Film Censorship in America, including the silent era

There are a couple of new books out on film censorship. Both look at the history of film censorship in the United States, including the silent era. (Read more about film censorship at Wikipedia)

Monitoring the Movies: The Fight over Film Censorship in Early Twentieth-Century Urban America by Jennifer Fronc
University of Texas Press

From the publisher: "As movies took the country by storm in the early twentieth century, Americans argued fiercely about whether municipal or state authorities should step in to control what people could watch when they went to movie theaters, which seemed to be springing up on every corner. Many who opposed the governmental regulation of film conceded that some entity—boards populated by trusted civic leaders, for example—needed to safeguard the public good. The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures (NB), a civic group founded in New York City in 1909, emerged as a national cultural chaperon well suited to protect this emerging form of expression from state incursions.

Using the National Board's extensive files, Monitoring the Movies offers the first full-length study of the NB and its campaign against motion-picture censorship. Jennifer Fronc traces the NB's Progressive-era founding in New York; its evolving set of "standards" for directors, producers, municipal officers, and citizens; its "city plan," which called on citizens to report screenings of condemned movies to local officials; and the spread of the NB's influence into the urban South. Ultimately, Monitoring the Movies shows how Americans grappled with the issues that arose alongside the powerful new medium of film: the extent of the right to produce and consume images and the proper scope of government control over what citizens can see and show."

Reviews: "This is an extremely important book, a major, highly readable, well-researched contribution to the scholarship on the history of movie censorship and regulation in the Progressive era. Fronc provides a rich and diverse portrait of the social matrix that informed the shape, success, and limits of the National Board of Review’s efforts to encourage better films and defeat censorship laws." — Matthew H. Bernstein, Emory University, author of Screening a Lynching: The Leo Frank Case on Film and Television

"A terrific, well-argued, and engaging book that will appeal to readers in American history and film history. By mining primary sources from institutional records, Jennifer Fronc is able to provide the first account that really gets inside the workings of the National Board of Review." — Kathryn Fuller-Seeley, University of Texas at Austin, author of At the Picture Show: Small Town Audiences and the Creation of Movie Fan Culture

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Film Censorship in America: A State-by-State History
by Jeremy Geltzer
McFarland

I am currently reading this book, and find it to be an interesting, anecdotal account. When I am done, I hope to read Monitoring the Movies.

From the publisher: "Since the first films played in nickelodeons, controversial movies have been cut or banned across the United States. Far from Hollywood, regional productions such as Oscar Micheaux's provocative race films and Nell Shipman's wildlife adventures were censored by men like Major M.L.C. Funkhouser, the terror of Chicago s cinemas, and Myrtelle Snell, the Alabama administrator who made the slogan Banned in Birmingham famous. Censorship continues today, with Utah's case against Deadpool (2016) pending in federal court and Robert Rodriguez's Machete Kills (2013) versus the Texas Film Commission. This authoritative state-by-state account covers the history of film censorship and the battle for free speech in America.

Reviews: "The result of formidable research, this book traces the way each state in the union dealt with censorship from the earliest days of silent films to the present day...in tracking down these particulars, author Geltzer unearthed interesting details about regional film production around the country...this book should prove useful." — Leonard Maltin.

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Another related book which I've read and which should prove of interest is this 2007 title. I sure which there was a book like it for each state!

Banned in Kansas: Motion Picture Censorship, 1915-1966
by Gerald R. Butters Jr.
University of Missouri

From the publisher: "If you caught a movie in Kansas through much of the past century, you’re likely to have seen a different version than did the rest of America. Theda Bara’s depictions of wicked sexuality were off-limits, and a film such as the 1932 Scarface showed far too much violence for decent folk—a threat to Protestant culture and to the morals of the general population.

 In 1915, Kansas became one of only a handful of states to establish its own film censorship board. The Kansas board controlled screen content in the state for more than fifty years, yet little is known about its activities. This first book-length study of state film censorship examines the unique political, social, and economic factors that led to its implementation in Kansas, examining why censorship legislation was enacted, what the attitudes of Kansans were toward censorship, and why it lasted for half a century.

Cinema historian Gerald Butters places the Kansas Board of Review’s attempts to control screen content in the context of nationwide censorship efforts during the early part of the twentieth century. He tells how factors such as Progressivism, concern over child rearing, and a supportive press contributed to censorship, and he traces the board’s history from the problems posed by the emergence of “talkies” through changing sexual mores in the 1920s to challenges to its power in the 1950s.

In addition to revealing the fine points of film content deemed too sensitive for screening, Butters describes the daily operations of the board, illustrating the difficulties it encountered as it wrestled not only with constantly shifting definitions of morality but also with the vagaries of the political and legal systems. Stills from motion pictures illustrate the type of screen content the board attempted to censor.

As Kansas faced the march of modernity, even state politicians began to criticize film censorship, and Butters tells how by the 1960s the board was fighting to remain relevant as film companies increasingly challenged its attempts to control screen content. Banned in Kansas weaves a fascinating tale of the enforcement of public morality, making it a definitive study for cinema scholars and an entertaining read for film buffs."

Reviews: “I believe that Banned in Kansas will (and should) become a classic in the field of the social history of the motion picture in America. This book makes a very significant contribution and fills a very large void in our understanding of the forces behind the issue of social control of this important medium in the twentieth century.” — Garth Jowett, author of Film: The Democratic Art

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It is well known that Brooks two German made films were heavily censored in Europe, while Pandora's Box was further censored when it was first shown in the United States in 1929. 

What is less know is that a handful of Brooks' American silent films were also censored in the United States. I have gotten at some of the remaining censorship records, and have found that the two Brooks' films which suffered the most censorship were The American Venus (1926), due to it's revealing costumes, and The City Gone Wild (1927), because of its violence.