Specialty CollectionGenre: WOMEN'S ISSUES
Description: Episode #67 OBD: Jun-66 TRT: 60 min Description #1: An examination of the controversy over what is and what is not obscenity, and in particular, over the conviction of Ralph Ginzburg, publisher of the now defunct Eros magazine. (Source: NET Jan-June 1966 Semi-Annual Report) Description #2: This one-hour videotaped program will be a summary of obscenity and the law in the United States from the 1821 Massachusetts ban on “Fanny Hill” to the 1966 Supreme Court Decision on “Eros.” Description #3: The program will consist mainly of a debate on the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the obscenity conviction of Ralph Ginzburg, publisher of “Eros.” The participants in the debate will be lawyers and literary figures. The program will also include an interview with Mr. Ginzburg and a brief description of his magazine. Description #4: For more than a century police and courts around the country have wrestled with the problems of obscenity and pornography. At one time or another, censors and local and state courts have banned such works as “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “An American Tragedy,” “Elmer Gantry,” “Jane Eyre,” and “Brave New World.” The sands of justice apparently have shifted again. On March 21, 1966, the United States Supreme Court, in separate decisions, reversed a lower court ruling that “Fanny Hill” was obscene and upheld an obscenity conviction against Ralph Ginzburg, publisher of the magazine “Eros.” For a review of censorship and obscenity laws in this country, and a debate on the celebrated Ginzburg case. National Educational Television, in its monthly “At Issue” series is presenting “Obscenity and the Law: A Debate on Recent Supreme Court Decisions.” Veteran correspondent David Schoenbrun, who was most for N.E.T’s eight-part television series “Great Decision 1966,” will be the commentator for this program. Specifically, “Obscenity and the Law” examines such aspects as: the bounds of freedom of speech; the extent to which they are guaranteed under the First Amendment to the Constitution; and the issue of censorship versus public morality. Appearing on the program to discuss Ralph Ginzburg v. the United States are Ephraim London, noted attorney in censorship trials who defend charges against the motion pictures “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and “The Miracle” and who edited the two volume “The World of Law”; Alan U. Schwartz, Counsel to the Civil Liberties Union’s radio and television committee and author of “Censorship: The Search for the Obscene”; Robert Tofel, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the government’s case against the book, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”; and Richard H. Kuh, coordinator for the New York State Combined Council of Law Enforcement Officials and former chief of the Criminal Court Bureau in the New York County District Attorney’s Office. He has written a book on obscenity and the law which will be published in the fall. On March 21, 1966, by a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld convictions against Mr. Ginzburg who was found guilty by a District Court Judge in Pennsylvania of violating a Federal obscenity law by sending his three publications, “Eros,” “Liaison,” and “The Housewife’s Handbook on Selective Promiscuity” through the mails. In the majority opinion of the Supreme Court, Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote that, “… the ‘leer of the sensualist’ permeates the advertising for the three publications.” The reference to advertising and promotional material, as a factor in determining obscenity, marked a departure from the Court’s adherence to the obscenity test it established in 1957 in Roth v. United States. In one of three dissenting opinions written, Justice Potter Stewart warned, “Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confident in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.” It is against the background of such divergent opinions by the Justices that “At Issue: Obscenity and the Law” focuses on this national issue which involves legal and literary worlds, as well as the public in general. “At Issue: Obscenity and the Law” is a 1966 production of National Educational Television. Executive producer: Alvin H. Perlmutter Producer-Writer: Mort Silverstein Director: Gordon Rigsby Commentator: David Schoenbrun
Keywords: women's rights
