The Miracle Case and Film Censorship

Summary:

In 1950 the Roberto Rossellini film "The Miracle" was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency and censored by the New York State Motion Picture Division. This is the story of how Joseph Burstyn challenged the censorship of the film and won.

Website:

http://www.talkinghistory.org

Additional Credits and Funding:

Written and narrated by Dr. Laura Wittern-Keller. Recorded and edited by Dr. Gerald Zahavi.

Tones:

Authoritative, Informational

Language:

English

Description:

In 1950 the Roberto Rossellini film "The Miracle," part of a trilogy called "Ways of Love," was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency and censored by the New York State Motion Picture Division (the state censor board), "The Miracle's" distributor, Joseph Burstyn, fought back through the New York courts and finally at the United States Supreme Court, claiming that his First Amendment rights had been violated by the state. Burstyn won and in 1952, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that movies were entitled to the free speech protections of the First Amendment. The story did not end there, though, since the Court allowed state censorship statutes to stand provided they were "narrowly drawn." The fight over the right of states to pre-approve movies continued until 1965 when all states but Maryland stopped censoring movies.

For more information on this story, see Laura Wittern-Keller's *Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship* (University Press of Kentucky) and the forthcoming 8Burstyn v. Wilson: The Miracle Case8 by Ray Haberski, Jr. and Laura Wittern-Keller (Landmarks Law Cases series of the University Press of Kansas).

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