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Abstract
The last major American city with legal authority to continue the practice of censoring films was Memphis, Tennessee. The practice ended when a federal judge in 1976 ruled that the authority that governed the city’s Board of Review was unconstitutional. Memphis held on to the practice of censoring films into the 1970s while almost all other US cities had stopped the practice in the mid-1960s. Memphis held on so long because of the city’s legacy of censorship and its goal of retaining old-world values in the changing era of the 1960s and 1970s. This paper gives a history of the Board of Review in Memphis to demonstrate how censorship was used as an attempt to hold onto outdated values in changing times.
Notes
1 Edwin Howard, “The Front Row: 4-Letter Word to Review Board: Don’t,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN) February 17, 1976.
2 “Review Board: The Issue is Morals,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), October 16, 1972.
3 “Review Board: The Issue is Morals,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), October 16, 1972.
4 Laura Wittern-Keller, Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, 1915-1981 (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2008); Ira Carmen, Movies, Censorship and the Law (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1966).
5 Sheri Chinen Biesen, Film Censorship: Regulating America’s Screen (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), 2.
6 Biesen, Film Censorship: Regulating America’s Screen, 11.
7 R. Bruce Brasell, “A Dangerous Experiment to Try: Film Censorship during the Twentieth Century in Mobile, Alabama,” Film History 15, no. 1 (2003): 81-102.
8 Carmen, Movies, Censorship and the Law, 184.
9 Thomas Doherty, “Sex, Violence, and the Adult Themes: The MPAA and the Birth of the Film Rating System,” Cineaste, fall 2017, 10.
10 Doherty, “Sex, Violence, and the Adult Themes,” 13.
11 Doherty, “Sex, Violence, and the Adult Themes,” 15.
12 Doherty, “Sex, Violence, and the Adult Themes,” 15.
13 Whitney Strub, “Black and White and Banned All Over: Race, Censorship and Obscenity in Post-War Memphis,” Journal of Social History, vol. 40, issue 3 (spring 2007): 685-715.
14 Strub, “Black and White and Banned All Over,” 696.
15 Strub, “Black and White and Banned All Over,” 686.
16 Carmen, Movies, Censorship and the Law, 186.
17 Charles “Bud” Holmes, interviewed by author, August 7, 2019.
18 Strub, “Black and White and Banned All Over,” 687.
19 Whitney Strub, “Heat Wave: The Memphis Deep Throat Trials and Sexual Politics in the 1970s,” Sex and Sexuality in Modern Southern Culture (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1917), 89; James Cobb, The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of Regional Identity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
20 Wayne Dowdy, Crusades for Freedom: Memphis and the Political Transformation of the American South (Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, 2010), 132.
21 Strub, “Black and White and Banned All Over,” 685-715.
22 Whitney Strub, Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 138.
23 Strub, Perversion for Profit, 139.
24 Charles Thornton, “Picture Blurs for Censor Unit,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), Jan. 16, 1968.
25 Charles A. Brown, “Loeb Picks Anti-Obscenity Board,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), July 4, 1968.
26 Board of Review; establishment by ordinance authorized, Ord. No. 272 § 1,9-3-1968, approved to referendum election Nov. 5, 1968.
27 John Bennett, “Reviewers Hone Ax To Cut Flow of Obscenity,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), Dec. 19, 1968.
28 Richard Lentz, “Obscenity Board Searches for Path to Authority,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), Nov. 17, 1968.
29 Edwin Howard, “Pandora’s Other Box: Censorship,” Press Scimitar (Memphis, TN), July 12, 1969.
30 “Legal Action Likely If Smut Ordinance Passes,” Press Scimitar (Memphis, TN), August 6, 1969.
31 Allied Artists Pictures Corp. v. Alford, 410 F. Supp. 1348 (1976) U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16674.
32 Holmes, interview.
33 Clark Porteous, “Review Board Urges Changes in Ordinances,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), June 15, 1971.
34 “Censors Rate Disney OK,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), November 9, 1971.
35 “Review Board Names Savell,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), May 22, 1972.
36 Holmes, interview.
37 Michael Lollar, “Review Board Plans Drive On Multi-Screen Theaters,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), October 11, 1972.
38 Letter from Las Savell to theater owners. “All Theater Owner and Managers,” November 29, 1972, Ronald S. Alford files, University of Memphis Special Collections.
39 Ruth Jacquemine, “Review Board Orders Arrest of Theater Manager,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), March 14, 1970.
40 “Review Board: The Issue is Morals,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), October 16, 1972.
41 Letter from Las Savell to theater owners, November 29, 1972, Ronald S. Alford Files, University of Memphis Special Collections.
42 Tom Stone, “Review Board Wants Control of TV Movies,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), January 24, 1973.
43 Editorial WHBQ-TV 13, telecast, January 26, 1973, Ronald S. Alford Files, University of Memphis Special Collections.
44 Editorial WHBQ-TV 13, telecast, February 1, 1973, Ronald S. Alford Files, University of Memphis Special Collections.
45 Jane Sanderson, “Why Can’t Parents Say ‘No’? Asks a Disturbed Mother, Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), April 18, 1973.
46 Thomas Stone, “Review Board Asks Action On Rock Concert Obscenity,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), April 25, 1973.
47 Minutes of the Memphis Board of Review, April 24, 1973, Ronald S. Alford Files, University of Memphis Special Collections.
48 Letter from Las Savell to Mayor Wyeth Chandler, April 25, 1973, Ronald S. Alford Files, University of Memphis Special Collections.
49 Edwin Howard, “Under-18 Editor Queries Savell,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), November 19, 1973.
50 Thomas Fox, “Picky Movie Board Kills Young Audience,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), January 29, 1974.
51 Fox, “Picky Movie Board Kills Young Audience,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), January 29, 1974.
52 “That Review Board,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), January 30, 1974.
53 Political cartoons, Ronald S. Alford Files, University of Memphis Special Collections; January 30, 1974; June 13, 1974; October 25, 1973.
54 “L. Draper Hill, Political Cartoonist with Ledger Roots, Dies,” Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA), May 18, 2009.
55 “Board Member ‘Fishes’ for Flexibility,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), February 13, 1974.
56 Edwin Howard, “Some Words for the Board of Review,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), March 6, 1974.
57 Letter from Mrs. M.J. Denegri Jr. to Las Savell, February 14, 1974, Ronald S. Alford Files, University of Memphis Special Collections.
58 Letter from Mrs. William Eades to Las Savell, March 6, 1974, Ronald S. Alford Files, University of Memphis Special Collections.
59 Holmes, interview.
60 “Mayor Uncertain of Future of Movie Review Board,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), February 17, 1975.
61 Edwin Howard, “4-Letter Word to Review Board: Don’t,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), February 17, 1976.
62 Edwin Howard, “The Front Row: 4-Letter Word to Review Board: Don’t,” Press-Scimitar, February 17, 1976.
63 “Mayor Unsure of Review Board’s Future,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), February 17, 1976.
64 “Review Panel Resumes Function Despite Ruling,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), July 3, 1976.
65 Susan Adler Thorp, “Memphis Board of Review Copes with Lessened Power,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), July 7, 1976.
66 Holmes, interview.
67 Carol Kelly Vaiden, “Once Mighty Review Board Hobbled by Change in Age,” Press-Scimitar (Memphis, TN), October 4, 1982.
68 Jennifer Sink, chief legal officer City of Memphis, email correspondence sent to author, February 23, 2020.
69 Susan Adler Thorp, interviewed by author, June 18, 2019.
70 Holmes, interview.
71 Holmes, interview.
72 “Review Board: The Issue is Morals,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), October 16, 1972.
73 Ben A. Franklin, “Last Board of Censors Fades Away,” New York Times (New York, NY), June 29, 1981.
74 “The Last Local Movie Review Board in the Country is Scrapped,” Dallas Morning News (Dallas, TX), Aug. 12, 1993.
75 Biesen, Film Censorship: Regulating America’s Screen, 114-118.
76 Strub, “Heat Wave: The Memphis Deep Throat Trials and Sexual Politics in the 1970s,” 86.
77 Edwin Howard, “Being There: ‘Non Compos Memphis’ Alive Again in National Headlines,” The Best Times (Memphis, TN), February 2020.
78 John Beifuss, “Edwin Howard, 92, Was Legend of Memphis Arts, Culture Reporting,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), Sept. 6, 2016.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Thomas J. Hrach
Thomas J. Hrach, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the University of Memphis Department of Journalism and Strategic Media. He is a former newspaper reporter as well.