Cinema: Increasing Tolerance

Totting up its balance sheet for 1939-40, the American Civil Liberties Union last week reported that only seven movies ran afoul of State or local censorship in the U. S. last year. The seven: Birth of a Baby, the French film Harvest, the U. S. Public Health Service’s Fight for Life, Strange Cargo and Primrose Path (these two notable because they were produced by major Hollywood studios whose self-censorship is usually effective), Birth of a Nation (Negro trouble in Denver), and an anti-Nazi blast variously entitled Hitler, The Beast of Berlin, Goose Step, and A Nation in Chains.