Greg Linnell*

Abstract

A descriptive analysis of the ways in which the non-denominational Protestant monthly The Christian Herald attempted to mediate between Hollywood and American Protestants reveals the complexity and variety of Christian response to popular culture in the ostensibly quiescent and uniform 1950s. Moreover, film reviews, editorials, commentary and letters to the editor demonstrate how the Herald sought to exert control of Protestant activity vis-à-vis motion pictures at a time when Protestants were losing cultural hegemony and Hollywood itself was transitioning to new forms of production and distribution. Even as the decade is renowned for its biblical epics it becomes clear that concurrent legal and social changes prepared the way for the marginalization and eventual ineffectuality of concerted Christian action in this cultural area. These historical dynamics comprise a necessary and proximate background to understanding more contemporary developments such as the celebrated “culture wars” of the 1980s and 1990s.

Introduction

[1] On September 19, 1959 Chairman Nikita Khrushchev of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) attended a luncheon held in his honor at Twentieth-Century Fox Studios which was hosted by both Spyros P. Skouras, head of the studio, and Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).[1] Khrushchev’s groundbreaking tour of the United States had begun four days earlier and he and his entourage had flown into Los Angeles from New York that morning. Now, the Studio’s Café de Paris brimmed with stars–Kirk Douglas, Gary Cooper, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe–and, as they sat eating, Skouras rose to instruct Khrushchev in the benefits of the American way of life, of how it had let him rise to the top of the movie-making profession. Not to be outdone, Khrushchev responded with his own story of how he had risen to the Premiership from lowly origins. This confrontation was exacerbated by the sweltering Los Angeles weather, hot studio floodlights and Khrushchev’s inability, due to security concerns, to visit a destination that he had wanted to see, Disneyland. What transpired next, however, set the stage for a significant discussion within the nation’s media.

[2] Lunch completed, Khrushchev was taken to the studio’s sound stages and given the opportunity to view the filming of an upcoming release, Walter Lang’s Can-Can, a vehicle for Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan.[2] Initially, the Soviet leader appeared to be enjoying the attention of the dancers but he quickly changed his mind when photographers urged the women to raise their skirts. Khrushchev used the incident to good effect when arguing with American labor leaders in San Francisco the next day. In responding to charges that some literature was suppressed in the USSR, Khrushchev suggested that Soviet and American ideas of freedom differed greatly. With reference to his experience of Can-Can the day before, Khrushchev continued:

[Y]ou and we have different notions of freedom. When we were in Hollywood they danced the cancan for us. The girls who dance it have to pull up their skirts and show their backsides. They are good honest actresses but have to perform that dance. They are compelled to adapt themselves to the tastes of depraved people. People in your country will go to see it, but Soviet people would scorn such a spectacle. It is pornographic. It is the culture of a surfeited and depraved people. Showing that sort of film is called freedom in this country. Such “freedom” doesn’t suit us. You seem to like the “freedom” of looking at backsides. But we prefer the freedom to think, to exercise our mental faculties, the freedom of creative progress.[3]

As could be expected, Khrushchev’s remarks appeared quickly in a variety of influential publications. Most commentators were not surprised by Khrushchev’s propagandistic use of the incident but, at the same time, they questioned the wisdom of those who had given the Soviet leader such a wonderful opportunity.[4]

[3] The incident proved to be more than just a Cold War cultural skirmish, however, and one of the stories that emerged in its wake was that of divergent Protestant responses to the challenges implicit in Khrushchev’s remarks and represented explicitly in films like Can-Can. Columns by Murray Shumach and Bosley Crowther in the New York Times together with a report in Christianity Today provided accounts of a split within the National Council of Churches’ (NCC) Broadcasting and Film Commission.[5] The Commission’s West Coast Office head, George A. Heimrich, together with J. Wayne Ulrickson’s Hollywood Ministerial Association, were strenuous in their denunciations of the sex and violence that they felt to be frequenting the screen at an increasing rate. Almost immediately, however, Heimrich’s superior in the New York headquarters of the Broadcasting and Film Commission, Robert W. Spike, assured MPAA president Eric Johnston that Heimrich had not spoken for the Commission and that overtures suggesting a boycott of specific films were, in fact, abhorrent and foreign to Protestants. The incident with Khrushchev, then, laid bare a complex network of cultural and theological positions and institutions within American Protestantism, involving representatives of both the Protestant establishment and its newer relation, Protestant evangelicalism.

[4] Another, more systematic way into this fascinating thicket of American Protestant responses to Hollywood in the 1950s, also broaching the themes revealed in the response to Khrushchev, is provided by the film reviews of the Protestant Motion Picture Council (PMPC). Both the NCC and one of the most popular religious magazines of the day, The Christian Herald (hereafter, the Herald), believed these reviews to be of crucial significance for the Protestant constituency in discerning, should they choose to do so, which films to patronize.[6] The Herald, in particular, is noteworthy because it not only published PMPC reviews but also presented other forums in which to discuss the religious and socio-cultural significance of both the Hollywood film industry and its product. Editorials, feature articles, and awards, together with the PMPC reviews, were the occasion for extended examinations of Protestant and Hollywood interaction. It is this body of literature, heretofore unexamined by scholars of either American cinema or American Protestantism, which comprises the focus of the descriptive analysis to follow.[7] Indeed, the archival recovery of the Herald performed herein acts in concert with those who seek to address a uniquely historical lacuna within the study of American cinema and American Protestantism. As such, this study is both an invitation to and prolegomenon for those who also find themselves fascinated by these issues. In contrast to the largely interpretive cast of much analysis in this area, this study instantiates the argument that much more archival recovery and historical research can and needs to be done.[8]  

[5] This study commences with an analysis of the Protestant Motion Picture Council’s reviews, published monthly in the Herald, and discloses the working presuppositions and hoped for consequences of the reviews themselves. With this fundamental understanding of the Herald and PMPC in view, it is possible to consider three other areas of significance that predominate over all others when reading the magazine: the Herald’s response to the scandalous behavior of the stars and studios that promoted them, the Herald’s response to films which exacerbated Protestant-Roman Catholic tensions and, finally, the Herald’s response to the prominent genre of the decade, the biblical epic. The conclusion offers a larger context for this archival recovery of the Herald by positing that the discourse mobilized by the magazine’s contributors comprises a privileged access point for interpreting the significance of both a dominant cultural industry and American Protestantism itself.

The Christian Herald and the Protestant Motion Picture Council

[6] To a large degree the history of the Herald’s views on film are interwoven with the various activities of the Protestant Motion Picture Council. In order to understand how the Herald sought to create more discriminating consumers in this area of entertainment, therefore, it is necessary to recount the PMPC’s institutional history. Beginning in the mid-1940s the PMPC, founded under the auspices of the Herald, published monthly reviews of Hollywood’s latest offerings.[9] The PMPC remained under the aegis of the Herald until 1950 when it appears to have been subsumed by the newly organized National Council of Churches of Christ (NCC) or, more specifically, the NCC’s Broadcasting and Film Commission.[10] This reorganization certainly gave its reviews more reach and, at one point, the PMPC’s findings appear to have been published in over 400 religious and secular periodicals each month.[11] The Herald continued to publish PMPC film summaries and ratings until January 1966 when, with a change in editor, it scaled down its listings and used “in-house” reviewers.[12]

[7] The PMPC chose approximately 25 volunteer reviewers who, for one full day each week, met in New York to preview the latest Hollywood features along with members of 11 other national organizations.[13] Once a month the reviewers also met to discuss the reviews that they had given certain films and, by articulating a consensus regarding standards and ratings, hoped to preclude unwarranted and idiosyncratic judgments. The reviewers themselves were meant to be a representative cross-section of the Protestants who both subscribed to the Herald and, after 1950, were also members of the denominations that comprised the NCC (thus promoting the non-sectarian and ecumenical character of the NCC). Preachers, teachers, business men and women, housewives and college students together with those engaged in a variety of unique vocations (e.g., the associate director of the American Prison Association previewed content for the prison population) reviewed all domestic and most foreign feature films.

[8] Initially, films were labeled with one of four “audience suitability” ratings: “A”–Adults, “Y”–Young People, “F”–Family and the infrequently used “Objectionable.” In the mid-1950s, however, one more intermediate rating was added, “MY”–Mature Young People.[14] The PMPC also developed ratings specific to children’s films and thereby contributed to another organization, the Children’s Film Library. Finally, the PMPC chose one film each month as the “Picture of the Month” and, in January of each year, solicited votes from readers as to which of the preceding twelve “Pictures of the Month” should earn the coveted “Picture of the Year” (awarded each March for the previous year). Both “Picture of the Month” and “Picture of the Year” prizes were in the form of a bronze plaque and were awarded to the producing studio.[15] There were three venues through which the PMPC reviews and/or ratings were disseminated, sometimes commingled with the findings of other organizations: the 400 magazines mentioned previously; the weekly ratings summaries–known as “Joint Estimates of Current Motion Pictures”–sent by the Film Estimate Board of National Organizations to film exhibitors and theater managers nationwide; and the MPAA’s “Green Sheets” distributed periodically to parents and to church, school, and civic leaders.[16]  

[9] Given the preceding procedures, organizational structures, and patterns of dissemination, how were the PMPC reviews to function in order to create more discriminating consumers? Here it becomes necessary to reconstruct the rationale that engendered the PMPC and it is soon apparent that several related principles underwrote all of the Council’s endeavors. First, it was felt that since new mass media technologies were encroaching increasingly upon American family life it was now imperative that some Christian guidance be given in order to “applaud the good and condemn the bad.”[17] That is, no realm of modern life was to be condemned outright, particularly one that had demonstrated repeatedly such a powerful effect for both good and ill on the populace. Christians were, therefore, to be selective viewers and reviews would guide them in thinking about the merits of a particular film. The PMPC and the Herald thus promoted a policy of film betterment rather than film censorship–a strategy very much akin to that proposed and practiced by Will Hays and the Hollywood studios’ Committee on Public Relations in the early 1920s when dealing with reform group protests.[18]

[10] Secondly, reviews were meant for guidance only–they were not to bind the individual reader to a specific course of action. Each month’s reviews were prefaced with the following editor’s note:

Except where so stated, these reviews are not to be construed as endorsements, either of specific films or of movie-going in general. They are for the guidance of readers who attend motion pictures, not inducements to those who do not. The “suitability” classification, moreover, is no guarantee that the film is flawless; it is merely a guide. Films starred (*) are of exceptional merit.[19]

Such an editorial note was meant to stave off complaints from more conservative Herald readers, ever on the watch for signs of worldliness. By the same means, however, the PMPC distinguished itself from the Roman Catholic Legion of Decency by refusing to obligate the individual’s conscience: “The Council has no intention of saying, ‘This is a film you should (or should not) see,’ but provides the individual with information to help him make his own decision.”[20] As editor Daniel Poling had written 3 years earlier, the Herald is not for political censorship [i.e., federal regulation], which can and often does become a greater evil than the thing it seeks to correct, but for that much more effective censorship: (1) self-restraint by the industry itself, and (2) greater taste and discrimination on the part of the buyer which, in the long run, always determines what will live and what will die.[21]

[11] Third, a refusal to censor the individual’s liberty vis-à-vis film choice was matched by a similar refusal to call for the federal or state censorship of motion pictures. Rather, the individual guided in the selective consumption of good motion pictures would, consequently, encourage the production of better films. In Bader’s formulation: “… the Council feels a responsibility to provide concerned persons with some basis for selection. And selection affects box-office receipts, and box-office affects the new pictures to be made.”[22] This latter aim was never clearer than when, every January, Herald readers were asked to vote for “Picture of the Year”:

If you were asked who is the brightest star, the best director and the biggest producer in motion pictures today, would it occur to you to reply, “I am?” As Mr. or Mrs. John Public – who must be pleased above anyone else–you’re the top “star” of the whole show. And by your patronage–or lack of it–you not only “direct” Hollywood how to “act,” but you actually “produce” every film that appears on the screen. If, therefore, you want more of the intelligent, thoughtful, moral films that your entire family can enjoy and profit by it, you merely have to say the word–by telling Hollywood what to do. And the fastest way to do that is through Christian Herald’s “direct-line” service–its annual nation-wide poll for the best film of the year. … Hollywood is waiting to see what you will choose. The movie industry wants to grow up. Its wants to give you the pictures YOU want. But to do that it must have your critical judgment. So let’s tell Hollywood what to do![23]

The “Picture of the Month” and “Picture of the Year” awards were, then, another indication of the Herald’s attempt to work with the industry–and to be seen doing so. Photographs of Herald editor Poling awarding the plaques to studio producers both affirmed the Herald’s “applauding the good” selectivity and sent a reassuring message to Herald subscribers that their interests were being communicated to the highest levels of authority within Hollywood. In other words, both Hollywood and the Herald benefited from the awards because they demonstrated Hollywood’s willingness to listen to the Protestant community and they legitimated the Herald’s editorial policies regarding the selective consumption of popular culture and the disinclination towards state-sponsored censorship.[24]

[12] In sum, the PMPC’s film reviews were to engender a more selective and knowledgeable viewer–a viewer who would exercise his or her individual liberty in consuming a grade of product that would, as a result of economic self-interest, induce Hollywood to produce more of the same. Also entailed in this appeal to “tell Hollywood what to do” was the belief that the readers’ votes, together with the “Picture of the Year” plaques, were productive interactions that Protestants could have with Hollywood. Voting for good films was preferred to boycotting, lobbying against or censoring bad films: “We do occasionally label a movie completely objectionable … but we’re far more interested in building a greater demand for good pictures than in condemning bad ones.”[25] Moreover, Hollywood was perceived to be genuinely receptive to positive feedback and would try to amend its ways in subsequent films. Based upon this perception of the industry, the PMPC maintained a West Coast Office in Hollywood that offered to consult the studios on scripts so as to prevent the production of material offensive to Protestants. Implied in all these proactive strategies was a critique of Roman Catholic practice that both the PMPC and the Herald believed to usurp individual liberties and, on a larger social scale, threaten to complicate America’s vaunted separation of church and state. On the whole, then, the creation of a responsible viewer and a guarded cooperation with the industry seemed to be the identifying traits of the PMPC and Herald strategy.

[13] The injunction to applaud the good and condemn the bad was also worked out at the level of the individual film. Unlike some current Christian reviewers, the PMPC reviewers did not set about inventorying objectionable words or events and using a tally of occurrences as an index of the film’s worth.[26] Rather, with an eye towards the context presented in the film, reviewers noted those elements which might give the spectator pause and sought to evaluate whether or not the film treated them with perspicacity or, conversely, with exploitive intent. That is, an element became objectionable if the film contextualized it in such a manner as to suggest that, for example, the spectator could interpret drunkenness or adultery as acceptable actions. The mere representation of ways of life contrary to the Christian life promoted by the Herald and the PMPC, however, was not enough to result in a negative evaluation.

Generally the previewers judge a movie in terms of its technical excellence, its story, its dramatic quality, its moral and social values, the attitudes it expresses toward religion, toward family life, toward social problems–and always in terms of its being interesting or entertaining. They don’t object to drinking presented “for what it is”–as in movies like The Lost Weekend, or when it is a necessary part of the plot. They do, in general, object to what they describe as “false values” in terms of drinking or other things–that one must be wealthy or glamorous to be happy, or must drink to be socially acceptable.[27]

Here it is possible to see how the PMPC reviewers had come to accept and even promote the provisions of the Roman Catholic-sponsored Production Code–a Code which Richard Maltby records Protestants as being hostile to when it first appeared in the early 1930s.[28] Indeed, Golda Bader isolated one of the aims of the PMPC as being to “uphold the observance of the industry’s Motion Picture Code of Ethics and Morals [sic].”[29]

[14] Herald readers were at first wary of the PMPC’s film reviews. When first introduced in the mid-1940s the reviews initiated a wave of cancellations (10-25 per month) from more conservative readers. Almost a decade later, however, less than one percent of subscribers thought that the PMPC reviews were unnecessary.[30] Throughout the 1950s, occasional letters to the editor questioning the value of the reviews always engendered a response from subscribers affirming their utility. Two times during the decade the Herald published both critical and affirmative letters together thereby demonstrating to subscribers the different positions available to them but also instantiating its editorial policy of encouraging the individual’s freedom of choice.[31] Overall, however, critical subscribers raised questions not so much about the reviews themselves but about the act of attending movie theatres and the Herald’s policy of accepting advertising for Hollywood’s films. Of course, both concerns–the movie theatre environment and the sometimes lurid nature of motion picture advertising–had long been problematic for reform groups.[32] In sum, though, most subscribers appreciated the PMPC’s reviews for their use in pre-selecting acceptable film entertainment.[33]

“Gentlemen, Its Up To You!”: Scandal and Its Consequences

[15] Subscribers were far more vocal and consequently generated more letters to the editor about a series of specific issues that the Herald usually addressed in the form of a feature article. At the beginning of the decade the first of these articles, authored by managing editor Dr. Clarence Hall in April 1950, was an open letter to the industry regarding its use of scandal in publicizing both its films and stars. “Gentlemen, It’s Up To You!” began by isolating an attitude that, in the wake of the notorious Ingrid Bergman-Roberto Rossellini love affair, seemed to characterize an emerging trend:

It is that attitude which seems to say–baldly, cynically and without apology: “American people are essentially dirty-minded. The private lives of film actors and actresses are interesting to the public only when they involve uninhibited living. Because the average man and woman find themselves hindered by social restraints from kicking up their heels, they love to live vicariously in the lives of the stars. The morals of our stars not only don’t count, but their immorality can, by smart exploitation, be turned into substantial profit for all of us!”[34]

Hall next suggested that such “smart exploitation” was counter-productive in that it actually contributed to declining box office–perhaps more than the other factors cited by the industry (i.e., television, high taxes on tickets, foreign market troubles, etc.). Rather:

It seems never to have to occurred to you that the movie-going public may be staying away because of (a) the paucity of really worthwhile pictures and (b) widespread and rising disgust with some of your stars’ public behavior and your own inaction as regards it. The one has produced indifference, but the other has produced indignation.[35]

Recounting how, under the threat of federal censorship, the studios established self-regulation in the form of the Production Code and the Hays Office, Hall cites the ruined careers of Fatty Arbuckle and Mary Miles Minter as evidence that Hollywood once understood and had acted upon the agreement that it had made with Americans.[36] To wit: scandalous behaviour would not be tolerated either on- or off-screen and, in return, the studios would remain free from government censorship. In recent years, however, the studios had breached the terms of that contract and were now publicizing a lewdness that disgraced “decent Americans.” The scandals of Robert Mitchum, Errol Flynn, Robert Walker, Rita Hayworth and Ingrid Bergman should have been handled in a manner similar to those of Arbuckle and Minter. (In addition to these stars Herald editor Poling also censured Charlie Chaplin for his offences.)[37] Apart from the dubious moral and business sense indicated by such a public relations strategy, Hall also criticized the studios’ rejoinder to current criticism, namely, that as entertainment the movies had no impact upon the morality of spectators. On the contrary, given the prominence of the industry and its product, it was inevitable that the movies both entertained and instructed, amused and influenced. Indeed, Hall called the industry to task on this very point:

You are both [entertainers and instructors]. The very nature of your business makes you that. On occasion, when it was to your advantage to do so, you have stressed this point. It has been your great strength, and a various times, as during the war, you have demonstrated how well you can instruct and influence. As of now, it is your great weakness.[38]

[16] Besides attributing great persuasive power to the medium itself, Hall analyzed the way in which stars were created and the ways in which they functioned within fan culture. The mechanism by which the industry encouraged identification between spectator and character also forged a no less powerful relationship between spectator and actor (i.e., identification is activated not only within the theatre, during the viewing experience, but is also activated by public appearances, movie posters, contests, magazine articles–in short, all of the ingredients of a fan culture). In Hall’s formulation, the star was a byproduct of the mutually reinforcing dynamic between spectator, character and actor. That is, the star was contingent upon both public opinion and those narratives/characters deemed significant (thus making for good box-office) by that public: “The stars are not ‘merely private citizens,’ as some among you would now like to claim. They owe their high station and their high salaries to public support.”[39] Stars were not created ex nihilo by the studios but were, in fact, responsive to various aspects and sectors of modern American society. As such, the flagrant disregard of American values as evident in both the scandals themselves and the publicity of those scandals by the industry could not be overlooked.

[17] In addition to critiquing the industry’s misapprehension of its audience’s values, its misdiagnosis of the factors leading to a declining box office, its failure to learn from its own history with respect to the threat of censorship and, finally, its self-serving proposal that motion pictures only entertained, Hall also tried another approach in his article. In keeping with the Herald’s injunction to promote “the good” within American culture, Hall refused to condemn the industry wholesale but sought instead to demonstrate the goodwill of Protestants to Hollywood by both recognizing good people within the industry and by proposing a solution to the problem of scandalous stars. First, recognition of the conscientious personnel at work in Hollywood would help in the recuperation of the movie colony’s tarnished image:

… this and all other recent exploitations of your morally loose stars is an unforgivable insult to the many fine and decent people in Hollywood who are fighting against great odds to reflect credit on the movie colony. We’ve insisted all along that Hollywood, so far from being a cesspool of sin and vice, is comprised for the most part of sincere, hardworking, decent people. Gentlemen, you haven’t helped us much in putting this truth across! Instead you allow the hopheads, the drunks, the wife-traders, the reefer-smokers and flagrant philanderers to represent the colony. We insist that this is stupid showmanship.[40]

This first strategy, then, functioned to keep the lines of communication between Protestants and Hollywood open by refusing to justify a complete refusal of one by the other. Moreover, Hall could appreciate the majority of Hollywood workers because they were “sincere, hardworking, decent people.” The second strategy, involving a means by which to exert some degree of control over morally troublesome actors, was proposed by Joseph Finnerman, an exhibitor from Indiana, and endorsed by the Allied States Association, an independent exhibitors trade organization. Significantly, this proposal to apply sanctions (i.e., suspensions and fines) to actors came from those within the industry and not, as might have been expected, from “bluenoses” or reform groups.[41]

[18] Although critical, Hall’s letter to the industry did not threaten boycotts or other heavy-handed actions. He did, however, conclude by invoking what he thought the industry would view to be an apocalyptic scenario–the enactment of federal censorship–that could only be averted if Hollywood heeded his warning. Such an event, brought about by less democratic forces (read Roman Catholic), would contravene long-standing Herald policy and would not be, therefore, the best way in which to resolve the problem.

As we write this, Stromboli and other [Ingrid] Bergman films are meeting with bans and boycotts galore. All this could easily snowball into something far more serious for you. Let us make it plain that censorship, except as it be by the individual on the basis of conscience, or self-applied by an industry to protect itself against itself, is something we unalterably oppose. Federal- or state-imposed censorship, whether of movies or books or magazines or radio, is both dangerous and un-American. You have good reason to fear it. But, gentlemen, you are laying yourselves wide open for the very thing you fear. Once before, faced by the threat of political censorship, you did some very fast and quite effective house-cleaning. It looks like the time has come for another clean-up. Whether you do it yourselves, or whether you wait for public indignation to roll censorship down upon you, is up to you. If you won’t or can’t control the public misdoings of your ambassadors of ill will, you will most assuredly get controls imposed from the outside, such is the temper of the people today.[42]

Here Hall and the Herald positioned themselves explicitly as the reasonable mediators in a looming battle, as the well-meaning conscience of an industry for which they, despite all provocations, still had respect. In this way, they owned up to a role carefully prepared for them in the 1930s when the studios had sought to court the favour (or, cynically, co-opt the critical function) of reform groups by involving them in the industry.[43]

[19] Hall’s letter generated two types of response, that of letters to the editor and, a few months later, a short-lived series featuring profiles of religious believers within Hollywood. The letters to the editor were compiled and excerpts from 14 were published in the July 1950 issue. Readers agreed with the strategies employed by Hall, specifically the clarity and rhetorical forcefulness of his criticism coupled with his recognition that the majority of those in the industry were working to reform it from within. In addition, the Herald chose to publish the letters of two Roman Catholics to suggest both the ecumenical appeal of Hall’s analysis/recommendations and, not so subtly, the inadequacy of the traditional Catholic response to Hollywood.[44] Further indication of Hall’s success in voicing Christian indignation at Hollywood together with the Herald’s plans to showcase those in the industry who merited appreciation came in the editor’s note that accompanied the letters:

Our sincerest thanks to the above, as well as to the many scores of others who wrote us regarding our Open Letter to the Motion Picture Industry. The article has been reprinted widely in the nation’s press. In the near future we hope to feature some of those Hollywood personalities whose moral and spiritual life is the best bolster of our statement that the industry’s exploitation of its misbehavers is a gross insult to them as well as to other decent Americans.[45]

[20] The series was entitled “The Faith of the Stars” and ran from August of 1950 to November of 1952, though most installments were published in 1951.[46] The format of each installment was the same, namely, a short introduction in which the actor’s church affiliation was named, the activities that he or she participated in and, after a short word from the actor’s minister, the testimony of the actor vis-à-vis the centrality of their faith for their life. Each installment emphasized the degree to which the actor’s religious life included far more than church attendance. Involvement with committees and clubs was combined with a deep personal piety. Interestingly, and perhaps as a further demonstration of the Herald’s commitment to a non-sectarian religiosity, the August 1951 issue introduced a Roman Catholic (Pat O’Brien) and the September 1951 installment showcased a follower of Judaism (Eddie Cantor). In addition to these two, the following stars were introduced during the series: Lee Bonnell, Barbara Britton, Wendell Corey, Don DeFore, Dale Evans, Lon McCallister, Dennis Morgan, Eleanor Powell, Roy Rogers, Randolph Scott and Gale Storm. It seems that the series achieved its purpose of demonstrating religious faith in Hollywood with at least one subscriber appreciative of the information provided on each star.[47] The desire to showcase both the laudable personnel within the industry and the potential for religious film production would recur throughout the decade, inviting Herald readers to be selective or discriminating in their criticism and patronage.[48]

Il Miracolo and Martin Luther: An Aside on Protestant-Roman Catholic Relations

[21] No less intriguing than scandalous stars, two films, Roberto Rossellini’s Il Miracolo (1948) and Louis de Rochemont’s Martin Luther (1953), provoked significant editorials and articles in the Herald during the decade. The significance of these films and the discourse within the Herald that they engendered was to be found in how they reflected the mid-century relationship between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. Once again, it is impossible, having examined the particulars of this debate, to subscribe to a simplistic rendering of the relationship between these two forms of American Christianity. For example, although fully in agreement with Hall’s earlier polemic against the Rossellini-Bergman scandal and personally having a “deep-seated aversion” to Rossellini’s films, Poling refused to join conservative Catholic overtures calling for the banning of the director’s film due to its ostensible sacrilege. Instead, his editorial of April 1951–“Something Worse Than The Miracle”–reiterated many of the positions already examined (e.g., the need for individual liberty and the dangers of federal censorship). Moreover, Poling lent support to the Herald’s ecumenicity by quoting extensively from moderate and liberal Catholics who also opposed the banning of the film. Indeed, in commenting upon the May 1952 ruling by the Supreme Court that struck down the ban, Poling wrote “the decision is neither pro-faith nor anti-faith, pro-Catholic nor anti-Catholic, pro-Protestant nor anti-Protestant. It is pro-American.”[49] The real danger lay elsewhere, in those who would force or impose their religious convictions on Americans:

Dangerous and indeed disastrous it would be if you or I, individually or as Protestant, Catholic or Jewish groups, could force a partisan or sectarian definition of “sacrilege” upon America. All the freedoms today are in one package and they must be for all if they are to exist.[50]

[22] The film Martin Luther was named “Picture of the Month” in May of 1953, earning an excellent review.[51] The PMPC reviewer interpreted the film to address “the struggle of a soul to be free”–a reading echoed in the October 1953 National Council Outlook when its reviewer saw the film as relating “a message of Christian liberty and freedom of conscience.” That same October the Herald published remarks by the film’s director, Irving Pichel, also reinforcing the idea that despite its obvious historical referent the film was really about “the struggle for human freedom.” It is with the March 1954 awarding of the “Picture of the Year” plaque to Martin Luther that the Herald’s interpretation of the film links individual freedom with ecumenism. In an advertisement for the film a quote from a Catholic reviewer assures the reader that “there is little to offend the Catholic moviegoer, for this life of Luther is told with a quiet dignity and without prejudice.” That is, the film was really about the struggle for individual liberty with Luther becoming a religious figure that unified all Christians, both Protestant and Catholic. Such an interpretation comported well with both a Cold War critique of totalitarianism and the felt need on the part of Protestants to assert their leadership of and significance for the culture–a culture that evidenced ostensibly increasing Catholic strength internally and threatening geopolitical circumstances externally.

[23] This ecumenical venture was threatened later in the decade, however, when Catholics in Chicago managed to pressure a television station into canceling a telecast of the film, originally planned for December of 1956. Poling’s editorial in February of 1957 pointed out that the film had not been banned by the Legion of Decency upon its initial theatrical release and reiterated arguments against censorship and for freedom of the press. Given that the film was “not sectarian” and that the television station had shown Catholic shows without Protestant protest, such a move on the part of some Chicago Catholics was deemed even more offensive. More debate followed.[52]

Biblical Epics: Discretion in Action?

[24] Many of the emphases already examined in the previous editorials, articles and letters to the editor also emerged in the third area of significance: the Herald’s ongoing appraisal of the biblical epics of the 1950s. For example, the PMPC’s endorsement of some of these films did not abrogate the individual’s decision-making. Similarly, the intent to showcase the good within the industry by means of the “Faith of the Stars” series was mirrored in the forum that the Herald gave figures like director Cecil B. DeMille and Paramount president Spyros P. Skouras in their attempts to relate motion pictures and religion. Another characteristic of PMPC and Herald practice–the attempt to unify American Christians with a non-sectarian, ecumenical religiosity– was often reflected in the reviews given some of these epics. These various issues, then, came together and were manifest in the discourse that the Herald brought to bear upon this paradigmatic film genre.

[25] Throughout the decade, Hollywood’s biblical epics were prominent in the PMPC reviews.[53] Several won “Picture of the Month” (The Robe, Demetrius and the Gladiators) and “Picture of the Year” (David and Bathsheba, Quo Vadis, The Ten Commandments) awards.[54] These films were also accompanied by one-column or full-page advertisements, often addressed specifically to Herald readers.[55] For example, the full-page ad for MGM’s Quo Vadis featured the following text at the top of the page and surrounded by line drawings of trumpeters who announced “a momentous motion picture event for the readers of the Christian Herald!”[56] Or consider this from the Herald of April 1958: “Paramount Pictures gratefully acknowledges the Christian Herald Readers’ Award to Cecil B. DeMille for his production The Ten Commandments.” In addition, many advertisements drew attention to the technology involved in bringing the epic to the screen. Quo Vadis highlighted its use of the Technicolor process while ads for The Ten Commandments celebrated its use of Vistavision.[57] In 20^th Century-Fox’s promotion of The Robe this tendency to showcase the technology at work in the film achieved its apogee. Whereas other ads usually indicated the basic biblical themes told in the film, the ads for The Robe introduced the film with the following text (which took up almost half of the space available):

20^th Century-Fox presents the New Dimensional Photographic Marvel! The Modern Miracle You See Without Glasses! The most sensational development since the birth of sound! A vast and wonderful panorama of life-like realism and infinite depth. CinemaScope’s amazing Anamorphic Lens Process on the newly created, curved Miracle Mirror Screen opens new vistas of entertainment. CinemaScope’s new Stereophonic Sound System achieves unprecedented heights of participation. The magic of CinemaScope makes you part of The Robe. You share the miracle of this wondrous drama which “reaches out” to encompass you in its awe-inspiring grandeur. Ten years in preparation … two years in production, a cast of thousands![58]

Six months later, in April of 1954, 20^th Century-Fox ran a similar ad, this time laid out in such a way that the reader would have to rotate the magazine in order to read the text and see the stills from the film–thus approximating in print the aspect ratio of CinemaScope.

[26] Despite the laudable subject matter and the impressive advertising campaigns that accompanied most of these films, PMPC reviewers and Herald feature writers did not blindly endorse each film: “The Bible is, of course, a fertile source for film scenarios and many pictures are produced with a biblical background. But this doesn’t mean they automatically win favor with Christian folks. Some, as a matter of fact, have been quite shoddy.”[59] Rather, each epic was evaluated not only in terms of its contextualization of controversial elements but, more specifically, also with regard to issues emerging from its adaptation of biblical source material. Time and again the reviews made implicit and explicit reference to standards that measured both formal and thematic aspects of a given film. For example, given the technical innovations just mentioned–Technicolor, CinemaScope, Vistavision, stereophonic sound–the function of spectacle within the film became an indicator of whether or not it was acceptable entertainment. That is, spectacle was seen as a hindrance to the clear communication of the “spiritual message” of the film while, on other occasions, spectacle was perfectly combined with story to result in an uplifting and exhilarating experience. The best films managed to achieve a balance between the epic and the intimate, the flamboyant and the restrained.[60]

[27] Also of importance to PMPC reviewers was the film’s fidelity to the biblical account. Had characters and events been portrayed accurately? This criterion not only meant adherence to the Bible’s narrative but also included any attempts by the studio to engage in historical research in order to lend authenticity to, for example, costumes and set design. Films that failed to live up to both of these senses of fidelity and accuracy were either condemned or, positively, categorized as historical fiction. For example, the reviewers rated Salome “Objectionable” because “many liberties have taken with the Bible’s brief account of the part Salome played in the death of John the Baptist.”[61] Similarly, Solomon and Sheba was excoriated because it cynically used the brief biblical account as a pretext for sex and violence.[62] Quo Vadis and The Robe, however, though largely fictional and making only a few references to events in the biblical record, offered narratives that reaffirmed basic elements of the Christian faith (e.g., sacrifice, personal redemption). They were, therefore, recognized as acceptable historical fiction.[63] A final standard for the epic was its promotion of a non-sectarian religiosity. David and Bathsheba was noted as “an important section in the history of the Hebrew people” and The Ten Commandments was “cited by leaders of all faiths as a spiritually enrichening experience making the Bible thrillingly alive.”[64] Taking these standards into account, the paradigmatic epic was undoubtedly DeMille’s The Ten Commandments. According to the PMPC standards just outlined, DeMille’s film excelled in the technical, historical research and ecumenical aspects:

This Biblical epic portraying the life of Moses, taken from the Bible and other ancient writings with several additions from fiction, has a ring of authenticity and accuracy. In Technicolor and Vistavision, it is impressive, not only by the number of people involved, the period covered and the backgrounds used and recreated, but also because of the infinite care spent on research. The eternal struggle of mankind for freedom of the individual soul against tyranny is well developed. Several episodes stand out … Although there are thousands taking part, there is no confusion.[65]

Further knowledge about the technical aspects and historical research involved in the making of the film were made available in an article by Kay Marten which recounted the arduous location shooting and the obsessive attention to detail.[66]

[28] The non-sectarian and ecumenical religiosity suggested by the Herald, the PMPC and DeMille’s film itself warrants further analysis. In the review just cited, the basic theme of the film–“the eternal struggle of mankind for freedom of the individual soul against tyranny”–reiterates the interpretation of many other films praised by the PMPC during the decade, particularly Martin Luther and Spartacus.[67] DeMille was well-represented in the Herald for, in addition to the occasional pictures of DeMille with people connected to the Herald and the PMPC, there were two full-length articles which gave him the opportunity to expound on his vision of religion and the cinema.[68] (No other filmmakers were afforded this opportunity.) The first, Roy L. Ruth’s “Cecil B. de Mille [sic] Testifies,” contextualizes some of the director’s early work by subsuming it to his basic desire to both communicate the significance of Christ for the individual and the world and, in the case of Samson and Delilah, to demonstrate the power of prayer.[69]

One of the most important things to get across to the modern world … is an understanding of the power of prayer. Prayer is thought contact with the Holy Spirit. It is the greatest power in the world! … Modern man is a giant bestriding the world he has subdued and is already reaching out toward other planets– literally new worlds to conquer. But, like Samson of old, he is a giant who has gone blind. His vision of the spiritual realities summed up for us in Jesus of Nazareth has gone. And, like Samson, he may pull down upon himself the marvelous temple of civilization which he himself has built. That will inevitably happen unless we get our vision back and make it work.[70]

DeMille, though referencing the Christian tradition, really sought to impress upon spectators the need to return to fundamental precepts–“our vision”–in order to preserve American society, to “make it work.” This apparently instrumentalist and pragmatic program for religion and the cinema was even more pronounced in the second article, written by DeMille himself and entitled “Why I Made The Ten Commandments.” Here the director began by describing the contemporary context that provoked the making of the film:

This is the most modern picture I have ever made, because the struggle between the forces represented by Moses and those represented by Pharaoh is still being waged today. Are men free souls under God or are they the property of the State? Are men to be ruled by law or by the whims of an individual? The answers to these timely questions were given some three thousand years ago on Mount Sinai’s pinnacle.[71]

This Cold War-induced Manichean view of the sociopolitical choices available to Herald readers was accompanied by a no less strongly articulated religious ecumenism. Indeed, only a robust religious alliance to secure the freedom of the individual and the rule of law could oppose the Communist occlusion of the individual by the collectivity and the subordination of all to one man, Stalin. Given that American society exhibited different religious commitments, however, the grand unifying religiosity that DeMille appealed to and relied upon had to be non-sectarian and amenable to universal application. Under these terms it would seem that the exclusivity of Jesus Christ is superseded by the inclusivity of Moses and the laws that he brought:

A high statesman from one of the largest Moslem countries in Asia urged me again and again to make this picture with–and I quote him–the “definite objective to bring about religious understanding with a view to the safe-guarding of our free and democratic way of life.” It should not surprise us that a leading Moslem should show so much interest in The Ten Commandments, for Moses is as highly honored as a prophet in Islam as he is in Judaism and Christianity. Is it too much to hope that our production of The Ten Commandments might help to do what centuries of bloodshed and argument have failed to do–remind the adherents of the Jewish, Christian, and Moslem faiths that they all spring from a common source and that they have in Moses a binding tie, a universal prophet, and in the Decalogue a universal law of brotherhood?[72]

DeMille, then, seems to promote a civil religion that combines the achievements of American democracy with appeals to seemingly universal, albeit vaguely Judeo-Christian, standards. DeMille accomplishes this with a hermeneutic wherein biblical stories become mere allegories and biblical figures become mere examples–allegories and examples that are universal enough to be found in many of the world’s religions. This civil religion was not yet abstract enough to have jettisoned its specific appeals to the West’s Judeo-Christian heritage but it certainly represented a view of religion and Christianity that other Protestants had great difficulty in accepting.[73]

[29] Others within the pages of the Herald corroborated DeMille’s hermeneutic with respect to the religious and socio-cultural significance of the cinema. Twentieth Century-Fox studio head Spyros Skouras, who would host Khruschev seven years later at the luncheon mentioned at the beginning of this essay, declared:

The screen will never cease to be conscious of its tremendous responsibilities to the cause of religion. Church and screen are joined together in the defense of the spiritual heritage of Western civilization against the threats of pagan philosophy. Among civilized people no medium of communication is more sensitive to the spiritual aspirations of humanity than the screen … Producers should be encouraged by Protestants and Catholics alike to produce religious subjects in order to combat the godless common enemy, communism. This is the great crusade of modern time. It brings us once more a shining opportunity to exalt the well-being of mankind. As representatives of the church and screen, we can share in the crusade.[74]

Of course, such a “noble mission” for the film industry was not unique only to film directors and studio heads hoping to curry the favour of Protestant America. Rather, it can be shown that this self-understanding of the cinema’s contribution to democracy was prevalent industry-wide throughout the decade.[75] What is important to realize, however, is that the Herald and many of its readers found such sentiments to be salutary and, therefore, worthy of support. Similarly, the anger evident in Paul M. Stevens’ critique of the industry’s policy vis-à-vis foreign release prints can be understood only if he and, by extension, the Herald and many of its readers, had come to accept as normative DeMille and Skouras’ conception of the industry’s significance in the promotion of the American way of life.

Our nation produces a dearth of good material for the screen. At the same time, there is an abundance of trash available which collectively paints the United States as a nation of hypocrites, gangsters, idiots, wastrels and sex devotees. That’s why in Communist-dominated countries where American radio and TV programs are barred, American movies are welcomed with open arms. … Such products only confuse our world neighbors and give comfort to the Communists who welcome every “proof”–no matter how small–that we are a dissolute and depraved nation.[76]

[30] If the biblical epics were one important site for the reconciliation of the industry with institutional religion and, at the same time, significant in the formation of the civil religion native to the Herald’s mainline Protestantism, then criticism of these films would have to be deemed, at the very least, noteworthy. In July 1955 the Herald published its only lengthy critique of this genre during the decade, a polemic by J.C. Furnas entitled “Look What Hollywood’s Doing to Your Bible!” Furnas mounts a multi-pronged attack of biblical epics in which he contests the common interpretation of their significance. Whereas some epics were critiqued by the PMPC because they were either pretexts for violence and salacious costumes/situations or because they did not adhere to the biblical account, Furnas extends the coverage of these critiques to encompass all epics from D. W. Griffith to DeMille. Furthermore, even ostensibly laudable efforts like The Robe fall under his condemnation because of their status as historical fiction. That is, such films work to direct the spectator’s interest away from the legitimate biblical message as if it were, somehow, inadequate to the function of informing, entertaining and edifying. Particularly galling for Furnas was the tendency of scriptwriters to derive an entire film from the sparest of biblical texts and, consequently, to emphasize those elements within the text that were of secondary importance to the main message.[77] Contrary to what producers may have thought, such hermeneutical shortcomings were not outweighed by so-called “research” or lengthy production schedules or on-location shooting. Another aspect of the biblical epic that aggravated Furnas was its predictability. The narrative conventions in place no longer surprised the spectator and interest, consequently, was to emerge from other elements (e.g., sex and violence).

Just as crime movies are 98 per cent glorification of felons and two percent hurried crime-doesn’t-pay at the end, so Bible movies run pretty solid honky-tonk sex and comic-book violence, barely remembering to conclude with a sickly religiosity.[78]

True to another policy articulated in the Herald, however, Furnas didn’t recommend federal censorship. Rather, he praised a production like Martin Luther because of its close ties to the Lutheran Church and imagined that other church groups could put up “the several hundred thousand dollars–not [the] several Demillions [sic]–that it would cost” to do something similar.[79]

[31] Needless to say, Furnas’ polemic generated a tremendous response. Foremost among the avalanche of replies was a letter from Art Arthur of Paramount Pictures. Arthur’s essential complaint was that the Herald failed to adhere to its own principle of selectivity by allowing Furnas to lump DeMille in with all other producers of biblical epics. Furthermore, in demonstration that such guilt-by-association did not fit DeMille’s filmmaking, Arthur proceeded to list the many citations and awards given to the long-time Paramount director by Protestant organizations, including the Herald. In effect, the Furnas article was a betrayal of the relationship built up between the Herald and those within the industry who had sought to do good. In reply, the Herald admitted that it had, in the past, honored DeMille and continued to view him as a “shining exception to those in Hollywood who would misuse the Bible for their own gain.”[80] The Herald did not, however, retreat from asserting an author’s right to freedom of expression and freedom from censorship. Other responses to Furnas were varied. Some agreed that something had to be done to prevent such material from reaching the screen–calling the films “blasphemy”–while others were more moderate and posed a question in response to Furnas: “I would really like to know just how that story taken from the parable [of the prodigal son] as told by our Lord could possibly be made into anything without some sin in it. If Christ did not omit the sin, why should we do so?”[81] Even ministers could not reach a consensus on the issues raised by Furnas with some agreeing with his protest while others came close to labeling Furnas a naïve Fundamentalist who operated with an inadequate (i.e., literalistic) hermeneutic:

Intelligent people view all motion pictures with some reservations and never accept them as infallible; and these Hollywood pictures depicting the Bible are no exception. I am sure that they are not claiming any ecclesiastical or theological dogmatism when they produce their biblical films. Their pictures are merely their interpretations of the Bible; and aren’t all interpretations of the Bible just a matter of individuality? Surely Christendom itself does not agree on biblical interpretation. Then why all this excitement about Hollywood?[82]

Given both the PMPC’s ongoing positive appraisals of the biblical epics and the Herald’s promotion of DeMille’s The Ten Commandments just two years later it would seem that critical voices like those raised by Furnas were marginalized by the mainline Protestantism served by and speaking through the Herald. Although patience with Hollywood sometimes wore thin–as in an indignant exposé of the differing ploys for marketing the epics to exhibitors and church groups–by and large Herald readers supported the initiatives of the magazine.[83] As we have seen, however, its policy of selectivity and support for the good within the industry belied its adoption of strategies created in Hollywood–strategies that were, moreover, mutually beneficial for the industry and those in positions of authority and leadership within the mainline Protestant community.

Conclusion

[32] The 1950s present a fascinating object of historical inquiry with respect to the varieties of Protestant response to Hollywood. Against the backdrop of a plethora of sources and, specifically, in its consideration of star scandals, Roman Catholic-Protestant debate over The Miracle and Martin Luther and in its review of the biblical epics, the Herald comes to represent an intriguing figure for historical appraisal.[84] Indeed, these discussions and reviews are remarkable for they confound the common belief that Protestants have only recently begun to launch substantial dialogue with and not just criticism of the film industry and popular culture.[85] As we have seen, this literature sought to accomplish a variety of interrelated socio-cultural functions: to wit, the formation of a uniquely Protestant voice to guide families in their consumption of popular culture and, furthermore, to provide an assertion of Protestant significance for not only Hollywood but also the culture at large. Parsing this sentence–as the preceding study has done–reveals the complexities of Protestantism and the period itself. That is, the Herald, though positioned by historians as pursuing some evangelical objectives, nonetheless, in its utilization of PMPC reviews, also demonstrates an allegiance to mainline Protestant goals.[86] This type of complexity is well documented and analyzed further by the major scholars of modern American religious history.

[33] One of the most apparent areas of complexity characterizing the Herald was its commitment to both a robust ecumenism that would embrace moderate and liberal Catholic opinion and, at the same time, its articulation of “a uniquely Protestant voice” in order to ensure an ongoing socio-cultural hegemony. The clearest expression of this hegemonic stance was revealed most clearly in Herald managing editor Clarence Hall’s paean The Protestant Panorama (1951)–a celebratory polemic which is paradigmatic in its elision of freedom, liberty, capitalism and even America itself with Protestantism.[87] Following in the wake of well-known “events” like the Protestant reaction against the American envoy to the Vatican (1948) and Paul Blanshard’s American Freedom and Catholic Power (1949; followed by Communism, Democracy and Catholic Power in 1951), the Herald itself was not innocent of the cultural politics of the period. A very public concern with the perceived displacement of Protestants as the leaders of American life was not only examined in Will Herberg’s landmark study of 1955 but was also, as we have seen, articulated in the pages of the magazine itself.[88] And yet, simultaneously, the Herald’s insistence on the primacy of Protestantism was somewhat compromised by an ecumenical appeal to Catholics in the struggle with the film industry (e.g., the “Faith of the Stars” series and a salutary acknowledgement of moderate Catholic opinion on The Miracle and Martin Luther). In this respect, then, the discourse surrounding film displays the tension between upholding the singular significance of Protestantism for America and, on the other hand, an incipient awareness that only by cooperating could Protestants and Catholics assert their importance for an increasingly secular postwar culture.

[34] Yet another incipient conflict was evident in the dialectic between the grand unfolding of a unified Protestantism and a no less fervent and concurrent allegiance to individualism. Robert Wuthnow has noted that “religion was a dense forest of organizations” and that it evinced a “vast organizational infrastructure”[89] during this period. This was the concomitant of the ecumenical movements that marked post-war Protestantism. The Herald and the PMPC participated fully in the proliferation of institutional relationships, so much so that, as noted earlier, it becomes difficult to ascertain the precise origins of the PMPC. The National Council of Churches, the Protestant Film Commission and the Herald all seem to have participated in the development of the PMPC. In tension with this commitment to developing a bureaucracy is a demonstrated privileging of the individual, whether that be the individual consumer deciding for herself what movie to attend or the heroic individual of the biblical epic standing in opposition to pagan Rome or the focus on the faith of an individual star. The Herald’s ideal individual is a twin to that analyzed by Wuthnow and envisioned by the mainline Protestantism of the period. Indeed, the “Protestant significance” resides in part in its claim that the spiritual growth of individuals was cardinal and that no activity was too incidental to this task.

Religious individuals … would be enjoined to work actively in the world for goodness and righteousness. And they would be enjoined to do so, not simply on the basis of some vague doctrinal tradition, but in the context of discourse about opportunities and threats … even small tasks could contribute to larger goals.[90]

Careful evaluation of the PMPC reviews, voting for “Picture of the Month” or “Picture of the Year,” and, most importantly, resisting those who called for restraint on individual freedom and liberty by enacting federal censorship were all “small tasks” that strengthened the religious individual while, at the same time, contributing to the formation of a unified Protestant voice. It was believed that changing the individual in this way distinguished Protestantism from the “top-down” approaches of both the Pope and the Soviet Premier. This institutionally-enabled religious individual with an activist bent would counter the threats of Catholicism and Communism by both instantiating and disseminating the “common faith” credo of Herberg’s “American Way of Life”–a credo evident, as we have seen, in both the biblical epics themselves and in much of the discourse surrounding them.[91]

[35] These productive antinomies at the heart of the Herald’s Protestant identity remained viable vis-à-vis the critique and engagement of popular culture as long as the film industry itself retained its unique monopolistic structure. Strategies that were promising in the 1940s could continue to work in the 1950s. The cooperation between the Herald and Hollywood that was born in 1940 with the Warner Brothers film One Foot in Heaven and that saw the company welcome the Herald’s expertise in organizing clerics as consultants was a direct antecedent to the invitation for the Herald readership to “tell Hollywood what to do” in awarding a film “Picture of the Year.”[92] The consequences of two legal decisions worked together during the 1950s, however, to unravel the compact between the PMPC, the Herald and Hollywood. The Paramount decision of 1948–an anti-trust action wherein the studios were forced to divest their theatre chains–and the Supreme Court’s decision in 1952 in Bursytn v. Wilson–which effectively extended First Amendment protection to motion pictures–combined to remove control of exhibition from the studios and assured the studios that censorship was weakened dramatically. In other words, complaints were now to be directed at local exhibitors–not at a politically visible and vulnerable oligarchy of corporations–and the power of censorship boards to regulate what was shown by threatening costly edits of films in their jurisdiction soon devolved into the ability to merely rate films.

[36] These two legal landmarks took on greater significance with respect to the antinomies governing the Herald and the PMPC. First, if films contained what religious organizations deemed to be objectionable content neither Roman Catholics nor Protestants could coerce the studios into consultation or compliance by suggesting that federal censorship was a likely outcome if such films were released. Thus, the antagonism that arose between Catholics and Protestants in asserting hegemony in relation to cultural production became counterproductive and, as suggested above, some saw it as prudent to work together. Secondly, the very terms of ecumenical and organizational activity employed by Protestants themselves worked, ironically, to eventually undermine what was unique to Protestantism.[93] The interpretations of DeMille and Skouras with respect to how films could function within the larger culture were the apogee of a modernist translation of Protestantism into a vernacular civil religion so ably analyzed by Herberg, Wuthnow, Marty and others. In turn, this civil religion comprised such an anemic argument for sustaining uniquely Protestant organizations that the aforementioned individualist ethos could attain a degree of independence not seen before. Moreover, this individualism was only exacerbated by the Protestant proclivity for schism. Why turn to PMPC reviews or Herald commentary to adjudicate the viewing choices available to this newly emergent and independent religious individual? By the mid-1960s the PMPC reviews were likely considered to be irrelevant to many readers.

[37] In sum, the balanced antinomies that were internal to and sustained efforts like the PMPC became skewed when the external industrial supports for this particular formation of Protestantism made way for the new realities of Hollywood film practice. Block booking, vertical integration of the industry and other monopolistic practices had ensured that a Protestant organization like the PMPC could be conceived and function as a counterweight. The rise of independent producers and exhibitors, the dismissal of federal censorship as a threatening restraint and other developments during the period, however, destroyed any semblance of a compact between two (or three, if Roman Catholic intervention is included) cultural presences. In such a context the Herald’s admonition to “applaud the good and condemn the bad” assumed only a rhetorical force and worked to position Protestants as mere consumers.

Notes

* Greg Linnell has degrees from Redeemer University College, the Institute for Christian Studies, Carleton University, the University of Western Ontario and a certificate in film preservation from The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation.  He was employed in the Motion Picture Department at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film and is the founding editorial assistant for the Association of Moving Image Archivists’ biannual journal, The Moving Image.  He would like to thank Christopher Simmons for suggesting sources in modern American Protestant religious history, Karen Everson for her close reading and editorial suggestions on an earlier version of this paper, the anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture and, finally, friends in Madison (Wisconsin), Rochester (New York) and Woodstock (Ontario) who have contributed so much to this work.

[1] The following account is culled from William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003), 429-433. Also see Stephen J. Whitfield, “The Road to Rapprochement: Khrushchev’s 1959 Visit to America,” in The Other Fifties: Interrogating Midcentury American Icons, ed. Joel Foreman, 307-332 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997).

[2] A photograph of this meeting can be found in David Halberstam’s The Fifties (New York: Random House, 1993). It precedes page 421.

[3] Khrushchev’s speeches were published in the USSR under the title Live in Peace and Friendship and published in America as Khrushchev in America (New York: Crosscurrents Press, 1960). The quotation is from page 134. No translator is credited.

[4] Arthur Krock, “In the Nation: Mr. K. Raises the Grimmest of All Questions,” New York Times, September 22, 1959. Also see “Movies Downgrade the U.S. Again,” an unsigned report in the October 7, 1959 issue of The Christian Century (hereafter cited as the Century).

[5] Murray Schumach, “Criticism Mounts Over Film Themes: Hollywood Ministerial Unit Joins in Attack on Movies’ Sex and Violence Stress,” New York Times, September 25, 1959; Bosley Crowther, “One Man’s Opinion: Agitation Stirred Up on Morals in Films,” New York Times, September 27, 1959; “TV-Movie Moral Laxity Stirs Protestant Ire: Special Report,” Christianity Today, October 26, 1959.

[6] The demonstrably broader demographic appeal of the Herald vis-à-vis a contemporary Christian voice like the Century comprises one of the chief reasons for the analysis of this monthly; this magazine, subtitled “The Leading Christian Family Magazine,” perhaps yields positions most representative of the Protestant laity during the 1950s. Its subscription base at the height of its popularity was reported to be around 500,000 issues whereas the Century managed between 35,000 and 40,000 subscribers.  In addition to providing a forum for Protestant establishment columnists like J.C. Penney and Norman Vincent Peale, the Herald was also the centerpiece of a community that supported foreign missions, a mission in New York’s Bowery, and a summer camp for underprivileged children. In servicing a community with varied needs, then, it is neither accidental nor inconsequential that the Herald provided reviews of Hollywood films from the mid-1940s through to the mid-1960s. Post-war social development and dislocation called for a reliable, family-oriented consumer guide for American evangelicals; assisting young suburban families with limited personal incomes to discriminate among the diverse recreational choices available to them was a financially advantageous strategy for the magazine. Indeed, in criticizing the commonplace that the rise of television is the most salient explanation for the postwar drop in the movie audience, film historian Douglas Gomery, on page 87 of Shared Pleasures: A History of Movie Presentation in the United States (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1992), has noted that

Americans had little new personal income to spend on movies. What they had saved they chose to spend on housing and children, making up for what they had missed during the Great Depression and the Second World War. Suburbanization located more and more families away from the downtown location of the movie palaces. It cost more (in terms of time and money) to travel to the picture palace. Finally, the baby boom took away the time and interest of the very demographic heart of the moviegoing audience.

Hollywood itself was not oblivious to the threat posed by the startling postwar growth of interest in activities like bowling and camping–activities particularly appealing for families. In other words, when there was enough money to pay for a babysitter, downtown parking and the admission itself, moviegoers wanted to ensure that what they were seeing was good entertainment. The Herald, then, positioned itself both as a trustworthy source for conscientious spectators and, as we shall see, an authoritative Protestant voice both to and for the movie industry. See Stephen Board, “Moving the World with Magazines: A Survey of Evangelical Periodicals,” in American Evangelicals and the Mass Media, ed. Quentin J. Schultze (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1990), 128, 136, and Michele Rosenthal, “TV: Satan or Savior? Protestant Responses to Television in the 1950s” (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Dissertation Services, 2000), 40 for more on magazine distribution figures. For more on postwar recreation and competing entertainments see Ezra Bowen, ed. This Fabulous Century, Volume VI: 1950-1960 (New York: Time-Life Books, 1970), 167, 172 and Douglas T. Miller and Marion Nowak, The Fifties: The Way We Really Were (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1977), 315.

[7] The textual sources referenced for this study have predisposed the analysis that follows to take a certain shape. Most apparent is that many conservative Protestant denominations of the time officially prohibited movie-going (whatever the practice of individual members of the denomination) and, consequently, the researcher interested in this topic is led to consult non-denominational journals like the Herald, the Century and Christianity Today. Other journals, like The National Council Outlook, Religion in Life, Theology Today, Christianity and Crisis and The Christian Scholar, addressed to more specialized academic and professional populations, featured longer articles written by noteworthy commentators that complemented their reviews in the more widely read magazines (e.g., Malcolm Boyd wrote for both the Century and Theology Today). All of these journals, though addressed to and read by different groups, were not published under the auspices of a specific denomination and were free, therefore, to raise and discuss what were deemed to be provocative topics. These feature articles, reviews and letters to the editor are, in turn, complemented by a few book-length studies that, in the research still to be done, would certainly prove to be germane to and advance our understanding of the issues addressed in this study. All of these sources are significant, then, because they set parameters for the possible reactions of Protestants in the 1950s; not representative in a statistical manner, the analysis to follow nevertheless establishes some of the various types of response that Protestants would have articulated at the time. For book-length studies, see, e.g., Henry S. Noerdlinger’s Moses and Egypt: The Documentation to the Motion Picture The Ten Commandments (Los Angeles: University of Southern California Press, 1956) which is an apologetic for and summation of the research required for the DeMille film whereas, at the opposite end of the spectrum, Houghton College president Stephen W. Paine’s The Christian and the Movies: A Vigorous and Candid Discussion of a Controversial Subject (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1957) and Robert L. Sumner’s Hollywood Cesspool: A Startling Survey of Movieland Lives and Morals, Pictures and Results (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1955) are conservative polemics against Hollywood. Also, for a content analysis that does graph its results see Paul C. Stevens, “The Christian in the MGM Lion’s Den: A Content Analysis of Changing Evangelical Attitudes Toward Motion Pictures in Christianity Today Film Reviews from 1956 to 1985,” M.A. Thesis, Regent University, 1989.

[8] See, for example, the remarks that open and close Kris Jozajtis’ “‘The Eyes of All People Are Upon Us’: American Civil Religion and the Birth of Hollywood,” in Representing Religion in World Cinema: Filmmaking, Mythmaking, Culture Making, ed. S. Brent Plate (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 239-61 and, more specifically, the bibliographic information in notes 1 and 2. As Jozajtis notes, the most useful summary of the dominant interpretive analytical traditions can be found in Steve Nolan, “The Books of the Films: Trends in Religious Film Analysis,” Literature and Theology 12,1 (1988): 1-12.

[9] The exact beginnings of the PMPC remain unclear. S. Franklin Mack, in “On the Movie Lot in Hollywood,” National Council Outlook (March 1953), claims that the Protestant Film Commission (PFC), created in 1946 and concerned with the production and distribution of religious films, launched film reviewing in the form of the PMPC. In Mack’s account, the PMPC remained part of the PFC until 1952. Two months after Mack’s article appeared, an unsigned report in the May 1953 issue of the National Council Outlook–“Better Than Censorship: A Report on the Protestant Motion Picture Council”–claimed that the PMPC began in 1944 and makes no mention of a sponsoring Protestant Film Commission. Finally, both a June 1953 editorial (18) and a January 1966 editor’s note (10) in the Herald posit that the PMPC was founded in 1945 under the auspices of the Herald. For this essay I have retained the chronology maintained by the Herald.

[10] Thirty denominations comprised the NCC. including Methodist, Episcopal, Baptist, Lutheran, Disciples of Christ, Reformed, Quaker, Moravian, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Congregational and Presbyterian churches. This list is derived from the National Council Outlook masthead for October 1953.

[11] Mack, “On the Movie Lot,” 11.

[12] At this point I have no information on the post-Herald publishing history of the PMPC’s reviews.

[13] The following information is culled from two articles, the aforementioned “Better Than Censorship” and Golda Bader’s “What the Protestant Motion Picture Council Does,” Herald (July 1956): 59. For a listing of the 11 other national organizations see the 1951 Annual Report of the Motion Picture Association of America, p. 23. The PMPC had close ties with some of these other groups. The text accompanying a photo in the July 1950 Herald of film director Cecil B. DeMille meeting with three women after a screening of Samson and Delilah reveals that one of the three, Jesse Bader, was a national chairperson for both the PMPC and the Department of Visual Aids, United Council of Church Women.

[14] Examples of these ratings can be found in almost any issue of the Herald. I have not been able to locate an explicit justification in the pages of the Herald for the introduction of the MY rating. For more on the increasing segmentation of the film audience and the rise of films specifically marketed for teens during the mid- to late-1950s see Peter Lev, Transforming The Screen, 1950-1959 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003), 214-15, 244-49.

[15] Reproductions of these two different types of plaques can be found in the March 1951 and March 1952 issues of the Herald.

[16] For more on the Children’s Film Library and the Film Estimate Board see the 1953 Annual Report of the Motion Picture Association of America, pages 17-18. Also see Harry C. Spencer, “The Christian and Censorship of Television, Radio and Films,” Religion in Life 30,1 (Winter 1960-61): 29 and Lev, Transforming, 94.

[17] Daniel A. Poling, “Encouraging the Good,” Herald (June 1953): 18. The Herald’s policy extended to other manifestations of popular culture. See Daniel A. Poling, “Which Way Television?” Herald (November 1952) and Joseph Blank, “There Are Good Comic Books Too!” Herald (August 1954).

[18] See Francis G. Couvares, “Hollywood, Main Street, and the Church: Trying to Censor the Movies Before the Production Code,” in Movie Censorship and American Culture, Francis G. Couvares, ed. (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996), 129-68 for an excellent introduction to early Protestant interaction with Hollywood.

[19] This example is taken from the Herald (October 1951), 102.

[20] Bader, “Protestant Motion Picture Council,” 59.

[21] Poling, “Encouraging,” 18.

[22] Bader, “Protestant Motion Picture Council,” 59.  

[23] “Let’s Tell Hollywood What to Do!” Herald (January 1956), 70.

[24] For an example of such a photograph, see the March 1953 issue of the Herald, p. 97, where Poling awards Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer (MGM) for Quo Vadis. Occasionally, the studios would place full-page advertisements for both “Picture of the Month” and “Picture of the Year” in the Herald, thanking readers for the awards. See, for example, the ad for MGM’s The Magnificent Yankee in the March 1951 issue or Paramount’s The Ten Commandments in the April 1958 issue.

[25] “Let’s Tell Hollywood What to Do!” Herald 70.

[26] See, for example, Ted Baehr’s “Movieguide” which can be found at www.movieguide.org.

[27] “Better Than Censorship,” 7.

[28] Richard Maltby, “The Production Code and the Hays Office,” in Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise, 1930-1939, ed. Tino Balio (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 37-72.

[29] Bader, “Protestant Motion Picture Council,” 59.

[30] “Better Than Censorship,” 6.

[31] See also the letters to the editor in the December 1960 and February 1961 issues of the Herald.

[32] As one historian writes: “for critics of movies the pictures themselves were only part of a troubling exhibition milieu associated with cheap commercial entertainment: big crowds of unsupervised children, darkened spaces, gaudy advertisements, the large immigrant presence both in the audience and in the ticket office, and the overall fact that movies inhabited the physical and psychic space of cheap commercial urban entertainment” (Daniel Czitrom, “The Politics of Performance: Theater Licensing and the Origins of Movie Censorship in New York,” in Movie Censorship and American Culture, ed. Francis G. Couvares [Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996], 27-28). See also Ruth A. Inglis, “Self-Regulation in Operation,” in The American Film Industry, rev. edn., Tino Balio, ed. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 386-388 and Maltby, “The Production Code,” 50 for more on the Advertising Code of 1930.

[33] Consult the following issues of the Herald for letters to the editor that illustrate the diversity of opinion: February 1952, October 1953, December 1960 and February 1961.

[34] Clarence W. Hall, “Gentlemen, It’s Up To You!: An Open Letter to the Motion Picture Industry,” Herald (April 1950): 32.

[35] Hall, “Gentlemen,” 32. This indignation is all too evident in Sumner’s Hollywood Cesspool.

[36] Arbuckle’s career had been ruined by false allegations of rape and murder in 1921 (and had been one of the causes for the establishment of the Hays Office) while Minter’s career was cut short in 1922 by suspicions that she had been involved with the murder of director William Desmond Taylor. Both events generated a tremendous amount of negative press coverage and no doubt contributed to the self-censorship that Hall hoped Hollywood would once again begin to practice.

[37] Daniel Poling, “Hollywood’s Falling Stars,” Herald (April 1950), 16.

[38] Hall, “Gentlemen,” 34.

[39] Hall, “Gentlemen,” 34.

[40] Hall, “Gentlemen,” 33.

[41] Hall, “Gentlemen,” 34-35. In this respect, Hall resembled other reformers who sided with exhibitors, hoping to break the hold of producers and distributors and thus giving local exhibitors more control over what was to be shown. Eight months later, the Herald published another article in which an exhibitor in Minnesota also questioned the morality of the producers–this time with regard to “drinking scenes.” See L.A. Kaercher, “Am I in the Liquor Business?” Herald (December 1950). For more on the alliance between reformers and exhibitors see Couvares, “Hollywood,” 139ff.

[42] Hall, “Gentlemen,” 35.

[43] At this point I have no evidence as to whether or not studio personnel ever read or acknowledged Hall’s letter.

[44] See the letters by Mary Heffern and Geo Tuttle in the “Back Talk” section of the July 1950 issue.

[45] See “Back Talk” Herald (July 1950).

[46] The following issues of the Herald featured “The Faith of the Stars”: August, September and December 1950; January, April, May, August, September and December 1951; August and November 1952. Many of the featured stars may have also participated in “The Hollywood Christian Group” that Poling mentions in his editorial of December 1953.

[47] See C. A. Fox’s letter to the editor in “Back Talk” Herald (February 1952).

[48] See, for example, Kay Marten, “The Holy Side of Hollywood,” Herald (September 1960), which counters portraits of Hollywood found in the more conservative critiques of the period (e.g., the aforementioned polemics by Paine and Sumner).

[49] Daniel Poling, “Again The Miracle,” Herald (August 1952). For other contemporary documents regarding the issues brought into play by the film see the articles by Alan Westin, William Clancy and the United States Supreme Court in Gerald Mast, ed., The Movies in Our Midst: Documents in the Cultural History of Film in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).

[50] Poling, “Again…” For more on this controversy see Garth Jowett, “‘A Significant Medium for the Communication of Ideas’: The Miracle Decision and the Decline of Motion Picture Censorship, 1952-1968” in Movie Censorship and American Culture, ed. Francis G. Couvares (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996), 258-76.

[51] See the May 1953 issue.

[52] See Kenneth L. Wilson, “Religious Freedom has Taken a Beating in Chicago,” Herald (April 1957).

[53] There are few scholarly monographs on the biblical epics and they are of limited utility for understanding the questions of historical context. That is, largely eschewing economic or institutional or production history, these studies “read” the genre’s socio-cultural significance via theological and semiotic/Freudian interpretative analyses. Two prominent examples can be found in Gerald Forshey’s American Religious and Biblical Spectaculars (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992) and Bruce Babington and Peter William Evans, Biblical Epics: Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993).

[54] For the first two films see, respectively, the December 1953 and September 1954 issues of the Herald. For the last three films see, respectively, the March 1952, March 1953 and March 1958 issues. A photograph of Herald editor Poling, awarding a “Picture of the Year” plaque to an MGM vice-president can be found on p. 97 of the March 1953 issue.

[55] For a one-column example see the October 1951 ad for David and Bathsheba. All other ads discussed were full-page.

[56] Herald (February 1952): 9.

[57] See, respectively, the February 1952 and June 1957 issues of the Herald.

[58] Herald (October 1953): 7.

[59] “Christian Herald Readers Choose The Picture of the Year!” Herald (March 1952).

[60] See, for example, the reviews for David and Bathsheba (October 1951), The Robe (December 1953), Ben-Hur (January 1960) and The Story of Ruth (August 1960).

[61] Herald (July 1953): 63.

[62] Herald (March 1960): 84.

[63] See, respectively, the January 1952 and December 1953 issues of the Herald.

[64] See, respectively, the October 1951 and June 1957 issues of the Herald. The second quote can be found in the advertisement for The Ten Commandments.

[65] This excerpt is from the Herald’s January 1957 review of the film.

[66] Kay Marten, “How They Made The Ten Commandments,” Herald (April 1957). Marten also interviewed DeMille’s chief researcher, Henry S. Noerdlinger, for the article. Noerdlinger’s work was compiled in Moses and Egypt: The Documentation to the Motion Picture The Ten Commandments, a book just over 200 pages long and filled with pictures, diagrams and multiple citations from the Old Testament as well as many ancient historical texts. The Marten article is paired with a sympathetic exploration of the problems unique to the biblical epic. See William S. Hockman, “It’s Not Easy to Visualize the Bible,” Herald (April 1957). It is the emphasis on historical research that predominates in contemporary attempts at envisioning the biblical stories. See, for example, David Rooney, “‘Bible’ Series: Epic Scope,” Variety (13-19 January 1997): 126.

[67] The January 1961 review of Spartacus begins with the following: “Man’s desire for freedom has been a moving force in history since its beginning …”

[68] See, for example, a photograph of DeMille, actress Martha Scott (who appeared in The Ten Commandments) and Herald editor Poling in the March 1957 issue.

[69] Roy L. Ruth, “Cecil B. DeMille Testifes,” Herald (May 1952): 75-77. The films discussed are The Ten Commandments (1923), The King of Kings (1927), The Sign of the Cross (1932) and Samson and Delilah.

[70] Ruth, “DeMille,” 76.

[71] Cecil B. DeMille, “Why I Made The Ten Commandments,” Herald (April 1957): 31-32.

[72] DeMille, “Why,” 32, 38. Also see DeMille’s introduction to Noerdlinger’s book where he links research and ecumenism.

[73] For more on this particular interpretation of DeMille and The Ten Commandments see Alan Nadel, “God’s Law and the Wide Screen: The Ten Commandments as Cold War ‘Epic’,” PMLA Journal 108,3 (May 1993): 415-30; Sumiko Higashi, “Antimodernism as Historical Representation in a Consumer Culture: Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, 1923, 1956, 1993,” in The Persistence of History: Cinema, Television, and the Modern Event, ed. Vivian Sobchack (New York and London: Routledge, 1996), 91-112; and, finally, Melanie J. Wright, Moses in America: The Cultural Uses of Biblical Narrative (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 89-127.

[74] Spyros P. Skouras, “Religion and the Movies,” Herald (June 1952): 71.

[75] See p. 11 and the 1952 Annual Report of the MPAA where the author asserts the “incalculable” impact of the industry in “fostering democratic attitudes throughout the world.” For more on this issue see Thomas H. Guback, “Hollywood’s International Market,” in The American Film Industry, rev. edn., ed. Tino Balio, 463-86 and David N. Eldridge, “‘Dear Owen’: The CIA, Luigi Luraschi and Hollywood, 1953,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 20,2 (June 2000): 149-96.

[76] Paul M. Stevens, “We Are Exporting Un-Americanism,” Herald (February 1958), 18, 48. A few years earlier, Columbia’s From Here to Eternity had raised similar dismay because it seemed “to indict our American way of life as no other picture has ever done,” Reverend Leslie R. Poeschel, “Letter to the Editor,” Herald (August 1954): 90. Also see “Mrs. C. M.” in “Doctor Poling Answers Your Questions,” Herald (January 1954): 4. A little over a year and half later, Stevens’s complaints would be echoed by some in both the religious and secular press with respect to Khrushchev’s remarks on Can-Can.

[77] His example is MGM’s The Prodigal: “Writers preparing the script, said the Times, found the implied drama so rich that they spun eighty-two pages of screenplay, three-fourths of the whole, from the few words of Luke 15:13 on how the Prodigal ‘wasted his substance in riotous living,’” J.C. Furnas, “Look What Hollywood’s Doing to Your Bible!” Herald (July 1955): 20. Another example can be found in the text accompanying a reproduction of the advertisement for The Prodigal where Furnas writes: “Advertisements of The Prodigal show how film producers exploit sex. Intent of actual Parable of the Prodigal is to show God’s forgiveness, not ‘woman’s beauty and man’s temptation’ [as the caption on the ad states]. This ‘come-on’ is used frequently’” (20).

[78] Furnas, “Bible,” 20.

[79] Furnas, “Bible,” 20.

[80] Arthur’s letter and the Herald’s reply can be found on p. 80 of the September 1955 issue. At this point I have not been able to find any more information on Arthur. Perhaps he was an integral part of DeMille’s production company or merely a publicist for Paramount.

[81] See, respectively, Ruth Dillon’s letter in the October 1955 issue (80) and Eleanore Morey’s letter in the September 1955 issue (80).

[82] See, respectively, the letters by Rev. Clarence Best and Rev. A. C. Sicher, both of which can be found in the September 1955 issue of the Herald (80). For more letters see the November 1955 issue.

[83] The unsigned article, entitled “Which Paper Do You Read?” compared the promotional material sent to exhibitors with that sent to religious instructors and church groups for United Artists’ Solomon and Sheba. “To the ‘religious market’ the film was represented as a kind of Sunday-school audio-visual aid. To theater operators and booking channels, it was represented as a lusty, undraped spectacle sure to titillate panting multitudes into movie houses” (Herald [March 1960]: 16).

[84] The Christian Century might also stand as a likely candidate for study. This weekly provided reviews and ratings of new films in each issue and also published a number of feature articles on the film industry and the cycle of biblical epics. Formal similarities to the Herald were matched by the shared policies of not advocating federal censorship, of analyzing the efficacy of the Production Code and of encouraging Hollywood to produce a better product. There were, however, differences that set the Century apart from the initiatives of the Herald. Here should be mentioned the Century’s increasing hostility towards Hollywood’s biblical epics and its corresponding promotion of the European art cinema of the 1950s, its suspicion of spectacle and its appreciation for cinematic portraits of an internalized, intimate religiosity. Most significant is the way in which the Century critics dealt with films that contained representations of sexuality and violence at odds with the critical stance maintained by the PMPC and the Herald. Less inclined to dismiss films deemed provocative by the PMPC, Century critics Tom Driver and Malcolm Boyd found merit in discussing the “negative witness” of such films vis-à-vis a biblical conception of humanity’s fallen, sinful state. Such an appropriation of ostensibly objectionable material for the illumination of Christian truth was called “Christian interpretation.” In this way, films that might not reference an ancient historical context (as did the epics) could nonetheless be recovered and made to testify to contemporary forms of Christianity (e.g., the films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer and Ingmar Bergman often drew this kind of analysis). In sum, the Century’s writers on film seem to have addressed a much smaller elite audience in that they promoted the European art cinema of the period–a cinema that did not receive a great deal of acclamation from either mainline Herald readers or more conservative polemicists.  For more on the roots of this type of “Christian interpretation” see chapter three, “Secular Scripture: The ‘Beautiful Captive,’” in David Lyle Jeffrey’s People of the Book: Christian Identity and Literary Culture (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), where he discusses the contributions of Jerome and Augustine. In relation to the European art cinema, see the Century’s review of Ben-Hur, in which the critic favours Dreyer’s Ordet because, unlike Ben-Hur, it is “faithful to the paradox of faith” (Century [13 January 1960]: 52). John Harrell, in “Religious Films: Fact and Forecast,” goes so far as to suggest that the films of Rossellini (as well as Bergman and Dreyer) have worth because they manifest an “extraordinary depth of understanding of man” (Century [6 April 1960]: 414). This admission of the utility of Rossellini demonstrates just how different the Century’s stance on film was from that practiced by the Herald (which condemned the director’s relationship with Ingrid Bergman earlier in the decade). The Century’s strategy appeared in other publications as well. See Sidney Lanier, “Ingmar Bergman: Magician in the Cathedral,” Christianity and Crisis (1959): 198-200 and Malcolm Boyd, “Theology and the Movies,” Theology Today 14,3 (October 1957): 359-75, which makes use of Federico Fellini’s La Strada and Vittorio De Sica’s Umberto D. Finally, Linda-Marie Delloff’s “God as Artist: Aesthetic Theory in The Christian Century 1908-1955,” (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Dissertation Services, 1997) provides a good analysis of the Century’s predilection for high culture and, when reviewing movies, their preference for the art cinema of the 1950s. For another useful study that examines the Protestant establishment’s views on the mass media and television in particular see Michele Rosenthal’s “TV: Satan or Savior? Protestant Responses to Television in the 1950s,” (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Dissertation Services, 2000).

[85] In an otherwise excellent analysis, Edward Berckman, writing in 1980 about the 1970s, makes the mistake of assuming that the Herald had never reviewed anything but films produced by religious organizations. Given that the Herald no longer made use of the PMPC post-1966, this may be a true characterization of the magazine in the 1970s. But Berckman’s argument rests on the assumption that evangelical Protestant magazines only began to review Hollywood product later in the 1970s, thus opening themselves up to the appreciation of secular entertainment. In fact, regarding the Herald, the situation seems to be opposite to that described by Berckman. From 1944-45 until 1966 the Herald’s reviews centered exclusively on the Hollywood product and it was only in 1966 that the productions of religious organizations began to receive sustained critical attention. Despite his helpful characterization of evangelical attitudes, therefore, Berckman’s essay suffers from a historical error that has significance for his larger argument. See Edward M. Berckman, “The Changing Attitudes of Protestant Churches to Movies and Television” Encounter 41,3 (1980): 293-306.

[86] Board, “Magazines,” 129. Also see Mark Silk, “The Rise of the ‘New Evangelicalism’: Shock and Adjustment,” in Between the Times: The Travail of the Protestant Establishment in America, 1900-1960, ed. William R. Hutchison, 292 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).

[87] Martin Marty, Modern American Religion, Volume I: Under God, Indivisible 1941-1960 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 131-39.

[88] Herberg wrote that “Protestantism in America today presents the anomaly of a strong majority group with a growing minority consciousness … What seems to be really disturbing many American Protestants is the sudden realization that Protestantism is no longer identical with America, that Protestantism has, in fact, become merely one of three communions” (Will Herberg, Protestant-Catholic-Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology [New York: Doubleday, 1955], 250, 251). Marty quotes from André Siegfried, a contemporary of Herberg: “The depth of this reaction [to the proposed Vatican ambassador] must not be misunderstood; it represented instinctive defense on the part of a religious monopoly which has ceased to exist” (Marty, Religion, 200).

[89] Robert Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 17, 20.

[90] Wuthnow, Restructuring, 49.

[91] See Herberg, Protestant-Catholic-Jew, 91ff for an inventory of the characteristics that comprise the “American Way of Life.”

[92] For the dialogue between Warner Bros. and the Herald see the “Just Between Ourselves” column in the February and March 1941 issues of the magazine.

[93] Marty’s three-volume history, Modern American Religion, is the articulation of the ironist tradition in American religious historiography on which I have relied.