Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen & the Production Code Administration
Thomas Doherty, . . Columbia Univ., $29.50 (427pp) ISBN 978-0-231-14358-5
In this comprehensive coverage of cinematic censorship, Doherty, a professor of American studies at Brandeis University, probes the power of Joseph I. Breen (1888–1965), head of Hollywood's puritanical Production Code Administration from 1934 to 1954, and along the way, he captures the clash of “Catholic priests, Jewish moguls, visionary auteurs, studio hacks, hardnosed journalists and bluenosed agitators” in pre-TV Tinseltown. Born in Philadelphia, the Irish-Catholic Breen was a journalist turned publicist. His successful marketing of a film documentary showing “Catholic multitudes” at the 1926 Eucharistic Congress catapulted his career. With powerful backers in his corner, the Catholics and the New Dealers, Breen tightened the screws: “I am hopeful of doing something, to lessen, at least, the flow of filth, but I have no illusions about the problem.” He ruled with an iron fist, altering scripts and deleting footage until Otto Preminger cracked the Code in 1953 with
Reviewed on: 09/24/2007
Genre: Nonfiction
Paperback - 440 pages - 978-0-231-14359-2
Portable Document Format (PDF) - 440 pages - 978-0-231-51284-8