, educational and national backgrounds. Precisely because many Catholics did not see what he saw, the more necessary to write chiefly for people troubled by the new trends in movies and their social moral implications. In his blunt assessment, the average Catholic found sophisticated movies morally problematic because theyd 239 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 313, 314. Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 307, 308. 241 Criterion, 21 December 1962, 7. 242 Criterion, 4 October 1963, 8. 240 63 been rendered ill-equipped by the dated set of standards of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, and by a parochial school education in the tradition of the Legion of Decency. 243 What saves Arnold from damnation as an unapologetic elitist is that he saw the job as raising the audiences capacity to appreciate complex, quality work. A case in point is 1965s The Pawnbroker. Director Sidney Lumets film was the first motion picture released in the U. S. to deal with the Holocaust in any depth. Challenging the censors as neither the importance of its subject nor its artistry could be questioned, it opens on an idyllic family outing in the countryside, the Sun shining, the wheat ready for harvest. Mother supervises the food, father plays with the children, a happy boy and girl, and grandma and grandpa look on. We can see that the wife is beautiful, and well learn that the father is an intellectual, a university professor. Suddenly, Nazi troops intrude on the pastoral scene and warplanes are in the sky. Its Poland, 1 September 1939; World War II has begun. The scene abruptly shifts to postwar New York City, to Harlem, a cauldron of poverty, dirty streets, noisy and violent, populated with grifters, addicts, and the confused. The pawnbroker, Sol Nazerman, services a clientele of small-time crooks, prostitutes, down and outs of every color hocking their belongings, whatnots, and stolen goods. Without faith or affect, Sol is tortured by his concentration camp memories as a sonderkommando (special unit), a prisoner forced to dispose of the remains of the gas chambers victims. Bereft of hope, he shuns any who tries to befriend him. A widowed retired social worker who seeks to draw him out, he tells her, Ive escaped from all the emotions. Mind your own business, stay out of my life. Jesus Ortiz, his Puerto Rican apprentice, eager to learn the business and become someone, introduces a hopeful note. But Sol tells him that he, Sol, does not believe in God, or art, or science, or newspapers, or politics, or philosophy, [only] money. Jesus black girlfriend Mabel (a prostitute), worries that Jesus will fall back into petty crime and bad company. To get money to pay his debts and keep him on the straight path, she uses what she has--youth, beauty, and a whores knowledge of men. Asking the pawnbroker to look at something pretty and promising greater delights to come, she exposes her breasts. The effect on Sol is to spark flashbacks of the nude and semi-nude women of the Nazi officers camp brothel, among them, his deceased wife. Deeply moved, in despair, Sol covers the young woman with a shawl. The pawnshop is actually a money-laundering operation run by Rodriquez, a black crime boss, whose other money-making interests include bowling alleys, tenements, and brothelsfrom which Sol gets his cut, a truth the pawnbroker cant face. Refusing to sign some papers that Rodriquez requires, 243 James W. Arnold Seen any good dirty movies lately?: A Christian critic looks at contemporary films, (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1972, 6. 2, 10, a collection of his articles, movie reviews, and lectures, 1962-1972, 64 hes summoned to Rodriquezs luxury apartment where the crime boss recounts some home truths; namely, that the money Nazerman uses to support the separate households of a sister and an aunt on suburban Long Island, and an apartment for his mistress and her dying father are the wages of sin. Its money from filth, says Sol. Rodriquez counters, Youre living right in the middle of a whorehouse; You give me a front and I give you money. Sign the papers. Overcome by shame, Sol signs. Back at the shop Sol is a broken man. Jesus tries to help, but the pawnbroker wants none of it. He tells Jesus people are scum. The meaning of life? Money is the whole thing. Rebuking his assistants enthusiasm, Sol tells him, Youre nothing to me. Go, leave me alone. Hurt by the contemptuous dismissal, Ortiz runs out of the shop and recruits a gang to rob the pawnshop safe; he insists that there be no guns, no shooting. Of course, it all goes wrong; one of the gang threatens to shoot Sol when he refuses to open the safe--Sol doesnt care whether he lives or dies. Jesus cares: Rushing to shield his employer, he takes a fatal bullet, crawls outside, and dies on the sidewalk. The echoes of Christs crucifixion are plain: Shaken by Jesus sacrifice, Sol, distraught, his face twisted in a silent scream, cradles Jesus head, getting blood on his hands in a new pieta. The police come, an ambulance, a crowd gathers. To punish himself and to feel something at last, he impales his palm on the spike of the pawnshops ticket spindle, recalling Christs wound in his side, the nails in his hands and feet hammered into his flesh. The film ends with Sol walking through the dispersing crowd alone, still isolated. 244 At first, the Production Code Administration and the Legion of Decency agreed that the nudity in The Pawnbroker violated the Code. But Allied Artists, the producer, appealed to the MPAA Board in New York which overruled Shurlock and issued a Seal conditional on reducing the length of the two nude scenesNazermans wife in the camp and Jesus girlfriends breasts; the associate producer cut a few frames and the PCA passed it. With the Seal, Allied Artists released the film in New York in April 1965. This sole exception was to be seen as a special and unique case, in no way precedent setting. But unique cases almost never appear but once. As Variety put it, it was a first for screen nudity in which the PCA recognized that good taste and artistic merit with which a subject is treated was important, too, and not just whether it hewed to current standards of the Code. 245 The Pawnbroker was a harder problem for the Legion: Like PCAs Shurlock, both Fr. Sullivan and Msgr. Little appreciated the artistry employed, but the Episcopal Committee on Motion Pictures had 244 At least in the DVD version I saw. Jay Boyer saw a different film in which, at its end, Sol can confront life with a better understanding of himself, and a renewed desire to live. Sidney Lumet, (Twayne Publishers: New York, 1993), 20. 245 Doherty, Hollywood Censor, 331; Criterion 12 May 1972, 10. 65 recently mandated that any film nudity would earn an automatic C; according to the Legion, in 1964 and 1965 the no nudity policy had been applied to thirty-four films, forcing producers to eliminate such scenes.246 Clearly, The Pawnbroker was in no way exploitive of sex, but for the Legion nudity was still never an indispensable means to achieve dramatic effect.247 Hence the C rating. Critics scorned the decision. The movies critical successit was chosen to represent the United States at the 1965 Berlin Film Festival and made many reviewers top ten list--came at the cost of the Legions reputation. For his own review of The Pawnbroker, Arnold adopted the persona of an Uncle George who, in a jokey letter, passed on his comments. Representing the average adult moviegoer, an unsophisticated tyro taking a whack at movie reviewing, he tells nephew Arnold that since the Legion condemned it, the film has been staggering slowly around the art-house circuit, clanking its chains. The movie itselfthe story of a bitter Jews utter lack of compassion, is unquestionably morbid and depressing, yet the viewer has to be dead not to feel for these people. Jesus sacrifice shatters Sols defenses against love and involvement, as shown when he impales his hand on the pawnshops ticket spike, a moment that exults you through the roof, (because Sol at last feels something?). As for the movies swift flashbacks, Uncle George found them artsy craftsy, a labored tactic that drags as did the endless shots of Sols broodings. Despite its C rating the thrill seeker had to be disappointed with the spicy tidbits, but the real shocks were dramatic not sexual. Dropping the persona, in his own voice Arnold says of the womans topless scene that he was never so powerfully impressed by the evil and degradation of prostitution. He admits to qualms: where will pushing the boundaries end? Some Catholics, reacting purely by instinct, are protesting the ads for that immoral picture. 248 Lumets The Pawnbroker questioned anew the Churchs role as censor. The PCA cited a producer who pointed out that the Legions ratings override months or years of work by creators without discussion, arbitration, [or] exchange of thoughts; this is not all to the good as it violates the artists work and risks enormous sums of the investors money. No other art is subject to such constraints, which is a danger in a free society. Defenders of the Legion argued that its pressure only comes into play once a film is released. Producers have to take their chances with the critics and the marketplace. Yet Arnold conceded that the Legions economic threat can influence an artistic product before its release, and that he wouldnt be happy if it was the Methodist Church in the drivers seat. Still, an artist has to stick to his guns. After all, hes not [merely] a businessman.249 *** 246 247 248 249 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 317. Miller, Hollywoods Censorship, 198. Criterion, 5 November 1965, 8. Criterion, 5 February 1965, 8. 66 The old guard was well and truly passing: Martin Quigley died in 1964 and Joseph Breen followed, 5 December 1965. Three days later the chairman of the Episcopal Committee, Philadelphia Archbishop John J. Krol, worn down by criticism, announced that the Legion of Decency, had become the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures (NCOMP); the for in the new name was to signify the more positive approach the Legion had taken in recent years, and not as a mark of reduced concern for decency in motion pictures, but to educate the movie audience to reflect the changing mores. Msgr. Thomas Little retired in 1966 and his assistant, Fr. Patrick Sullivan took the helm at NCOMP. To liberalize its verdicts, Fr. Sullivan added priests, teachers, businessmen, even students, to the IFCAs bank of reviewers. As a result, in 1967, when NCOMP gave Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf to 85 reviewers (66 new consultants and the 19 remaining IFCA staff) only 10 percent of the consultants gave it a C, versus 58 percent of the holdovers.250 In the end, it received an A-IV, (morally objectionable for adults, with reservations), which meant if an adult was of sufficiently strong character, said adult would not suffer morally. In keeping with the spirit of Vatican II, Sullivan brought in a layman to edit the National Catholic Film Newsletter providing subscribers with its own sophisticated reviews of major films. The newsletter showed which way the wind was blowing when it declared that closed gates and taboos in subject matter no longer existed. The IFCA, reduced to a minor role, ended its connection with NCOMP in 1969, as did Mrs. Mary Looram in 1970, when she retired after 34 years of service to the Church. Arnold was pleased that Legion was dropped, a word he regarded as indelibly linked to Victorian hypocrisy, which, to a generation less certain of absolute rules of conduct and of the moral benefits of force, [was] at best incongruous, at worst obscene. In addition, the Catholic Film Office would identify rules for prize films, ones which would be not only good, but embody authentic human values. He did wonder if the values have to be always expressed positively? For instance, could the The Pawnbroker contend for such a prize? It was certainly of merit, but might its strong values and similar films fail to overcome the presence of evil realistically treated? 251 In its first annual report NCOMP acknowledged the legitimacy of responsible adult films, and declared that if the film apostolate in the U.S. aspires to leadership in influencing both the artist and his audience, it must accept responsibility in welcoming the appearance of every good film, whether it is meant for the few or the many.252 The Criterion (after October 1960, the new name of the Indianapolis 250 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 321. 251 Criterion, 24 December 1965, 8. The idea that NCOMP would issue its own Oscars never came to much. 252 Skinner, Catholics and Cinema, 154. 67 archdiocesan newspaper), welcomed the change: it had seen the Legion develop from the billy club of a censorious policeman to the standard of Christian humanism after the 1957 Havana meeting. James Arnold was glad of the name change, having viewed legion and decency as a reference to war and blue nose hypocrisy, respectively.253 *** Overdue for its own makeover, in 1966 Jack Valenti, became president of the PCAs parent organization, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). A decorated bomber pilot who flew 51 missions in World War II and Harvard M.B.A., he was drawn from a career in public relations, advertising, and political consulting. At the time, Valenti was special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Like Will Hays, it was his political connections that brought Valenti to Hollywoods attention, Even more so was his M.B.A. at a time when over half of Hollywoods business problems involved overseas taxes, import quotas, and impounded profits.254 Publicly announcing that he would not preside over a feckless Code, privately, he sensed about it an odious smell of censorship and was determined to junk it at the first opportune moment.255 The problem that Valenti and the industry faced was the box office: the weekly postwar movie audience--90 million in 1946, fell to 60 million in 1950, to 45 million in 1954,256 and to only 15 million in 1969.257 According to a 1967 study, only a small percentage of people over 40 attended movies; of the under 40s, the majority were aged 16 to 24, while the under 30s saw an average of 39 films a year as Mom and Dad stayed home watching television. 258 The trend continued into the seventies: From accounting for 20 percent of the nations recreational spending and 82 percent of all spectator amusement expenditures in 1946, by 1970, moviegoing was only 3 percent of the recreational spending and 47 percent of spectator expenditures, despite huge increases in movie ticket prices.259 Valenti hoped to spur movie attendance and expand creative freedom while remaining sensitive to societal standards. His first effort at code revision was to substitute suggested for mature audiences, for previously unacceptable films, leaving it up to the ticket taker to judge whether the punter qualified as mature. Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, 1966, marked by four-letter words and a new permissiveness for sex 253 Criterion, 17 December 1965, 4; 24 December 1965, 8. 254 255 Vizzard, See No Evil, 318. Doherty, Hollywoods Censor, 330. 256 Doherty, Hollywoods Censor, 292. 257 Criterion, 12 June 1970, 4. 258 White and Averson, Celluloid Weapon), 224, 225. 259 Celluloid Weapon, 224. 68 and violence was part of a growing wave of films with adult content. Based on the Edward Albee play, a history professor and his wife, (the daughter of the college president), return home with a young couple from a bibulous faculty party for a nightcap. As the liquor flows, a savage honesty leads to unlovely revelations and betrayals. The movie had been denied a PCA Seal for blunt sexual references, and coarse and sometimes vulgar language. In hope of exempting the film from the Code, Valenti got Warner Brothers to promise to limit audiences to adults only and to drop screw you, and the euphemism friggin, (although God damn, son of a bitch, and hump the hostess remained). In its favor, Warner Brothers had $7.5 million at risk, (keep in mind that the PCA Code enforcers were employees of the studios through the MPAA), the play had won the 1963 Drama Critics Award, and had been seen by thousands on stage without undue alarm. Warner Brothers advertised the film as Suggested for Mature Audiences (no one under 18 unless accompanied by a parent) putting the burden on the theater owners to enforce the policy.260 For the long term, the movie proved the catalyst for MPAAs change to age classification. While the MPAAs Woolf appeal was pending, NCOMP weighed in: To rate Woolf, Sullivan gathered 85 reviewersbusiness people, film teachers, movie reviewers, academics, and graduate studentsand the 19 IFCA reviewers hed inherited: of the IFCA raters, 58 percent wanted it condemned versus only 10 percent of the 66 consultants he had chosen. Impressed by the films provenance and its perceived quality, NCOMP gave Woolf an A-IV, despite the spoken vulgarities. The immediate reaction of the NCOMPs A-IV rating inspired the greatest number of protest letters in Legion and NCOMP history.261 A few weeks later, over at the MPAA, Valenti eased restrictions on treatment of nudity, drugs, profanity, and abortion to meet the increasing sex and violence on television.262 NCOMPs report for 1970 found the movies more offensive than ever: of the 332 films reviewed, only 32 rated A-1, with a record 59 C films, compared to 40 the year before. Only 23 movies were seen as suitable for adolescents, 122 for adults (A-III), and 38 (A-IV) for adults with reservations.263 The MPAAs GP rating, (general patronage), promised family fare, but often did not. For example, in 1971, when Metro Goldwyn Mayor, unwilling to accept an R (restricted) rating for Ryans Daughter, threatened to withdraw from the MPAA, the association backed down.264 NCOMP and the Broadcasting 260 Vizzard, See No Evil, 320, 321. 261 262 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 322. Skinner, Cross and Cinema, 172, 173. 263 Criterion, 22 Jan 1971, 4, 11. 264 Criterion, 28 May 1971, 4. 69 and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches responded by withdrawing their support from the MPAA movie ratings as neither reliable nor realistic. Theater owners also criticized the ratings as too permissive and for further fragmenting the audience. Bonnie and Clyde, 1967, set in the Depression 1930s, in featuring that subset of people who, after three decades had still not recovered from the Great Depression, called to mind both The Grapes of Wrath and the contemporaneous Vietnam War. The eponymous naifs mixed violence, blood, and humor. Their abbreviated Robin Hood populist syllogism ran simply Banks are bad, why not rob them? But with the contemporaneous five day 1967 racial uprising in Detroit clearly in mind (43 dead, 342 injured, 7,000 arrested, 1,400 buildings burned, 5,000 homeless, $50 million in property damages), James Arnold warned that in any brutality contest society would win over the outlaws. 265 Scorn for police and property rights, he noted, was contrasted in the film by the poor sharing what little they have with the fugitivesno questions asked. Finding it an expert moral fable on violence, he put it on his ten-best list). NCOMP went further, naming it Best Adult Film of 1967. Arnold interpreted NCOMPs shift as an effort to overcome thirty years of faulty education by the Legion of Decency by emphasizing the value of film style over content.266 The picture was a ballad glamorizing criminal behavior and law-breaking. Faye Dunaway and Warren Beattie, as the eponymous couple, delight in their press clippings and, in suffering and dying in exchange for freedom and immortality, become heroes to others like themselves. Arnold suggested that the films moral points helped the NCOMP rating, the futility and horror of violence, perhaps the films best aspect. Its structure is classic legend--Hill Folk against the Establishment, common people versus their oppressors, theyre symbols of revolution, a word, he noted, heavily featured in the 1960s. In its lightheartedness, the banjo playing, the jokiness, all designed to display the principals cluelessness amid the violence and tragedy, Arnold found a remarkable film, with a unique style and a beautiful unity, although its effects on a mass audience may be at least partially pernicious. 267 The new dispensation clarified nothing and satisfied few, and in November 1968, Valenti abandoned the Lord-Quigley Code. He had persuaded the year-old National Association of Theater Owners to partner with the MPAAs age-related classifications according to adult content (nudity, fourletter words, explicit violence, etc.), to be enforced at the box office. All we do, said Valenti, is give advance cautionary warnings and say this is what we think is in this movie. 268 Shurlock and Vizzard 265 Arnold Seen any good dirty movies lately? Criterion, 26 April 1968, 11. 267 Arnold Seen any good dirty movies lately?, 76. 268 Doherty, Hollywoods Censor, 332; Miller, Hollywood Censored, 210. 266 70 having retired, the PCA was supplanted by the Code and Rating Administration (CARA). As before, nonMPAA members could submit their films and many did, while foreign and independent producers often did not, nor art houses or adult films. Fee costs depended on production costs and the size and resources of the film organization. Keeping in closer harmony with the mores, the culture, and the moral sense and the expectations of our society, the anonymous raters would not have any particular movie expertise, just eight to fifteen anonymous parents as the final arbiters of family conduct.269 Serving for seven years with, ideally, children of five to fifteen years old at home, the parents rated two or three films each day and would leave the board when their last child turned 21. There would be four senior raters not held to the above standards.270 (CARAs classifications were and are readily available in the newspaper movie adsG, general audience; M, mature audience; R, restricted; and X, adults only. Over time, the system morphed into what we have today: G, general audience; PG, parental guidance suggested; PG-13, parents strongly cautioned was added in 1984, some material may be inappropriate for pre-teenagers; R, restricted, under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian; and the X rating gave way in 1990 to NC-17, no child under 17 admitted. Since teenagers make up the largest audience for movies, NC-17 was a rating to be avoided at all cost. Beginning in 1990 the ratings were accompanied by brief explanations, such as sexual content, explicit violence, brief nudity, language.) In scoring a thematic trifecta of nudity, prostitution, and homosexuality, Midnight Cowboy, 1969, was emphatically pernicious and certainly not in the tradition of the Legion. Joe Buck, (Jon Voight), a dishwasher from small town Texas, buys a cowboy outfit and heads to New York City, confident he will be able to gigolo his way to a life of luxury. There he meets Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a con artist with a bad limp and a worse cough, street smart in ways Buck cant imagine they become comrades. But Joe fails to prosper and as Ratsos health deteriorates he wants to go to Florida for its warmth. The money problem is solved when Joe reacts with shocking brutality to an older mans homosexual advance and steals twenty dollars from him for two bus tickets to Miami. En route, Ratso dies in Joes arms, another pieta. 269 Doherty, Hollywoods Censor, 332, 333. 270 The secrecy of the process was breached by the 2006 documentary, This film is not yet rated, which unmasked the raters names and revealed that some raters children were over age or had no children, and sundry other departures from the ideal; for example, of the ten raters in 2018, five were married, two divorced, one separated, one widow, and a porn star. As a group, the raters had six children over 15, and two children under 15. 50 year Report of the Motion Picture Association of America, 1968-2018. 71 The critics loved the film and the principals performances. It won Academy Awards for best picture, direction, and screenplay, nominations for best actor for both Voight and Hoffman, and numerous other bests and nominations from the Golden Globes and similar critics awards and nominations in the U.S. and abroad. CARA gave it an X rating, the first and perhaps still the last X-rated film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture (in 1971 its X became an R). NCOMP gave it an A-IV, for by exposing the dark shadow of the human heart revealed the loneliness and alienation of our times. Roger Ebert called it one of a handful of films that stay in our memory after the others have evaporated. Arnold praised it for in having gone far beyond voyeurism it justified the new freedom of the screen. In 1994, the Library of Congress included it in its permanent archives as a culturally, historically or aesthetically significant film, and a case study of how the mores change. In 1974 James Arnold found that since the abandonment of the Code, the percentage of G films had declined from one in three to one in five; and while X films declined from 9 percent to about 4 percent, this was misleading in that X rated films were now showing in better theaters and were more widely distributed. The only real choice was between PG and R and few could tell the difference; similarly, there was little difference between R and X. Arnold regarded the MPAAs CARA ratings as utterly incomprehensible, with most of the target film audience the 17 to 24 cohort.271 With the C having become an attractive come-on by the early 1970s, studios were not interested in negotiating with NCOMP to avoid it. NCOMP complained that the new freedom of the MPAAs age classification system did not so much encourage more quality mature pictures as for delivering protection for the kiddies, while anything goes for the rest. In response, in May 1971, NCOMP withdrew its support from the MPAAs Code and Rating Administration and joined the Broadcasting and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches. In trying to hold the line by itself, NCOMP condemned one of every five 1971 films,272 movies that regularly showed up on the ten best lists of Catholic movie critics. Indicative of the shift was Arnolds praise for a series of 1971 releases: Klute featured a call-girl; reflective of the anti-Vietnam War mood, Johnny Got His Gun, a World War I soldier is rendered a quadriplegic and nearly completely unable to communicate due to horrendous facial wounds wants to be euthanized; Carnal Knowledge, the emptiness of promiscuous sex without committed love; and Summer of 42, a beautiful young woman, learning that her husband has been killed in action, takes a teenage boy into her bed.273 Such choices attracted Criterion readers ire: One detractor, sick and tired 271 Criterion, 11 October 1974, 8. Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 327 273 Criterion, 29 October 1971, 10. 272 72 of Arnolds complacency, argued that in praising B pictures (objectionable in part for all) and even condemned films, he undermined the National Catholic Film Office. Readers expected the Criterion to support the NCFO. If he continued as in the past, the archdiocese should reconsider the papers status as the official voice of the Catholic community in our area.274 Unmoved, believing that parental fears about their childrens movie fare were exaggerated, Arnold defended the movies of the 1970s for being, on average, better than those twenty to forty years ago; many as wholesome as any in the past, more realistic, and deal more with the tragedy of life which is a good thing; in some so-called bad films the good outweighs the bad. As for their effect on children, even for some bad films it is very slight. As for bad immoral films, for his own children Arnold preferred gradual confrontation, with the purpose of introducing the obscenity in our midst,275 (what might be called, the gradual inoculation method). At long last, and not before time, in 1980 the decreasing numbers of diocesan subscribers led the bishops to end NCOMPs subsidies; the Churchs ability to tell the laity what movies to shun and have them follow its lead had ended years before. Its last movie evaluations appeared that September. In his valedictory Fr. Sullivan reminisced over Catholicisms nearly half-century of clout in Hollywood, especially 1934 through the mid-1950s, a time when motion pictures were a family entertainment. In all, 16,251 feature films were previewed and rated.276 (The United States Catholic Conference still issues film ratings to the diocesan press; the A-I through A-IV survives, while B and C gave way to O, in 1982, for morally objectionable films that denied Gods existence, ridiculed religious faith, . . . contradict scriptural values and Church teaching on . . . euthanasia, abortion, suicide, adultery, homosexual activity or vigilante killing and revenge, as well as excessive, gratuitous or, for no artistically valid reason, non-stop vulgarity.) *** It is often claimed that the Lord/Quigley Code and the Legion of Decency forced writers not only to be cleaner but to be cleverer, in that Explicit sex, gory violence . . . demand no mental exertion on the part of the writer. . . . In the proper dramatic context, a touch of the hand, a simple look, could be far more 274 275 Criterion, 5 April 1974, 4. If memory serves all movie reviews were soon dropped from the paper. Seen any good dirty movies lately? 30. 276 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 328. According to one source, Reprobate Press, accessed 22 March 2019, 290 were C pictures, a little over 6.1 per year. In six of those years1935, 1944, 1946, 1970, 1974, 1975there were no C films. The condemned list includes 1933 (22) and 1934 (30) respectively, but the numbers reflect retrospective condemnations since the Legion was not up and running until 1936. 73 erotic than any of todays explicit tumbles in the hay.277 Of course, greater erotic charges were not what the Church had in mind. It may be true that its an ill wind that blows no good, but thats not an argument for either censorship or totalitarian regimes based on the claim that great art has been produced under both. Still, many believe that the Breen era, 1934-1954, when censorship was most stringent, was Hollywoods great period, when the most vivid and compelling motion pictures--glorious as art, momentous as texts--were created . . . .278 Walter Kerr, a Catholic movie critic of the New York Herald Tribune, did not subscribe to the thesis that censorship, by itself, made for film artistry. The Legions real effect, he thought, was to place a ceiling beyond which Catholic taste in motion pictures could not rise, while also serving to discredit the Catholic intellectual tradition. For example, Kerr judged Quo Vadis, (a film which won the Christopher Award in 1952),279 as an essay in calculated vulgarity. It was deemed of merit, on the ground that since its intention is virtuous, the execution must therefore not be called into question, . . . In this way, Catholic taste is frozen at the unobjectionable, purity-with-popcorn level, a level which would have raised questions of every literary or dramatic masterpiece ever produced. Certain works of Catholic writers-Claudel, Bernanos, Graham Greene--would have failed the test. The Legions insistence that in the movies sin must always be punished was far from good Catholic dogma and it opened the Church to both ridicule and hostility. In short, the Legion was a pressure group wielding an economic weapon, with a production code written under the standing fear of boycott.280 As for the Legion effect on film artistry, of all the Catholic movies featuring priests as heroes, only On the Waterfront, 1954, is counted among the 100 best American films as selected in 1998 by the American Film Institute. What bedeviled ratings based on morals is that what constitutes morality over time is subject to change. In the end, what are we to make of the Churchs efforts as moral censor to the nation? As one student of the subject wrote, Given a free choice, sincere, intelligent Catholics, clerical and lay, could no more agree on what was moral entertainment than could any other segment of the population.281 277 Philip Dunne, son of the gifted journalist Peter Finley Dunne, quoted in Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr., A Life in the 20th Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950, 153. 278 Doherty, chapter 12, Classical Hollywood Cinema, Pre-code Hollywood, 345. 279 Founded in 1945 by Maryknoll priest, James Keller, it offered awards in a variety of categories books, movies, leadership, television specials, plays which raise the human spirit. 280 Walter Kerr, Movies, 209-217, in Catholicism in America (Harcourt, Brace and Company: New York, 1954), a book of articles from Commonweal magazine. 281 Black, Catholic Crusade, 198. 74 75 Appendices Censoring Indecent Literature The movies were not the only target of Catholic censorship in the 1930s; The Church also went after indecent literature, and in Indianapolis, and for a time, it scored a notable success. At their November 1932 meeting the U.S. bishops resolved to move against indecent texts and pictures in books, magazines, and newspapers. The meeting was doubtless the inspiration for Archbishop Ritters February 1933 pastoral letter: In a society which neither knows nor fears God [immoral literature] takes a heavy toll. A strong, vigorous Catholic press, providing true, wholesome, Christian thought can supply a needed antidote.282 A few years on, the clergy-edited diocesan newspaper wanted the civil authorities to censor the stage, vaudeville, lending libraries, drug and cigar stores (which often doubled as bookie joints and a sources of pornography and condoms), as well as advertisements for coming attractions in magazines and newspapers--themselves often occasions of sin. In short, thanks to the Legion of Decency, the bishops were happy over the improvement of the tone of movies and hoped to replicate it in the print world.283 In April 1938, Ft. Wayne Bishop John Noll succeeded in establishing the National Organization for Decent Literature (NODL), a mirror-image of the movie code.284 Newsstand operators in Indianapolis became worried when the local federal prosecutor, Val Nolan, won a conviction of a man for distributing obscene material. (When the Klan arrived in Evansville, in 1920, Nolan, a Catholic and a Democrat, had been driven from his Evansville law firm by his Protestant partners.) The venders had hoped that the prosecutor would warn them of which publications were suspect so they could pull them and avoid prosecution; Nolan apprised them that he could not ban magazines, only bring distributors to trial where a jury would decide. Loath to live in such uncertainty, local magazine distributors and newsstand owners agreed to cooperate with the prosecutor in determining which magazines were obscene; fortified with Nolans advisory opinion of the threat of prosecution, they could refuse to accept questionable magazines from the national distributors. But which magazines were objectionable? Nolan and the head of the local distributors association could agree on many of the magazines, but some cases were doubtful. The solution chosen was to farm out that judgment to the chancellor of the diocese, Fr. Henry F. Dugan, the head of the archdiocesan Legion of Decency! As the Indiana Catholic told the story: Both Mr. [Val] Nolan and the distributor [Harry 282 Schneider, Ritter, Life and Times, 55. 283 IC&R, 13 December 1936, 1. 284 IC&R, 1 April 1955, 1. Headquartered in Chicago, Noll served as chairman, 1938-1954. 76 R. DeWolf (religion unknown, president of a local magazine distributors agency, promised Fr. Dugan] their cooperation in stopping the flow of magazines which [Chancellor Dugan] considered objectionable. This is shocking: Not only did the Church exercise significant influence over which movies would be exhibited nationally, it determined which magazines would be read in Indianapolis and its environs. Not surprisingly, the editorial board of the Criterion thought this Indianapolis Plan should be made permanent and become national in scope.285 To launch such an effort, in February 1939, Archbishop Ritter directed all parishes to combat the evil of unclean literature in newsstands and drug stores.286 Most dioceses did establish local committees on decent literature, but few could claim the influence wielded by the Indianapolis diocesan chancellor. Censoring comic books Contemporaneous and parallel to the motion picture and decent literature crusades of the 1930s, was the agitation among educators, church, and civic groups to regulate comic books. The perceived dangers to children were the same as those provided by prurient books and moviessex, violence, crime, horror, evil triumphing over goodsubjects and themes entirely inappropriate for children. Thus, Bishop John Nolls NODL included the comics as an area to be evaluated. In 1954, public attention was aroused by a book by New York psychiatrist Dr. Fredric Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent. Which argued that certain comicsespecially horror comics--desensitized children to violence and led to juvenile delinquency. Wertham wanted no comic books sold to children under 16. The resultant controversy gave birth to the Comics Magazine Association of Americas (CMAA) and its Comics Code Authority (CCA), its motto, Good shall triumph over evil. Like the movie industry, the CMMA was the industrys defense against government regulation. The CCA mimicked the Lord-Quigley Codes numerous provisions in covering sex, violence, and demanding respect for government and existing institutionspolice, clergy, and especially parental authority. And like the MPPA, the comic book industry hired as its own czar, a former New York City magistrate judge and a specialist in juvenile delinquency, Charles F. Murphy. The Catholic Murphy announced that acceptable comics would carry a seal of approval on the cover of the magazine. More so than the movies, it was quite effective for half a century as distributors would not handle comics without the seal. In its first four months, the five women who screened the comics from October 1954 to January 1955, changed 5,656 drawings and rejected 128 stories. More than a quarter of the rejected drawings involved the curves and clothing of women. Facial distortions, knives and bullets, and showing how crimes were committed were other censorable material.287 As mores changed, beginning in the 1970s 285 286 IC&R, 29 April 1938, 1, 2. IC&R, 3 February 1939, 1; 15 December 1939, 1. 287 IC&R, 1 October 1954, 4; 14 January 1955, 10. 77 comic book censorship became less rigid. By the 1980s only four publishers were still active in the CMAA, and more distributors and retailers were willing to handle comic books without the seal. By 2001 only three major publishers remained CMAA members and in 2010 it became defunct. In the 1950s, the campaign against indecent publications took an interesting turn in Indianapolis: Under the auspices of the Citizens for Decent Literature (CDL), the county prosecutor, police chief, sheriff, a councilman, and three hundred others gathered in August 1958 at the Indiana War Memorial auditorium to hear Cincinnatian Charles H. Keating288 call for the application of existing laws against smut. The IC&R approved, arguing that the goal was not to extend Catholic censorship or impose Catholic moral standards on those who do not want them, but rather to create a climate of public opinion hostile to indecent literature.289 Within a year, the IC&R was praising Sheriff Robert ONeill, a Catholic, for the arrests of seventeen newsagents for selling indecent literature. When the daily newspapers charged that the sheriff used a list of 75 magazines provided by the CDL, ONeill insisted he had his own list.290 Censoring political films Liberal ideology was also a target of the Church: In 1938, Walter Wanger produced Blockade, a film about the Spanish Civil War. Intended as a pro-Loyalist, anti-Franco piece, most of the politics was cut; even so, the film was boycotted by Catholic organizations. Wanger, deciding to fight outsiders who keep [Hollywood] from making pictures the public wants because of the evil restrictions of a small group, organized a Conference on Freedom of the Screen. For the IC&R the lesson for Wanger was to keep the Motion Picture Code and there would be no censorship. The priests at the IC&R asserted that they would have protested if Blockade had been pro-Franco, a claim which few believed. Movies were not just entertainment but a powerful medium for influencing public behavior and public opinion. They should not be used either to induce wrong public behavior or to sway public opinion on controversial issues of the day.291 Censoring government documentaries 288 Later the face of the 1980s savings and loan scandal, Keating was a convicted felon and homophobe who served more than four years in prison for various financial crimes. 289 IC&R, 15 August 1958, 1; 26 September 1958, 4. 290 IC&R, 19 June, 4; 26 June, 4; 3 July 1959, 4. 291 IC&R, 5 August 1938, 1; Katz, Film Encyclopedia, 1173, sees both James Hogans The Last Train from Madrid (1937) and William Dieterles Blockade as equally neutral. 78 The Public Health Service, the War Department, and the Office of War Information supported the government documentary, To the People of the U.S., an educational film on venereal diseases for the men and women in the military. In 1941, the surgeon-general, a Catholic, withdrew support he had given for its theatrical release, the result of opposition and pressure by the Legion of Decency.292 Sex hygiene films designed for the military were also beyond the pale. As chairman of the bishops committee on motion pictures, Archbishop McNicholas regarded sex instruction as not coming within the function of the film industry. It was a matter for parents upon consultation with priests and doctors.293 Censoring Television In November 1972, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) ran a two-part program dealing with abortion on the sitcom, Maude. Pregnant at age 47, Maude ponders having an abortion, while her husband considers a vasectomy. It is implied that she does abort, but he does not have the operation. The Knights of Columbus and the Catholic bishops registered strong complaints when it aired.294 The following August, as CBS scheduled re-runs of the abortion episodes, thirty-eight affiliates refused to carry the programs, five moved them to later in the evening, and one provided prime time for an opposing view. All but one national advertiser refused to run ads on the program.295 Locally, in a long letter to the general manager of WISH-TV, Archdiocesan Communications Director, Charles Schisla, objected to the station carrying a program with explicit sex scenes, for the abortion episode on Maude, and lumped All in the Family with Maude as being unsuitable for children. In the spirit of the Lord-Quigley Code, Schisla argued that the media had a responsibility to improve the entire scope of values which have a direct bearing on the preservation of human dignity and the human decencies.296 It worked: WISH-TV did not show the re-runs. By contrast, the movie, Deep Throat, which featured fellatio, played Indianapolis at least nine weeks, from January to March 1973.297 There was a national contretemps with a local aspect over ABCs series, Nothing Sacred, which premiered 18 September 1997 in prime time. Set in a Los Angeles parish, the main character a young priest, it dramatized issues of morality, celibacy, and the post Vatican II intramural tensions between liberal and conservative Catholics, in general. The Jesuit magazine America called it brilliant, the best television series ever produced about the rich and often complicated lives of American Catholics. And while Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles very publicly supported the actor playing the young priest, 292 Walsh, Sin and Censorship, 178, 181. 293 Indiana Catholic and Record, 12 September 1941, 1. 294 Criterion, 1 December 1972, 1. Criterion, 2 November 1973, 5. 296 26 April 1973, Biskup Box 27, Catholic Communications file. 297 Criterion, 9 March 1973, 4. 295 79 Cardinal Hickey of Washington D. C., criticized it, as did the New York based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a self-described Catholic anti-defamation league. The Catholic League, claiming a membership of 350,000, attacked the series before it premiered and reportedly prompted Du Pont and Kmart to pull ads and other advertisers to avoid the program.298 The League condemned the program as fostering the most negative stereotypes of those who remain loyal to the church while embracing the trendy positions of dissenting Catholics. In response, 117 Catholic priests and nuns, and four bishops, took a full page ad in Advertising Trade defending Nothing Sacred as a wonderful show unfairly maligned. ** Indianapolis Star, 22 November 1997, B5; Catholics Speak Out, November 17, 1997.** The Vicar-general, Father Joseph F. Schaedel, weighed in for the archdiocese in the Criterion: Quoting the Leagues assessment that Nothing Sacred was a frontal assault on Roman Catholicism, Schaedel revealed that the NCCB had reviewed the series pilot and in an internal memorandum had counselled the bishops to avoid public protest which would only increase its television ratings. He believed that the Disney Corporation, whose production it was, was looking to controversy to boost ratings. The archdiocese sent an advisory in August indicating its unhappiness with the program, which the vicar-general summarized as a superficial Hollywood treatment of Catholic beliefs, traditions and spiritual principles. The show secularizes Catholicism and therefore distort[s] . . . Church teachings and practices . . . . Dont watch it.299 Part of the animus toward the Disney corporation was its role as distributor of the Miramax theater film Priest, in 1995. Rather than a rectory conflict between a young, with it Bing Crosby curate and a cranky but lovable Barry Fitzgerald-curmudgeon-pastor, it featured a cold autocratic bishop, an alcoholic ex-pastor, a pastor sleeping with his attractive black housekeeper, and a young homosexual curate. New Yorks John Cardinal OConnor blasted the movie as viciously anti-Catholic as anything that has ever rotted on the silver screen. OConnor called on all Serra Club members to write in protest to Roy Disney and quoted film critic Roy Medved who had labeled Priest blatantly anti-Catholic.300 But the matter is more complicated; as Art, few if any Catholic film critics now would judge Priest inferior to Going My Way, and many would give it far higher marks.301 In any case, it was not produced in a vacuum, but made possible by the continuing run of the Churchs clergy pedophile scandals from 1980. Two priests of the archdiocese publicly supported Nothing Sacred: Franciscan Father Kent Biergans of Mount St. Francis, Indiana, like America magazine and the many priests and religious who 298 Indianapolis Star, 22 November 1997, B5; Its president, William Donohue, took credit for the shows low rating of 94th (it aired opposite Friends, a highly rated show). 299 Criterion, October 3, 1997, 5. 300 Buechlein papers, Box 12, Serra Club file. 301 Morris, American Catholics, 291. 80 were seconded by having seen most of the series, denied it was anti-Catholic. If anything, it presents a very positive view of the struggle of the human dimension of the church and he encouraged people to watch it. Fr. Bernard Head of St. Mary of the Woods, Terre Haute, agreed that it was a good program about the triumph of grace over human weakness and a message of hope for all of us. With some asperity, Fr. Head suggested that the networks institute a new ratings category; For Religiously Mature Audiences Only.302 The successor to the Legion of Decency, the Bishops Office of Film and Broadcast of the United States Catholic Conference (USCC), did not oppose the program, but William Donohue of the Catholic Anti-Defamation League vowed to kill it by boycott, pressure, and reprisals on advertisers; the Eternal Word Television Network of Mother Angelica (EWTN), agreed with Donohue.303 Whether the quality of the program was too high for general popularity (as Fr. Head implied) or the stiff competition in its time slot, the attacks by some Catholics had their effect as eleven sponsors announced their intentions not to advertise on the show. For whatever reasonhad Catholicism lost its ability to fascinate nonCatholics? Catholics no longer feeling the need to support the home team by watching a series concerning its own clergy?-- Nothing Sacred did not attract a sufficient audience and it was cancelled.304 *** Censoring religious films The Last Temptation of Christ, 1988, Michael Scorcese, director, is based on Nikos Kazantzakis 1948 novel of the same name. The book appealed to many readers appreciative of its emphasis on Christs humanity, yet the Greek Orthodox Church threatened to excommunicate the author and at Kazantzakis death denied him a Christian funeral. Translated into English in 1960, libraries were pressured to ban the book. When Scorcese announced in 1983 he was going to film it for Paramount, fundamentalist opposition and the expected limited audience it would attract made it difficult to find financing. Universal Studios supported a low budget effort and it reached the screen in 1988. The United States Catholic Conference gave the motion picture a morally objectionable rating but did not encourage picketing. Controversy over the film made for sold-out theaters in the nine selected cities where it opened. Fr. Andrew Greeley argued that opponents of the film were heretics--docetists--denying Jesus dual nature as human as well as divine. The Catholic bishops decried the fundamentalists anti-Semitism.305 Just as Mel Gibson was to do with The Passion of the Christ, 2004, Universal Studios arranged a viewing of the rough cut for religious groups in New York, but fundamentalist leaders refused to attend. At the July screening some Catholics found the film offensive, moderate Protestant clergy slid over more 302 Criterion, 24 October21 November 1997. National Catholic Reporter, 10 October 1997, 5. 304 Gillis, Roman Catholicism, 231. 305 Walsh, Sin and Censorship. 329-334. 303 81 problematical elements to emphasize the films expression of faith,306 and the fundamentalists were outraged. Some 7,500 chanting fundamentalist Protestant picketers outdid anything that Catholics had ever mounted. The protests led General Cinema, the fourth biggest chain, not to book it. Threats were such that the police checked bags of patrons entering the Washington D.C. Odeon theater. Bishop Anthony G. Bosco, the Greensburg diocese, Pennsylvania (1987-2004), in his role as a member of the Bishops Committee on Communications and a varied group of other religious communicators attended the screening In a memorandum sent to his fellow bishops, Bosco noted that the novel and the film deal with a Christological discussion which is of great interest today, namely, to probe more deeply the question of the humanity of Christ. In Boscos summary, the last temptation of the title is the devil in the form of an angel (a young girl), who shows Christ what His life might be if he refuses crucifixion and instead grows old peacefully as a husband and father and to die a natural death. Christ seems to rebel against His call to be the Messiah, but eventually with great certainty asserts that He is the Son of God. For Bosco, that is the key point: Christ does reject this temptation and freely accepts His death on the cross in order to redeem humanity. As for other matters which people might find offensive: Bishop Bosco described the sex with Mary Magdalene as probably rather subdued by movie standards, but objectionable to many even if the Christ-figure were not involved. Christ also implies that at times he had done wrong and states that he has not been a good son. Whether the film was blasphemous, Bosco concluded, was a judgment call. In addition to some of the sex, there is also a great deal of blood and violence, the directors trademark. The bishop praised the notion of a last temptation as theologically fascinating, but felt that Scorceses treatment had not been equal to the concept. Therefore, the film was flawed both as theology and as cinema. Well aware that interest in the film will increase in direct proportion to the amount of noise we make about it, Bosco thought the best thing was to have the Communication Department make a statement critical of the movie and let the matter drop.307 As he recognized, ultimately each bishop would decide for his diocese how to respond. Most bishops followed Boscos counsel and let it die in silence. Others urged efforts to prevent the movies release--Bernard Cardinal Law of Boston, for example, urged a boycott.308 In the end, the Church rated the film O (morally offensive), the most objectionable rating available, but for the most part avoided any noisy protest. 306 Miller, Hollywood Censored, 233. 307 Bishop Anthony G. Bosco memorandum,15 July 1988. Indianapolis Catholic Archives, Catholic Communications, Box 1. 308 Criterion, 26 August 1988, 1, 10. 82 Depending on ones bias, the release date of The Last Temptation of Christ was moved up to August from September either to take advantage of the protests or to cut them short. Days before release a demonstration at Universal Studios drew protestors variously numbered from 7,500 to 25,000; but there was no vandalism and with the studio charging $3 to park it collected $4,500. Released nationally on a limited basis in only the nine cities and under tight security, the controversy made the cover of Time Magazine and brought a better box office than such a long, serious film of otherwise limited appeal would have enjoyed. Richard H. Hirsch, former head of the USCC Office for Film and Broadcasting (who had attended the screening with Bishop Bosco), would later decry the publicity: Shrill, media-directed campaigns against material offensive to one group or another more often than not tend to backfire in a society conscious of the First Amendment.309 In Indianapolis protests were spearheaded by Baptist minister Greg Dixon. No Indianapolis movie theater would show it and Blockbuster refused to carry the video. A year after its release the Indiana Film Society finally screened it in the city.310 In comparing the rough-cut screenings for clergy and religious leaders for The Last Temptation of Christ, 1988, with the controversial 2004 Mel Gibson film, The Passion of the Christ, in Scorceses case he attended one screening to quiet fears and explain his intentions in making the film. Gibsons screenings in various cities seemed to be designed to whet the appetite for his film, particularly among conservative Christians. The screenings may also have been intended to incite controversy for marketing purposes. Whatever the intentions, both films benefitted from the controversy. Catholics were (and continue to be) divided over both films with the rank and file and many priests embracing The Passion and rejecting Last Temptation. Catholic academics and intellectuals took the opposite stand. At the time, mainline Protestants were often supportive of Scorceses movie, but tended to be enthusiastically so for Gibsons. The same Christian fundamentalists who refused an invitation to see Scorceses film were ecstatic about Gibsons, seeing it as the greatest come to Jesus evangelical tool of the age. When Last Temptation was released, Criterion editor John Fink observed that the worst thing about the movie was the anti-Semitism it evoked:311 In one instance, a Baptist minister led 250 of his Los Angeles church to picket the home of Lew Wasserman, chairman of Universals parent company. The demonstration featured an actor dressed as Christ, who is mistreated and nailed to the cross by an actor presented as Wasserman. A news photo of the same demonstration showed the business-suited Jewish businessman kicking a fallen Christ. The Jewish community saw Gibsons film as extremely anti-Semitic and many Christians agree, including elite critics; rank and file Catholics and Protestants deny it. 309 Criterion, 8 June 1989; Miller, Hollywood Censored, 232-237. Indianapolis Star, September 25, 1989. 311 Criterion, 12 September 1988. 310 83 In light of the tremendous violence and brutality of The Passion, it is noteworthy that Henry Herx of the U.S. Catholic Conferences Department of Communication criticized Last Temptation on its release for its motif of blood-letting. This wrong-headed insistence on gore and brutality is compounded by the movies preoccupation with sexual rather than spiritual love.312 In defense of Scorcese, as Bishop Bosco understood, Christs humanity and therefore his sexuality is fundamental to his film. There is no sex to debate in The Passion of the Christ; there is debate over whether the lesson driven home by its violence has anything to do with spiritual love. Censoring the stage The Indianapolis Archdiocesan Catholic Center learned in the summer of 1985 that St. Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, a play satirizing Catholic education, nuns, and the Churchs sexual Jansenism, would open in December at the Indiana Repertory Theater. Archbishop OMeara, perhaps in simple weariness over the whole censorship business, wisely refused to attack it, believing that a negative approach would assure packed houses for the performances.313 That refusal was the product of a lesson learned two years earlier; in 1983 OMeara had been incensed by a four-part story on WRTV alleging that Catholic schools in the city were evading taxes through a subterfuge permitting parents to treat tuition costs as a charity donation. In his 12 October 1983 reply to Tuition in Disguise the archbishop charged the station with the violation of our sanctuaries by reporters entering under false pretenses! and professed that Orwells 1984 is already here! The archdiocese held workshops on taxes, he said, to ensure that it was meeting the law.314 In this OMeara reflected the view of many in the hierarchy that there were people out to get the Church, and an admission, too, that Catholicisms clout was not what it used to be, either with the movie industry, the media, or with Catholics themselves. In 1983 the ABC network ran a mini-series based on the popular Australian novel, The Thorn Birds, featuring a hypocritical and failed celibate priest. Far more serious was the Canadian Public television film shown in selected American theaters in 1994, The Boys of St. Vincents, the true story of sexual abuse in a Catholic orphanage. *** 312 Criterion, September 12, 1988. June 4, 1985, OMeara papers. 314 OMeara pastoral letters, 1982, 1983. 313 84 85  ...