Adultery Is an Idea

LAW & THE LIMELIGHT

After taking time to go to the movies, the U.S. Supreme Court last week unanimously came out for free expression of ideas on the screen or elsewhere--even if the ideas happen to be adultery, "socialism or the single tax," or presumably anything anyone can think of.

The movie that moved the court to its far-reaching decision was a French version of D. H. Lawrence's notorious novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover. According to the New York State Board of Regents, the film was "immoral within the intent of our law," which prohibits exhibition of shows that portray "acts of sexual immorality, perversion or lewdness ... as desirable, acceptable or proper patterns of behavior." So the judges watched Lady Chatterley (played by Danielle Darrieux) make a cuckold of Sir Clifford Chatterley (Leo Genn) with Sir Clifford's gamekeeper (Erno Crisa). According to a dozen or so U.S. movie reviewers, they saw a tasteful, well-acted, far from sensational film. Neither the French dialogue nor the English subtitles had recourse to the four-letter words that prompted Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield to ban the book itself from the U.S. mails (TIME, June 22). But to the Supreme Court, the quality of the movie was less important than the content of the New York code that condemned it.

"It is contended," wrote Justice Potter Stewart, "that the State's action was justified because the motion picture attractively portrays a relationship which is contrary to the moral standards, the religious precepts and the legal code of its citizenry. The argument misconceives what it is that the Constitution protects. Its guarantee is not confined to the expression of ideas that are conventional or shared by a majority ... In the realm of ideas it protects expression which is eloquent no less than that which is unconvincing."

Concurring Justices hastened to add some obiter dicta. Felix Frankfurter, "as one whose taste in art and literature hardly qualifies him for the avant-garde," doubted that the picture would have offended even "Victorian moral sensibilities." Said Justice John Marshall Harlan, who felt that Lady should not be banned, even though he also felt that the Supreme Court had moved too swiftly in striking down the New York statute: "I cannot regard this film as depicting anything more than a somewhat unusual, and rather pathetic, 'love triangle.'''

In New York, exhibitors anxious to catch the crest of the court-born publicity rushed to get Lady, pathetic though she might be, onto their screens.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.