Joe Breen's Oscar

At the twenty-sixth Academy Awards ceremonies held on the evening of 25 March 1954, something quite remarkable occurred, although it attracted little attention at the time. As often happens at this event, one film swept most of the awards. From Here to Eternity won eight Oscars, including those for best picture, best supporting actor and actress, best director, and best screenplay.

In addition to the usual categories, there were four honorary Oscars awarded that night. One went to Pete Smith for his series 'Pete Smith's Specialities'; another to 20th Century-Fox for introducing CinemaScope; and a third to Bell and Howell for its numerous achievements. The fourth award went to Joseph Ignatius Breen 'for his conscientious, open-minded, and dignified management of the Motion Picture Production Code'. Breen, who was about to retire, had served almost twenty-one years as the head of the Production Code Administration, the body that censored virtually all films shown in American theaters. That the film industry was now bestowing its highest honor on its chief censor must have caused many writers, producers, and directors in the audience to roll their eyes at what seemed like the latest and not least of Tinsel Town's hypocracies.

During his time as the head of the PCA, Breen had cultivated a reputation that bore little resemblance to 'open-minded and dignified'. This was a man who rarely missed an opportunity to impress upon his listeners that before them stood someone who loved a good brawl. On 22 June 1934 when Will Hays, the head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, introduced Breen to the directors of that body as his choice to head the censorship office, the new appointee began, 'Very well, gentlemen. I accept the job. But on one condition. And the condition is that you understand that I come from a race of people who have a long history of committing suicide – on the other guy.'¹ Jack Vizzard, who relates this story in his memoir about his ten years working for Breen, added, 'Joe never did disappoint them'.

A raconteur par excellance, Breen delighted in relating, often to people who had heard the stories before, and in various forms, how he had bested the Hollywood moguls. How, for example, at a meeting with Harry Warner to discuss the Catholic boycott of Warner theaters in Philadelphia, the stressed-out president of Warner Brothers began 'shedding tears the size of horse turds and pleading for someone to get him off the hook'.² Or how, at his first meeting with Harry Cohn, 'the Ogre of Gower Street', he went toe to toe with the fearsome head of Columbia Pictures. After glancing at Breen's portfolio, Cohn, perhaps to take the measure of the man said, 'What's this shit?' To which Breen responded, 'Mr. Cohn, I take that as a compliment ... My friends inform me ... that if there's any expert in this town on shit – it's you ... So if I have to be judged, I'm glad it's by professionals'.³

As chief enforcer and interpreter of the Production Code, Breen was certainly capable of being high handed and capricious. This document, which as of 1930 served as the Ten Commandments of the film industry, was the creation of Daniel Lord, a Jesuit and professor at St. Louis University, and Martin Quigley, a prominent Catholic layman and publisher of the Motion Picture Herald. Its stated purpose was to ensure that 'No picture should lower the moral standards of those who see it'.⁴ It then provided a detailed list of what could not appear on screen, such as detailed depictions of seduction, rape, murder, complete nudity, etc. Not only was Breen totally dedicated to enforcing both the spirit and the letter of the Code, but, according to Vizzard, he was quite capable of quoting passages in the Code that did not exist. 'The conspicuous example was, with that Old Testament...