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Transgressions, censures et sensibilités : le contrôle des images aux États-Unis, vingtième et vingt et unième siècles
Essays

The Loosening Grip: Band of Angels and the Decline of Censorship

Antoine Guégan

Résumés

Grâce à des archives en grande partie inédites, issues de diverses sources et collectées lors de séjours de recherche aux États-Unis, notamment auprès de la censure cinématographique locale (Virginie, Chicago et Memphis), de la Warner Bros. Pictures et de la Production Code Administration, cet article étudie les stratégies mises en place par la Warner lors de la sortie en salles de L’Esclave libre (Raoul Walsh, 1957), l’une des premières grosses productions à faire des relations amoureuses entre personnages blancs et noirs son thème central. Malgré l’assouplissement de la censure cinématographique, la Warner a dû négocier longuement avec les représentants de la censure locale et de la Production Code Administration, ainsi qu’avec la presse africaine-américaine pour éviter tout boycott. Les archives en notre possession mettront en lumière les différentes techniques, parfois contradictoires, utilisées par le studio pour convaincre les censeurs de la moralité du film. Enfin, cet article examinera la difficulté de renouveler l’imaginaire de l’esclavage qui reste souvent pris au piège de l’idéalisation du Vieux Sud.

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  • 1 A few exceptions are worth mentioning, such as Santa Fe Trail (Warner Bros., 1940) in which Michael (...)
  • 2 Although “miscegenation” is a pejorative, racist term that was once used to refer to taboo interrac (...)
  • 3 On the aesthetics of Gone with the Wind, see Haskell; Hatchuel; Leff; Pyron; Vertrees.

1In 1957, Band of Angels (Raoul Walsh, Warner Bros.) became the first major Hollywood production to depict slavery and the Old South since Gone with the Wind (1939, Selznick Productions, Victor Fleming). It differs from its predecessor, however, in offering a more critical re-examination of this chapter of history.1 Band of Angels is a deeply ambivalent film. Released during the Civil Rights movement, it benefited from the relaxation of local film censorship and Hollywood’s system of self-regulation. Adapting the critically acclaimed novel of the same name by Robert Penn Warren, Warner Bros. had every opportunity to produce a film that did justice to the source material. However, not all of these opportunities were fully exploited, partly due to the context of its production, a point we delve into in our first section. Indeed, although Band of Angels is more critical of slavery than previous works dealing with the topic, it does not quite succeed in moving away from the idealization of the Old South that Hollywood had largely helped to shape since David Wark Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (Epoch Corporation, 1915; Lang; Martin; McEwan; Stokes). While Band of Angels centers on a sultry love story rooted in interracial relationshipsreferred to, in the related archives, as “miscegenation”2the film’s imagery is strongly indebted to Gone with the Wind, which inevitably softens and undermines Robert Penn Warren’s critical perspective.3 Indeed, as Karen Cox reminds us, “there can be no doubt that the film version of Mitchell’s Civil War epic cemented a nostalgic image of the South in American popular culture that still resonates with the American public. In the book and most certainly in the film, the cultural mythology of the Old South was in full flower” (79). Given the influence that Gone with the Wind continues to exert on the popular imagination today, it should come as no surprise that the major studios of the 1950s were heavily indebted to its style and imagery. Drawing on a thorough analysis of archival material, much of it previously unpublished, this article intends to offer an innovative reading of Band of Angels. If the archives of the Production Code Administration and the ones of Warner Bros. are well known, those of local film censorship have received less attention. Those of the State of Virginia (Virginia Division of Motion Picture Censorship Records) and the City of Chicago (Chicago Board of Censors) shed light on the film’s ambivalent narrative, showing how it oscillates between progressive, revisionist views and traditional, idealized ones. Although by the time of the film’s release the local censors were no longer in a position to legally ban a film, the studio was keen to reassure them of the morality of Band of Angels, even if it meant presenting contradictory arguments to representatives of the southern and northern boards. The numerous exchanges that followed illustrate the threat posed by a local censorship that supposedly no longer had any legal power. A close examination of these documents does not necessarily reveal an open-mindedness on the part of Warner Bros. in their relentless promotion of a film that revives the idealized images of the Old South. Rather, it appears to be a shrewd commercial strategy aimed at ensuring the unimpeded distribution of their new production. Ultimately, these multiple negotiation processes underscore the opposition that a film intent on reviving the myth of the Old South had to face, whether in the South or the North.

The Crushing Weight of Heritage

  • 4 A winner of three Pulitzer Prizes, Robert Penn Warren enjoyed great popularity in Hollywood. His fi (...)

2In 1955, with Band of Angels, Robert Penn Warren4 set himself against the great romantic frescoes of the Lost Cause, an ideology he had previously fully embraced. Indeed, Robert Penn Warren was one of the founders of the Southern Agrarians, a conservative Southern literary movement whose main principles had been articulated in the manifesto I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition (1930) (Hobson and Ladd 7-8, 104; Brinkmeyer 5-10). This manifesto defended an idealized vision of the South, embracing the Lost Cause narrative, ignoring the issue of slavery and resisting modern development. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, however, Warren became involved in the Civil Rights movement, producing socially engaged non-fiction books such as Segregation (1956) and Who Speaks for the Negro? (1965). It was during this period that his view of the South became more critical, as demonstrated by Band of Angels. Moving away from an idealized Old South, Band of Angels highlights the tensions that divided the area. The main protagonist, Amantha Starr (or Manty), illustrates these disparities well: raised as a Southern belle but with abolitionist views, Manty learns, after her father’s death, that her mother was an enslaved woman. The consequences are immediate: under the one-drop rule, she is sold at a New Orleans market to Hamish Bond, a wealthy plantation owner. This purchase gives rise to an ambiguous romantic relationship, since it is fundamentally based on the principle of property. The novel depicts the social changes that occurred before and after the Civil War, eventually leading Manty to leave Hamish. The scene depicting Hamish Bond’s execution reminds us of his true nature when, as he is about to be hanged by a group of Freedmen, he notices Manty in the crowd and shouts: “All niggers. Ass deep in niggers,” before jumping to his death (Mizener 251). While Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind perpetuated the ideals of the Lost Cause, through the glorification of the Ku Klux Klan supposedly protecting white women from racialized aggressors, the unquestioned assumption of white people’s racial superiority (Mitchell 656), and the alleged inferiority of enslaved people, depicted as only capable of working under the orders of their “good” masters, Robert Penn Warren offered a more complex and psychological portrait of the Old South (Gilpin Faust).

  • 5  Overturning the famous Mutual v. Ohio decision of 1915, U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Joseph Burstyn (...)
  • 6 On censorship, see Bernstein; Bordat and Cavé; Caïra.
  • 7  Also released in 1957, Robert Rossen’s Island in the Sun (Darryl F. Zanuck Productions) is notable (...)
  • 8 In From Sambo to Superspade, Daniel J. Leab recalls how mixed-race women were often portrayed by wh (...)

3When Warner Bros. purchased the rights to Warren’s novel, it seemed to augur well for the film. No film since 1939 had had the production resources to compete with the unprecedented model of Gone with the Wind and the studio encouraged the comparison. Although the two novels were radically different, screenwriters John Twist, Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts reworked the script to emphasize Selznick’s cinematic legacy, structuring the plot around the relationship between Manty and Hamish. The film’s complex plot revolves around a highly controversial subject that was once banned in Hollywood: the depiction of interracial relationships, at the time referred to as “miscegenation.” In 1952, the Supreme Court’s “Miracle Decision” ruled that cinema was an art form and as such should be protected by freedom of speech, significantly weakening the power of local film censorship boards and the Production Code Administration (PCA).5 From that point on, local censors lost their legitimacy and were no longer able to demand that films be cut without running the risk of legal action against the studio (Caïra 115-116). A few months earlier, in 1951, the PCA had revised the Production Code. The new version of the Code was intended to be more modern and removed all racial prohibitions, including those relating to scenes of so-called “miscegenation” (Production Code [Clark Gable Collection] 1956).6 Not surprisingly, Warner took advantage of this situation to present a scandalous, transgressive and contradictory love affair. Despite this new wind of freedom, Warner cast Yvonne De Carlo as Manty, a white actress whose resemblance to Vivian Leigh, who played Scarlett O’Hara, is uncanny, instead of picking an African American actress for the part (Bogle 172).7 This casting choice illustrates the desire to both maximize transgressive contents and make it palatable to audiences by avoiding the representation of a mixed-race couple. Equally significant is the casting of Clark Gable as Hamish Bond, which further evokes Gone with the Wind’s Rhett Butler and his relationship with Scarlett O’Hara. The most significant alteration is the rewriting of the ending, which celebrates the passionate love between Manty (Yvonne De Carlo) and Hamish (Clark Gable).8 Before the final curtain, when given the choice, Manty surprisingly chooses to join Hamish, as he tries to escape from the Yankee soldiers in pursuit. With Manty falling into the arms of Hamish Bond, Walsh delivers the ending that viewers of Gone with the Wind had been denied: that of a love made possible between the antagonistic Manty and Hamish, consequently breaking the Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler curse. Everyone forgives Hamish, even Rau-Ru (Sidney Poitier), an African man illegally captured as a child, who becomes his protégé (while in the novel, Rau-Ru was described as one of Hamish’s slaves) and, though a Union soldier, refuses to obey orders, thus facilitating his “master’s” escape. As Hamish points out, his happy ending is only made possible by the double forgiveness of Rau-Ru and Manty. Hamish, who has lived all his life on the largesse of slavery, is saved and escapes his own guilt. Love erases all. Far from renewing representations, Band of Angels’ screenplay is anchored in a nostalgic vision of the Old South that is reinforced by the film’s mise en scène.

The Wind Still Blows

  • 9 Warner’s in-house technical process, similar to Technicolor.

4From the opening credits, the antebellum South returns to the silver screen, and it is clear that Band of Angels draws on a well-established cinematic legacy. Woven wool cards depicting quintessential views of the Deep South—a bustling New Orleans street, a steamboat gliding along a Mississippi meander, the weeping willows and their Spanish moss framing the shots, a big house standing at the heart of a plantation—fade in and out on the screen (fig. 1). The actors’ names are superimposed in orange-red lettering (fig. 1), enhanced by the WarnerColor process,9 while the symphonic orchestration of Max Steiner, who had previously written the score for Gone with the Wind, is instantly recognizable. Max Steiner’s score, as described by S. Hatchuel, was “based both on folk tunes linked to the history of the American South and on original musical themes that draw on the foundational techniques of romantic emotion—refrain, variation through repetition, striking intervals—derived from Wagnerian opera and popular melodramas” (my translation). One can assume that a viewer buying a ticket for Band of Angels expected to be transported into the same musical universe. Each single detail places Band of Angels within the visual and aural heritage of Gone with the Wind. The only exception to this tradition comes from the voice of jazz singer Sarah Vaughan, whose melancholy lyrics (“I was alone/Praying for someone to love/Thinking the moon was a stranger/The stars were unfriendly/ And love was a shrine/Not to be mine”) introduce a more intimate and modern sensibility. Yet, as its predecessors, the film glorifies the myth of the Old South from the very first frames and reinforces this glorification with a color scheme that evokes twilight, all of which serves to introduce the idea of a society on the verge of disappearing.

5Fig 1. Opening credits, Gone with the Wind (left) and Band of Angels (center and right)

6This celebration of the Old South is reflected in a sequence that also symbolizes the reunion of Manty and Hamish. An opening long shot shows a paddle-steamer making its way down the Mississippi River to the Pointe du Loup plantation. Hamish and Manty are on board, and a large number of enslaved people are waiting on the riverbank for the steamboat to arrive. The sound of voices, singing a Negro spiritual, fills the vast landscape. The distant point of view might imply that the singing is extra-diegetic, but closer shots suggest otherwise. On the upper deck, a close-up isolates Hamish and Manty from the rest of the world (fig. 2). To reinforce the importance of the coming exchange, the Negro spiritual mysteriously fades out to make way for Max Steiner’s composition, punctuated by numerous uses of mickeymousing effects. Hamish gives Manty her freedom back and a shot shows him crossing the footbridge alone to reach land. Off-screen, Manty’s voice calls out to Hamish before coming back in the frame at his side. After this scene, the Negro spiritual is heard again, and the slaves start to dance. Using a mixture of medium and wide shots, Walsh frames the long line of enslaved people following Hamish and Manty’s flower-adorned carriage. This sequence serves as a powerful metaphor for a wedding, symbolizing their new union. More importantly, by isolating Hamish and Manty, elevated and set apart from the group of enslaved people, Walsh emphasizes their status as the true masters. Indeed, Michelle (Carolle Drake), another mixed-race enslaved woman and Hamish’s former lover (her presence confirming his tendency to rape the women he owns under the guise of illusory romanticism) is merely shown walking, fading into the anonymous mass of other enslaved individuals. The physical distance between her and the carriage makes the social divide between these two groups even more striking. An earlier sequence suggested that Manty had been raped by Hamish. In this series of shots, however, she is presented as a Southern belle rather than an enslaved woman trapped in a necessarily coerced relationship with her master.

Fig. 2 The arrival at Pointe du Loup

Fig. 2 The arrival at Pointe du Loup
  • 10 So Red the Rose was adapted from a novel of the same name by Stark Young, a southern writer who bel (...)

7This sequence not only illustrates a fictional world but also underlines the film’s deep contradictions. The sight of enslaved people gathered to sing and dance in honor of their master’s arrival recalls many scenes from plantation melodramas, from The Birth of a Nation to Gone with the Wind, to Jezebel (William Wyler 1938) and So Red the Rose (King Vidor 1935).10 Of note is the presence of numerous enslaved people within the camera’s frame. This particular moment brings to mind Antoine de Baecque’s notion of “unintentional cinematographic forms of history,” which sheds light on the way modern filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman and Alain Resnais have successfully brought past and present to the surface in their works through mise en scène innovations (de Baecque 1-5). Black people are portrayed as loyal domestics, their hands unscathed by the backbreaking labor of the land. At times, as if by magic, dozens of enslaved people emerge from the off-screen space, shedding their pristine servant costumes for mismatched clothes. Why this sudden gathering? To entertain their delighted masters by singing. The sudden sight inadvertently reveals the power of the plantation and the vast labor force exploited to work the land. In a sense, these long shots function as “a hallucination of history” (de Baecque 3), counteracting the studios’ intention to hide the reality of slavery, and instead revealing the opposite, thus becoming unintentional cinematic testimonies.

  • 11 In Gone with the Wind, the working day ends as the sun sets, and as children ring the bells to anno (...)

8Shortly after the characters have settled in at Pointe du Loup, in a more realistic sequence reminiscent of the opening of So Red the Rose, a montage sequence illustrates the various crops grown at the Pointe du Loup plantation (Fig. 3).11 These images, genuine unintentional cinematographic forms of history, were most likely drawn from b-roll, as suggested by their faded color grading, which reinforces their documentary-like quality. This effect is further enhanced by Hamish’s voice-over, as he describes the richness and beauty of his land to Manty and the viewer. The daily labor required to maintain the fields implicitly suggests the need for a large workforce. Yet the cinematic reality is quite different: not a single enslaved person appears on screen, thereby erasing all traces of forced labor; a directorial choice that stands in contradiction to the preceding sequence in which a Negro spiritual brings together dozens of children, women, and men. Such paradoxes sometimes stem from Robert Penn Warren’s own choices (though less caricatural, the entire scene is present in the novel), revealing his difficulty in fully distancing himself from a Lost Cause imagery. In the film, Manty’s arrival at Pointe du Loup and her decision to stay reflect both the challenge of critically representing the Old South and the persistent tendency to rely on the established formulas of Gone with the Wind. For example, the auction sequence, in which Hamish and Manty first meet, interweaves an unexpected critique of slavery with an affirmation of the ideological tensions that permeate the entire film.

Fig. 3 At the top, So Red the Rose; at the bottom, Band of Angels

Fig. 3 At the top, So Red the Rose; at the bottom, Band of Angels

An Opportunity for Renewal?

9In the scene which I will now turn to, the initial encounter between Manty and Hamish occurs in a setting that starkly contrasts with a romantic narrative: an auction house. This scene is particularly noteworthy for its realistic depiction of a public slave auction, as no major production, since the last film version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harry A. Pollard (Universal 1927) had dared to include such a scene, while at the same time facilitating the romance between the two protagonists.

10Framed in extreme close-up, a poster informs the viewer: “TODAY! Public Auction of Slaves. 60 Prime Plantation Negroes Including 2 Special & Choice: FEMALES.” Even before we enter the auction room, we hear the auctioneer’s voice and hammer blows, and a panoramic shot sets the scene in New Orleans, as evidenced by the presence of palm trees and the architecture typical of this Deep South city (fig. 4). As the camera enters the auction room, thanks to a deep focus master shot, framed by two columns and extended by a niche, our attention is drawn to the body of a bare-chested slave with bulging muscles, standing on the stage. Beside him, the auctioneer constantly encourages the crowd to bid higher. The long shot offers a rare vision inspired by Harry A. Pollard’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Universal, 1927), which had already used deep focus to reveal the hustle and bustle of New Orleans society.

Fig. 4 Top, first two images: the auction in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927); below, the auction room in Band of Angels

Fig. 4 Top, first two images: the auction in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927); below, the auction room in Band of Angels

11The slave market in Band of Angels is a gathering place for women, children, and men. Dressed to the nines, their costumes are cut from the finest fabrics. The decoration of the vast auction room takes on an allegorical meaning. Frescoes cover all four walls, depicting the Revolutionary War: soldiers engaged in grueling hand-to-hand combat, puffs of smoke indicating the presence of cannons, and officers on horseback with their bicorns screwed on their heads represent a glorious narrative for the audience. For some viewers, however, the meaning is quite different: these paintings are harbingers of the Civil War, since the movie is set on the eve of the fratricidal conflict. Without realizing it, the elite of southern society, busy buying human beings at the best price, is doomed to disappear, a fate for which it alone is responsible. Max Steiner’s music, which features prominently throughout the film, is conspicuously absent from this sequence, as if to prove that the codes of classical cinema can no longer be applied to a very brutal scene. By muting Steiner’s composition, Walsh leaves us with only the voices of the bidders, the auctioneer’s sonorous hammer and the sound of the slaves’ footsteps as they run across the room to prove their good health.

12An axial cut reveals Manty waiting her turn. Wrapped in a sheet, her body is less exposed than that of the Black man next to her. Unlike the other slaves, she has not yet come to terms with the fact that her body is no longer hers. As she climbs onto the platform, the auctioneer drops the sheet, a provocative moment that transforms a white woman into a spectacle akin to a fairground attraction. This scene violates the Production Code in two ways, since the Code severely limited the exposure of the female body and strictly prohibited depictions of white slavery. Reminiscent of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927), there follows an analytical editing with numerous shot/reverse shots, focusing more and more on the men in the audience, seduced by this woman with such white skin. A buyer with a French accent rises to inspect Manty’s body, like a commodity or an animal whose value is being measured (fig. 5).

Fig. 5 Manty’s sale in Band of Angels mirrors Eliza’s in Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Fig. 5 Manty’s sale in Band of Angels mirrors Eliza’s in Uncle Tom’s Cabin

13Off camera, a male voice bursts in to offer $5,000. Filmed from behind, he crosses the room amid a crowd of buyers who step aside as he passes, before a close-up reveals his identity: it is Hamish Bond, or rather, for the viewer, Rhett Butler, who appears on screen. While the actor’s face shows the passing of time, his gait and mustache inevitably recall Gone with the Wind’s Rhett Butler (fig. 6). The similarity does not end there. Gone with the Wind, also features an auction scene. Although it does not involve the purchase of a human being, but merely a dance, the symbolism remains identical, and the two scenes echo each other. Butler and Bond both cut through the crowd in the same way after making an unreasonable bid, in both cases provoking numerous exclamations. By buying a dance with Scarlett O’Hara while she is in mourning for her husband, Rhett openly asserts his own desires and thus transgresses the rules of proper Southern society. This dance must be understood as a metaphor for the beginning of an illegitimate relationship between a single man and a grieving woman. In Band of Angels, in contrast to the French-accented Creole, who is portrayed as a vicious man intent on sexually abusing Manty, Hamish seems to be a righteous man, endowed with the true aristocratic values of the Old South, even though he was born a Yankee and then became involved in the illegal slave trade. Thus, it is possible to suggest that true Southerners, heirs to Jeffersonian values, act nobly, while French-speaking Louisianans are the only ones who buy slaves for their beauty and to satisfy their impulses. However, it is Hamish who ends up buying Manty, and a modern viewer might question whether his interest was solely to protect her from a cruel master, rather than being driven by any sexual motives or the threat of rape. Indeed, Bond’s true motives are quickly revealed: although he acts “romantically,” the purchase of Manty is driven by his lust, making him a man who transgresses the chivalric code of the Old South and revealing the great contradiction of both the character and the film. He embodies both a negative figure, reflecting the darkest times and behaviors in U.S. history, and a somewhat sympathetic character, endowed with the positive values associated with the Southern gentleman. This confirms the film’s ambivalent ideological stance, torn between the need to acknowledge historical facts and a lingering nostalgia for more conservative representations. Ultimately, the auction sequence in Band of Angels can be understood as a pastiche of the one in Gone with the Wind, integrating the charged topics of sex and race more explicitly inside the original source.

14A final pan accompanies Hamish and Manty as they leave the room, the latter now relegated to her position of submission, struggling to carry her enormous trunk, a detail that makes it clear that she is no longer a Belle but a slave (fig. 6). Max Steiner’s composition is heard again, signaling that Manty is safe and has nothing to fear from Hamish; all the tension has been released. But this sequence illustrates the profound contradictions of Band of Angels. Inside a scene intended to accurately describe one of the most degrading practices of enslavement, this conclusion is disturbing. Presented as her savior, Hamish Bond acquires Manty for her beauty alone, a curious prelude to a love story that seals their destiny.

Fig. 6 At the top, Gone with the Wind; below, Band of Angels

Fig. 6 At the top, Gone with the Wind; below, Band of Angels

15As this analysis has attempted to show, by adopting the aesthetic style of Gone with the Wind, Band of Angels bowdlerized the critical charge contained in the novel. This process, in turn, produced a double discourse that is reflected in the strategies that Warner used to negotiate with the various censorship boards.

Band of Angels and the Production Code Administration

  • 12 Each film evaluated by the PCA received a distribution seal if the script was found to be compliant (...)
  • 13 In 1948, Roberto Rossellini directed L’Amore, a film made up of two shorts, Une voca umana and Il M (...)

16The first major obstacle for a film like Band of Angels was the PCA, which could refuse to issue the Seal, making it even harder to get the film into theaters.12 Producers took advantage of the revision of the Production Code, which loosened certain restrictions. Article 6 of Section II, “Sex,” in effect since 1930 and definitively established in 1934, which stated that “Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races) is forbidden,” no longer appeared in the updated version of 1951, which removed all racial prohibitions, including those relating to scenes of miscegenation (Production Code [Gable Papers]).13 These important changes did not prevent the PCA’s emissaries from strongly criticizing Warner over the nature of the relationship between Manty and Hamish, and demanding meetings with studio representatives, including director Raoul Walsh. In a memo, the PCA representatives went over the main points raised:

Messrs. Healy and Dougherty conferred at Warner Bros. today with Messrs. Finlay McDermid, Raoul Walsh, and John Twist concerning the script dates September 26, 1956, BAND OF ANGELS

We pointed out to the gentlemen of the Studio that the story in its present form was an unacceptable treatment of illicit sex between the leading characters. It was agreed that the element of illicit sex would be removed and […] they [Manty & Hamish, editor’s note] would refrain from indulging in sexual intercourse until they are married.

Mr. Twist suggested that the sequence at Point du Loup (SIC) might possibly contain a sex affair which would then be treated with an adequate voice for morality and a sense of shame on the part of the principles, and would result in their marriage at the end of the picture.

Messrs. Healy and Dougherty agreed to read such a re-written sequence, but took a very dim view of its eventual acceptability […].

(Dougherty and Healy, Production Code Administration Records)

17As the request to cut a sequence on the grounds of miscegenation was no longer admissible, the PCA representatives objected to the illegitimate love affair between two people who are not yet married. Still, the phrase “illicit sex” reflects, albeit vicariously, the PCA’s discomfort with explicit sexual relations between a white man and a “Black” woman, as well as the organization’s agonizing conservatism. Thus, this request should not be seen as evidence of greater tolerance on the part of the Hays Office, and even less as a reflection of the USA’s open-mindedness on racial issues, but rather as an example of the way in which the PCA used moral concerns (the prohibition of sexual relationships outside marriage, strictly prohibited by the Code) as a cover for the censorship of interracial romance. This moral dimension was further emphasized by Geoffrey M. Shurlock, head of the MPPDA and PCA (1954-1969), in a letter he wrote to Jack Warner a few weeks later to remind him that the movie had not always lived up to expectations:

That reason for this basic unacceptability is the fact that your story deals with an illicit sex affair between your two leading characters, which results, first in the woman, a slave, being given her freedom; and thereafter she decides to stay on with your lead as his mistress. At the end of the story they are not shown sailing off together.

(Shurlock, Production Code Administration Records)

18With little room for maneuver, all the PCA could do was try to act as a guardian of good morals. Between January and March 1957, Hays Office emissaries reiterated their opposition in several reports, but to very little effect. The screenwriters retained the romance between Manty and Hamish, only performing minor changes, which did not include the wedding scene that was meant to legitimize the couple—although it had been requested by the PCA.

19These exchanges illustrate the loss of power of the PCA, which was no longer able to force producers to adopt its vision of morality. As for the local censors, they had lost all power to act since the “Miracle Decision.” Nevertheless, local censorship remained a major threat to the studios. How they reacted to a film remained crucial to its success. Despite the “Miracle Decision,” they could force local theaters into boycotting the film, or issue licenses authorizing screenings for adults only. Aware of the explosive nature of the miscegenation theme in Band of Angels, Warner executives acted with great caution, using arguments that differed from region to region (North and South) in their negotiations with local censors.

Warner Bros. and Local Censorship

20In 1957, local film censors no longer had the power to ban a film, but the archives bear witness to the contrasting reactions that a work like Band of Angels could provoke. In a letter to Lollie C. Whitehead, the director of the Virginia Censorship Board, a man named Bruce Dunstan wrote:

Dear Miss Whitehead:

As a native Virginian and State taxpayer, I write to inquire of you as Director of Motion Picture Censorship as to just why your Censorship Division approved, after screening, the motion picture now being shown at the Colonial Theater in Richmond, and in which the Negro, Sidney Poitier is shown slapping a white woman across the room in a tantrum of rage?

In your approval of this picture of radical propaganda that is intended to popularize miscegenation and interracial love-making in the eyes of the nation's youth, your Division of Motion Picture Censorship does not appear to be co-operating in the least with Senator Byrd's most commendable plan of Massive Resistance to integration and amalgamation of the white and black races.

Thanking you for a prompt reply and the information requested, I am,

Very truly yours,

Bruce Dunstan,

(Dunstan, Virginia Division of Motion Pictures Censorship Records [VDMCP])

  • 14 This was particularly true of the release of The Birth of a Nation. Faced with the threat of censor (...)

21Attached to this letter is a propaganda document from a supremacist organization called the American Nationalist Party. This very short pamphlet condemned federal abuses and claimed that Hollywood and New York Jews were complicit in the “mongrelization” process that full integration of African Americans would entail. This document reveals the white supremacist fear that demands for equal rights between white and Black people masked a desire for interracial marriage, a persistent stereotype that refers to the belief that the Black man is a threat to the purity of the white woman. These images were popularized by Hollywood, notably through D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, in the well-known scene where Gus, the mixed-race character played by a white actor in blackface, chases the young white Flora Cameron, leading to her suicide and provoking violent retaliation by the Ku Klux Klan, led by her brother Ben Cameron, culminating in Gus’s lynching (Rylance 7). By 1957, however, Hollywood film was no longer acting as a guardian of the Southern way of life by maintaining caricatured and racist representations in the collective imagination, so that supremacist groups who had once defended film’s freedom of speech now attacked it as guilty of spreading “radical propaganda.”14 For members of the American Nationalist Party, the only solution was a total boycott of all works which were perceived as promoting racial equality. Such ideas illustrate the profound issues at stake in the representation of race and offer a glimpse, however extreme, into the reception by viewers of works that were perceived as delegitimizing an idealization of the Old South.

22On the same letter, a handwritten note by Lollie C. Whitehead tells us that, a few weeks earlier, Bruce Dunstan had already written to express his anger at the Virginia screening of Robert Rossen’s An Island in the Sun. This letter could be read as the isolated expression of a bigoted viewer unhappy to see a film whose plot violated the principles of segregation. Three days later, however, Lollie C. Whitehead suggests that the Virginia Board of Censors may have been compelled to allow the release of Band of Angels:

Dear Mr. Dunstan:

We have received your letter of September 3, regarding the film BAND OF ANGELS.

In viewing this picture in our official capacity in consideration of whether or not we would approve it, we were mindful in this instance, as in all others, of the limitations imposed upon movie censorship by decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. It frequently occurs that, if we were left to our own judgment as individuals and could be guided solely by our individual concepts of propriety, movies which we feel compelled to approve under the law would not receive the approval of this board.

We appreciate your interest, and we are glad to have an expression from you on this film.

Yours very truly,

Lollie C. Whitehead

Director.

(Whitehead, Virginia Division of Motion Pictures Censorship Records)

23This subtle response shows how the censorship boards were being forced by federal authorities, especially the Supreme Court, to adopt less stringent policies. Historically, the Virginia Board had always been careful to censor productions that showed a South that differed from the myth of the Lost Cause (Ooten). It should also be remembered that the Division of Motion Picture Censorship headed by Lollie C. Whitehead reported directly to the Governor of Virginia, who was publicly opposed to desegregation. Chances are that Virginia would have banned this film, as well as An Island in the Sun, had the Supreme Court not placed the motion pictures under the protection of the Constitution. When Whitehead speaks of how the Supreme Court limits the judgment of individuals, she echoes the claims of segregationist states complaining about federal coercion to end segregation. Both letters are fully in line with the prevailing political and social climate of the time, demonstrating the strong connection between the representation of slavery and the place of African Americans in U.S. society. To continue to portray slavery in a positive light was to keep Black people in a position of subordination and, for the South, a curious way to reassure itself that it was a way to avoid social protest.

24The extent to which Band of Angels has generated opposition or rejection is difficult to assess. It is noteworthy, however, that what most upset Bruce Dunstan was the fact that a Rau-Ru (a Black man) should be able to slap a white woman (Yvonne De Carlo) without being punished for his action, unlike the character of Gus in The Birth of a Nation, who was eventually castigated. Surely, if the image of the Old South and its elegant planters had been tarnished, Dunstan would have had something to say about it as well. Beyond its extreme ideological stance, the arguments that Dunstan put forward are an interesting manifestation of an ambiguity that has been at the heart of many discussions surrounding the film: the ambivalent status of the main female protagonist, whom Bruce Dunstan here describes as “white,” placing the emphasis on the performer and her appearance, but ignoring, whether consciously or not, the core of the plot: namely, her mixed identity. For Dunstan, who assumes that Manty is white, the slap evokes the supposed savagery and violence of the Black man (Bogle 162). In the context of desegregation, Bruce Dunstan expresses an unfounded fear that such a film could have a negative impact. The character of Rau-Ru embodies the deep contradictions within Band of Angels. Throughout the film, his dark, fixed gaze symbolizes both a threat to Hamish’s fate and his own guilty conscience, aware of the pernicious aspects of the system he is defending. The symbolic kinship between Hamish and Rau-Ru further complicates the traditional master-slave dynamic. Finally, Poitier embodies the paradox at the heart of the film. On the one hand, his performance underscores the film’s progressivism; on the other, his silence and intense physicality contribute to the animalization of his character, underscoring the persistent challenge for Black characters to escape stereotypical representations altogether. If any final proof were needed of a censorship now limited in its ability to act, the Memphis Censor Board which, under the long reign of its first chairman Lloyd Binford (1928-1956), had become known as the strictest board in the United States, did not ban the film, just as it had been unable to ban Island in the Sun (Dutriaux). Mrs. B. F. Edwards, who had succeeded Binford, explained the commission’s decision as follows: “We didn’t like the picture, but we couldn’t put our finger on any legal reason for banning it. After all, the scene was laid 100 years ago, and it was historical. Things like that did go on” (Roy 18).

25The leniency of the Southern censors was also the result of a great deal of upstream work. Warner executive Albert S. Howson had numerous exchanges with the heads of the various censorship boards, as well as with local Warner Bros. branches. He contacted the Warner Bros. representatives in Georgia and asked them to forward to the Atlanta Board of Review the pages of dialogue establishing that Manty is indeed Black, making Rau-Ru’s slap in the face an act of violence against a slave and not against a Southern belle, which would obviously have been unacceptable in the South: “This definitely establishes that the character ‘Manty’ is a negress. [...] My understanding is that Mrs. Gilliams [the head of Atlanta Film Board Review, editor’s note] wants to show that when the colored man strikes ‘Manty,’ it is a negro striking a negress, and not a negro striking a white woman” (Howson to Ogburn, Warner Bros. Archives).

26When Warner contacted Timothy J. O’Connor, the Head of the Chicago Police Department to which the Chicago Board of Censors administratively reported, the studio radically changed its approach. The Chicago Board, which had been generally tolerant of films about slavery, had issued a “pink permit” for adults-only screenings; the censor’s bulletin from the Board reveals that it was the depiction of interracial sexual relations (“miscegenation”) and the allusion to rape that disturbed them. These elements were made explicit in the line: “I’m gonna chain you [Manty, editor’s note] to a post down there with them hot-natured blacks” (Chicago Board of Censors Archives). Howson protested the decision, pointing out that the film had been approved in Memphis without restrictions, and that the Chicago decision was therefore inappropriate:

My dear Commissioner:

[…]

There is no such suggestion. True, the girl [Manty, editor’s note] finds upon the death of her father that her mother was a slave, and she, having negro blood, is sold as a slave, but she is antagonistic toward her “owner” throughout, although he respects her upbringing and aristocratic lineage, and treats her accordingly.
The Memphis, Tenn., Censors have approved the picture without hesitation and without any demands for alteration. This, in itself, substantiates what I have said above, and I will appreciate you giving the matter your consideration, with a view to obtaining a full permit for “Band of Angels.”

My very kind regards,

Sincerely, Albert S. Howson.

(Howson to O’Connor, Warner Bros. Archives)

27As in Memphis, Warner’s goal was to obtain a full operating permit. To achieve this, Howson uses arguments that are the opposite of those used in Atlanta. Instead of proving Manty’s blackness, he establishes that despite her having “negro blood,” the fact that she has been educated according to the values of the Southern aristocracy makes her an acceptable partner. Interestingly, the notion of upbringing is used against the racist “one-drop rule,” however, while so-called Southern values are unquestioned. In this way, Manty now belongs to the same world as Hamish, who is no longer perceived as a white man engaging in a romance with one of his slaves. A few days later, on July 30, 1957, Commissioner Timothy J. O’Connor sent Howson the final report of the Chicago Board of Censors on Band of Angels. This document confirms that the arguments put forward by Warner convinced the Board to grant an all-audience license to the film:

6. The undersigned concurs with the judgment of the majority, because it is his opinion that the subject picture does not come within the scope of the legal language that defines an immoral motion picture and, therefore, is not in violation of Section 155-4 of the Municipal Code of Chicago. The questionable and suggestive relationship between a female slave and her master, which might possibly tend to have some immoral implication, is handled in such a fashion as would not provide a sufficiently substantial basis even for an age restriction in public exhibitions.

Unless you shall disagree, the undersigned will issue a General Permit with the aforementioned deletions, upon application by Warner Bros. Inc.

(O’Connor, Warner Bros. Archives)

28The archives reveal a dual discourse that marked the increasingly open divide between the South and the North at a time when the Civil Rights movement was still in its infancy. Far from tolerating more critical visions of slavery, censorship boards in both the South and the North, muzzled by federal constraints, gnawed at their brakes and were forced to comply with this new legislation. Finally, to a lesser extent, the fear of a boycott by the African American community prompted Warner’s representatives to contact the African American press to ensure that Band of Angels would be well received. This last point illustrates the meticulous marketing strategy that Warner employed to ensure unfettered commercial success.

Facing the Risk of Boycott: Band of Angels and the African American Press

29In a memo sent to Jack Warner, Charles Williams, a man presenting himself as a specialist in the “negro market,” shared his fear of a national boycott of Band of Angels (Williams). Shortly beforehand, however, Hazel A. Washington, film critic for the African American newspaper The Chicago Defender, had sent Warner a telegram stating that she was very enthusiastic about the film and could guarantee that Band of Angels would benefit from a very positive campaign:

JACK WARNER

WARNER BROS STUDIO

DEAR MR WARNER YOU HAVE PRODUCED ONE OF THE GREATEST PICTURES OF OUR TIME “BAND OF ANGELS” EVERY MINUTE WAS PACKED WITH EXICTEMENT. THE CAST US (SIC) SUPERB EVERY CHARACTER STARS IN THE MOVIE. THIS (SIC) SOMETHING THAT YOU CAN BE RIGHTFULLY PROUD OF MY COLUMN “THIS IS HOLLYWOOD” IS SYNDICATED IN 21 NEGRO NEWSPAPERS THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY AND OWNED BY THE CHICAGO DEFENDER PUBLICATION. BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY THAT I CANNOT PRAISE “BAND OF ANGELS” ENOUGH.

SINCERELY YOURS

HAZEL WASHINGTON CHICAGO DEFENDER

(Washington, Warner Bros. Archives)

30Assured that Warner would benefit from Hazel Washington’s laudatory editorial in twenty-one local Black newspapers, thus averting the risk of a boycott, Jack Warner did not follow up on Charles Williams’ telegram and replied to Washington with the following words: “We at the studio feel as you do about the importance of this production and anything you can do to call this to the attention of the readers of the various newspapers in which your column appears, will be very much appreciated” (Warner, Warner Bros. Archives). For several months, the Chicago Defender covered the filming of Band of Angels, highlighting the great benefits it would bring to the Black community (Williams 14). And, in her review of the film, Hazel A. Washington called it “extraordinary.” Far from commenting on the portrayal of slavery, she noted the presence of many Black actors and actresses:

You will be proud of every Negro in the film—Sidney Poitier is great, to me he is the only Negro “great” of today. Carolle Drak is superb in her role, being in the play from beginning to end. Yvonne De Carlo is excellent, Juanita Moore and Tommie Moore are out of this world. Each and every character in the story is a star in this movie.

(Washington, July 8, 1957, 19).

  • 15 A confusion even more surprising given that she had a small role in Imitation of Life (1934).

31This alone was enough for Hazel A. Washington to defend and promote the film, stating that: “We [African Americans, editor’s note] have looked forward for years, hoping that someday we would see a picture on which we could be honestly and rightfully proud. This is it. Warner Brothers knew just what to do, and they did it” (Washington, July 1957, 19). Among all these names, it is surprising to read that of Yvonne De Carlo, which suggests that the critics were so taken with her character as a woman of mixed race that they considered her white performer to be a genuine Black actress.15 It is easy to see why Band of Angels was an important film for the African American press of the time: there are many Black characters and, like Sidney Poitier, they are no longer confined to serving their masters. It is interesting to note the enthusiasm of the African American press; they praise Sidney Poitier’s performance, believing it could pave the way for Black actors and actresses.

32Band of Angels is set at a pivotal time, when the portrayal of slavery had to change in the face of great social upheaval. However, departing from the canon established by Gone with the Wind remained difficult, as the film’s directorial choices suggest. In the columns of the New York Times, Bosley Crowther was one of the few critics to point out this ambivalence, reminding his readers that Warren's novel combined “a flamboyant melodrama and thoughtful reflection upon moral issues and psychological factors having to do with slavery and ante-bellum society in the South” (Crowther). However, according to the critic, at no point does Band of Angels display such thoughtfulness, with Warner settling for a Technicolor melodrama devoid of depth. Adding insult to injury, he goes on by stating: “Band of Angels is still a puffy zephyr alongside – well, say Gone with the Wind” (Crowther). Crowther argues that by following in the footsteps of its predecessors, the film completely erased the social and political reflection present in Warren’s novel in favor of a mise en scène that couldn’t compete with that of Gone with the Wind.

33Nevertheless, a film like Band of Angels is a stellar example of how the political and cultural context dictates Hollywood’s course of action. The intense negotiations surrounding the release of Band of Angels reveal the studio’s fear of a potential boycott and its ability to adapt its approach to various censorship boards to ensure an unimpeded release. Ultimately, these successful negotiations underscore that local film censorship, which had been muzzled since the “Miracle Decision,” had finally run out of steam. Yet, as the archives reveal, Band of Angels was not conceived as a political critique targeting stereotypical representations of the past; it was, rather, an attempt to exploit the increasing leniency of censors and deal with saucy, previously forbidden topics, such as interracial relationships. Above all, the film is a good reminder of the fact that the portrayal of slavery in cinema remains a sensitive issue, calling for deeper, and possibly less exploitative depictions, than the one offered by Band of Angels.

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Bibliographie

CENSOR SLIP of Band of Angels, July 22, 1957. Chicago Board of Censors Archives, University of Illinois Northeastern, Chicago.

BERNSTEIN, Matthew, ed. Controlling Hollywood: Censorship and Regulation in the Studio Era. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999.

BOGLE, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. 1973. London: Bloomsbury, 2016.

BORDAT, François, and François CAVÉ. Le Code Hays. Paris: Association française de recherche sur l’histoire du cinéma, 2023.

BOURGET, Jean-Loup, and Jacqueline NACACHE, eds. Le Classicisme hollywoodien. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2009.

BRINKMEYER, Robert H. Jr. Remapping Southern Literature: Contemporary Southern Writers and the West. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000.

CAÏRA, Olivier. Hollywood face à la censure. Discipline industrielle et innovation cinématographique 1915-2004. Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2005.

COX, Karen L. Dreaming of Dixie: How the South Was Created in American Popular Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011.

CRIPPS, Thomas. Slow Fade to Black: The Negro in the American Film 1900-1942. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

DOUGHERTY, Eugene “Doc.” and HEALY, M. A. J. “Memo for the files.” September 1956. PCAR, Band of Angels file. AMPAS, Margaret Herrick Library, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

DUNSTAN, Bruce. Letter to Lollie C. WHITEHEAD, September 3, 1957. VDMPCR, General Correspondence and Controversial Films, box 53, folder 59, Virginia State Records Center, Richmond, U.S.A.

DUTRIAUX, Claire. “Southern Censorship against Hollywood in Better Films Committees and Local Censorship Boards: Film Control as a Woman’s Political Weapon.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 44, issue 2, 2024, p. 245-260.

GILPIN FAUST, Drew. “Clutching the Chains That Bind: Margaret Mitchell and Gone with the Wind.” Southern Cultures, vol. 5, no. 1, 1999, p. 6-20.

HASKELL, Molly. Frankly My Dear: Gone with the Wind Revisited. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.

HATCHUEL, Sarah. “Retourner à Tara. Revoir Gone with the Wind.Transatlantica, no. 1, 2019, journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/14111. Accessed 9 June 2025.

HOBSON, Fred C., and Barbara LADD, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Literature of the U.S. South. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

HOWSON, Albert S. Letter to Carroll OGBURN, July 19, 1957. Warner Bros. Archives, Band of Angels, Box 3, File 1499A, USC, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

HOWSON, Albert S. Letter to Commissioner Timothy J. O’CONNOR, July 16, 1957. Warner Bros. Archives, Box 3, File 1499A, USC, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

LANG, Robert. The Birth of a Nation: D. W. Griffith, Director. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994.

LEAB, Daniel J. From Sambo to Superspade: The Black Experience in Motion Pictures. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975.

LEFF, Leonard J. “David Selznick’s Gone with the Wind: The Negro Problem.” The Georgia Review, vol. 38, no. 1, Spring 1984, p. 146-164.

MARTIN, Michael T. The Birth of a Nation: The Cinematic Past in the Present. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019.

MITCHELL, Margaret. Gone with the Wind. 1936. New York: Macmillan, 1964.

MCEWAN, Peter. Cinema’s Original Sin: D.W. Griffith, American Racism, and the Rise of Film Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2023.

MIZENER, Arthur. “A Nature Divided Against Itself.” The New York Times, August 21, 1955, p. 251.

O’CONNOR, Timothy S. Letter to Albert S. HOWSON, July 30, 1957. Warner Bros. Archives, Box 3, File 1499A, USC, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

OOTEN, Melissa. “Censorship in Black and White: The Struggle to Maintain Racial Hierarchies at the Movies, 1920s-1930s.” In Race, Gender, and Film Censorship in Virginia, 1922-1965. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014.

PRODUCTION CODE [new version], 1951. Clark Gable Collection, 3-f.29. AMPAS, Margaret Herrick Library, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

PYRON, Darden A., ed. Recasting: Gone with the Wind in American Culture. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1983.

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SHURLOCK, Geoffrey M. Letter to J. L. WARNER, January 15, 1957. PCAR, Band of Angels file. AMPAS, Margaret Herrick Library, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

STOKES, Melvyn. D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation: A History of “The Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time.” New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

STOKES, Melvyn, and Peter MCEWAN, eds. In the Shadow of The Birth of a Nation: Racism, Reception and Resistance. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.

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WARNER, Jack L. Letter to Hazel A. WASHINGTON, June 28, 1957. Warner Bros. Archives, Band of Angels, box 3, file 2954, USC, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

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WILLIAMS, Charles W. Telegram to Jack L. WARNER, July 11, 1957. Warner Bros. Archives, Band of Angels, box 3, file 2954A, USC, Los Angeles, U.S.A.

YOUNG, Stark. So Red the Rose. 1934. Baton Rouge: J.S. Sanders Books, 1992.

Filmography

Band of Angels. Dir. Raoul Walsh. With Paul Henreid, Angela Lansbury, John Justin. Warner Bros., 1957.

The Birth of a Nation. Dir. D.W. Griffith. With Lillian Gish, Henry B. Walthall, Mae Marsh. Epoch Corporation, 1915.

Gone with the Wind. Dir. Victor Fleming. With Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland. Selznick International Pictures, 1939.

An Island in the Sun. Dir. Robert Rossen. With James Mason, Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, Joan Fontaine. Darryl F. Zanuck Productions, 1957.

Tamango. Dir. John Berry. With Dorothy Dandridge, Curd Jürgens, Jean Servais. Les Films du Cyclope / Dama Cinematografica, 1958.

Jezebel. Dir. William Wyler. With Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, George Brent, Donald Crisp. Warner Bros., 1938.

So Red the Rose. Dir. King Vidor. With Margaret Sullavan, Walter Huston, Robert Young. Paramount Pictures, 1935.

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Notes

1 A few exceptions are worth mentioning, such as Santa Fe Trail (Warner Bros., 1940) in which Michael Curtiz reinvests the topic of slavery in the Western genre. This film, however, can still be considered as siding with the Old South and endorsing its values. Yet, the fact remains than its narrative includes John Brown, an essential figure of abolitionism, celebrated as a hero in the North while deemed mad in the South. Similarly, in 1947, John M. Stahl’s Foxes of Harrow (20th Century Fox) evoked slavery, but not as a central topic.

2 Although “miscegenation” is a pejorative, racist term that was once used to refer to taboo interracial relationships, for the sake of clarity I’ll use it when citing the archives or other quoted documents where the word appears.

3 On the aesthetics of Gone with the Wind, see Haskell; Hatchuel; Leff; Pyron; Vertrees.

4 A winner of three Pulitzer Prizes, Robert Penn Warren enjoyed great popularity in Hollywood. His first novel, All the King’s Men, published in 1946, became an instant bestseller, before being adapted for the screen by Robert Rossen (Columbia Pictures) in 1949, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture.

5  Overturning the famous Mutual v. Ohio decision of 1915, U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Joseph Burstyn Inc. v. Wilson that cinema should be no less valued than the other arts. Soon known as the “Miracle Decision,” it did not put an end to the practice of film censorship. Yet, cinema was now protected by the First Amendment and freedom of expression, making censorship requests more difficult.

6 On censorship, see Bernstein; Bordat and Cavé; Caïra.

7  Also released in 1957, Robert Rossen’s Island in the Sun (Darryl F. Zanuck Productions) is notable as the first feature film to display a kiss between a white actor (John Justin) and a Black actress (Dorothy Dandridge) and the beginning of another relationship between a Black actor (Harry Belafonte) and a white actress (Joan Fontaine). Linked to the complex relationship between the place of slavery in American society and its representation in the popular imagination, this problem is exclusively confined to Hollywood. Voluntarily exiled to France to escape the witch-hunts of McCarthyism, American director John Berry adapted Tamango (Les Films du Cyclope), an 1829 abolitionist short story by Prosper Mérimée, in 1958. Berry modernized the plot to include a relationship between Rainker (Curd Jurgens), the captain of the slave ship, who shares his cabin with Ayché (Dorothy Dandridge), his African mistress. Berry leaves no room for artifice, as this love affair, based on a power play, is shown for what it is: immoral.

8 In From Sambo to Superspade, Daniel J. Leab recalls how mixed-race women were often portrayed by white actresses, especially in films with interracial romances, a trend that waned in the 1960s.

9 Warner’s in-house technical process, similar to Technicolor.

10 So Red the Rose was adapted from a novel of the same name by Stark Young, a southern writer who belonged to the agrarian southerners, a movement founded by Robert Penn Warren.

11 In Gone with the Wind, the working day ends as the sun sets, and as children ring the bells to announce the end of work, the slaves show no signs of stopping. William Cameron Menzies’ art direction reinforces the idea of painless work and lends a nostalgic splendor to these images, thanks to the poetic effect of matte painting and Max Steiner’s lyrical score, which plunge the viewer into a deep melancholy necessary for Tara’s affirmation as the Shangri-La of the Lost Cause and its Southern romanticism.

12 Each film evaluated by the PCA received a distribution seal if the script was found to be compliant. The major studios agreed not to release a film until they received the Seal. In 1953, Otto Preminger became the first filmmaker to break this ban with The Moon Is Blue (Otto Preminger Films, United Artists).

13 In 1948, Roberto Rossellini directed L’Amore, a film made up of two shorts, Une voca umana and Il Miracolo. Without knowing it, Rossellini found himself at the center of an intense debate in the United States, the outcome of which had a profound impact on Hollywood film production. After attending a screening of Il Miracolo at the Venice Film Festival, Joseph Burstyn acquired the distribution rights for the United States. First shown in New York theaters in 1949, the short film, renamed The Miracle, was censored two years later by the New York Board of Regents for sacrilege. Burstyn contested the decision in the New York Court of Appeals, which upheld the original decision. As a last resort, Burstyn appealed and the case ended up in the hands of the Supreme Court in Washington D.C. Overturning the famous Mutual v. Ohio case of 1915, America’s highest court ruled in Joseph Burstyn Inc. v. Wilson that motion pictures should be held in no less esteem than the other arts, because films “are designed to entertain as well as inform.” The decision, soon dubbed the “Miracle Decision”, did not end to the practice of film censorship, but it did protect the cinema under the First Amendment and freedom of speech, making censorship requests more difficult.

14 This was particularly true of the release of The Birth of a Nation. Faced with the threat of censorship, both Griffith and political organizations emphasized the freedom of expression of cinema.

15 A confusion even more surprising given that she had a small role in Imitation of Life (1934).

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Table des illustrations

URL http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/docannexe/image/24795/img-1.jpg
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Titre Fig. 2 The arrival at Pointe du Loup
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Titre Fig. 3 At the top, So Red the Rose; at the bottom, Band of Angels
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Titre Fig. 4 Top, first two images: the auction in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927); below, the auction room in Band of Angels
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Titre Fig. 5 Manty’s sale in Band of Angels mirrors Eliza’s in Uncle Tom’s Cabin
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Titre Fig. 6 At the top, Gone with the Wind; below, Band of Angels
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Antoine Guégan, « The Loosening Grip: Band of Angels and the Decline of Censorship »Transatlantica [En ligne], 1 | 2025, mis en ligne le 01 juillet 2025, consulté le 12 mars 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/24795 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/14b8l

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Antoine Guégan

Université Paris-Est Créteil, Laboratoires LISAA (Littératures, Savoirs et Arts) de l’Université Gustave-Eiffel et ELH-PLH de l’Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès

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