Archive Report
Archive Report
Movie Tribulations in the Courts
In a decision important to all communications media, the Supreme Court on Jan. 23 sustained the authority of a Chicago police board to pass on the content of motion picture films before granting city licenses for their public showing. By thus sanctioning prior censorship, the Court seemed to be reversing a course of judicial action which during recent years had brought the authority of official censors within increasingly narrow bounds. Legal opinion differs on the degree to which the ruling in Times Film Corp. v. Chicago will strengthen the hand of the public censor, but the movie industry fears that one result will be a proliferation of censorship boards and a sharp increase in their activities.1 Other communications media fear ...