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BEFORE THE STORM 485
thoroughly reliable source that "the Army, the State Department and the Executive Division" had protested the pacifist quality of the film and that, because the studio had a number of films which depend on Washington cooperation, it was decided to eliminate the offending sequences rather than raise an issue.
In 1 94 1 the industry was called to Washington for a Senate committee investigation on charges of "propaganda purposes designed to influence the public mind in the direction of participation in the European war"! No matter which way you looked, we were in the middle!
Another line that often proved hard to draw— as hard as that between pacifism and warmongering— was that between the "educational" and the salacious. It was often a matter of interpretation. That often left the question: Whose interpretation was correct? We had a good example in the case of two pictures telling a story of dope, or "reefers," made by "independents," which were banned by the New York State authorities. In this case the Board of Regents of New York upheld Mr. Esmond, the director of the Motion Picture Division of the State Education Department, in denying licenses to The Pace That Kills and Assassin of Youth, as well as to a third feature, Souls for Sale, described by the director as "the story of an immoral life throughout, with suicide at the end." The owner of Assassin of Youth described it as an "educational picture carrying a message"— a warning to youth not to use marijuana in any of its forms.
The Board of Regents, on the other hand, held that the picture portrays "the sex exhilaration alleged to be due to marijuana, and the sources of supply." In the opinion of Mr. Esmond, "the picture arouses curiosity, which is never satisfied on the part of some youngsters until they have felt the effect of marijuana itself, believing as they invariably do that they themselves will never become the victims of the habit."
At the same time, this picture was approved by Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey; and a group of representative clubwomen campaigned to force the Pennsylvania Censor Board to reverse its ruling so that the picture could be shown there.
The apparent need of some sort of censorship was probably kept alive by an infinitesimal fraction of offenders. I was delighted to get the report which the top executive of the Pennsylvania Censor Board gave to Variety early in 1938, when he said that "all censoring in this state is made necessary by only 2 per cent of the entire output of the film industry." These films were rarely exhibited in standard theatres. He expressed the belief that "if all films went through the Hays Office, need for the Censor Board would be abolished. We breathe a sigh of relief when we note the Hays Office seal on a film, for we know that most of our work is eliminated."
Probably reflecting trade sentiment, Variety had already expressed its