Word: kazan
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...naked back proclaims: "Not Suitable for Children." In the current opinion of the Catholic Legion of Decency, "Streetcar" is suitable for a adults: but they didn't always think that way. The story of how they came to change their mind, told in last Sunday's Time by Elia Kazan, is an interesting case study of the methods of informal censorship...
...Kazan, who directed "Streetcar," describes the studio's panic at the news, after the picture had been cleared by the Breen office but before it had been released, that it was marked for a "C" or "Condemned" rating by the Legion. What the studio heads feared, it seems, was not merely that Catholics would be instructed not to see it. "They feared ... that theatres showing the picture would be picketed, might be threatened with boycotts of as long as a year's duration if they dared to show it, that priests would be stationed in the lobbies to take down...
This was explained to director Kazan some time after the event. Without consulting him, Warner Brothers had invited a Catholic layman to expurgate the picture, after which it was rewarded with a "B" or "Acceptable" rating...
...ransom money which the town borrowed in haste from five local banks. Ever since, Frederick's taxpayers have been paying off the debt. Last week, with a final installment of $20,000, Mayor Donald Rice paid the last of the ransom. ¶ In Los Angeles, James and Harry Kazan ian had a 1,318-carat sapphire, valued at about $250,000, carved into the likeness of Abraham Lincoln. The Kazanjians, who plan to have three sapphires carved with portraits of Andrew Jackson, George Washington and Henry Ford, explained that they were of Armenian ancestry, had prospered...
...high points, Streetcar is observant, moving and exciting. Unhappily, despite Director Kazan's efforts to get movement inside the cramped settings, the movie too often seems stagebound and slow. It also has stretches of talk that go better in the theater than on the screen...