The Bloodiest Thing That Ever Happened In Front Of A Camera: Conservative Politics, ‘Porno Chic’ and Snuff

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INTRODUCTION

The Bloodiest Thing That Ever Happened In Front Of A Camera

IN 1976 THE UNITED STATES CELEBRATED THE 200TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE Declaration of Independence. This foundational document asserted autonomy and freedom from British rule and, in its bicentennial year, the media and politicians aggressively exploited it as an immensely important symbolic event. Across the nation celebrations were organized which paid tribute to American traditions and achievements. National history was sanitized and national character idealized for a spectacle designed to make the American public feel good after more than a decade of divisive social unrest, economic problems and high-profile political abuses. Religious belief and traditional values were emphasised, marking a period of resurgent right-wing conservative ideology.

In the same year, one of the most important symbolic events was the release of a low-budget independent film entitled Snuff (Allan Shackleton, 1976), which caused a national outcry and became the most controversial film of the decade. Snuff also played a pivotal role in the conservative backlash against the liberalisation of sexual values and the mainstream acceptance of sexually explicit adult material. Released with an X rating, the film was advertised in a way that evoked an image of sexual extremes reminiscent of the Marquis de Sade. Purporting to show the real murder of an actress purely for the entertainment and titillation of the audience, the film epitomized all of the excesses prophesied by conservatives as the consequence of the social and moral decay of the ‘sexual revolution’.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were a tumultuous time in American society during which conservative values were challenged by liberal ideas. ‘The Sexual Revolution’, reported heavily by the news media in 1963 and 1964 culminating in a cover story by Time (24 January 1964), implied a radical shift in attitude and behaviour, but the changes in values really began several years before.¹ In Tom Smith’s opinion The metaphor of a Sexual Revolution captured the imagination of a generation of Americans, but poorly describes and generally exaggerates the changes in the sexual mores of Americans.² According to Smith the Sexual Revolution was an uprooting of sexual morality that reflected changes in attitude and behaviour which threatened conservatives and therefore challenged advocates of repressive Puritan ideas and caused traditionalists to lament libertine hedonism.³

Enveloped in this cultural conflict, traditional values and practices were being eroded by inevitable social changes. A generational gap seemed to sharply contrast opinions and beliefs, disillusionment was rife and many difficult questions were asked about American society. Even before the Watergate scandal Charles A. Reich, Professor of law at Yale, asserted, there is a lawlessness and corruption in all the major institutions of our society.⁴ In his People’s History of the United States (1980) Howard Zinn also noted the social problems of the early seventies: the system seemed out of control — it could not hold the loyalty of the public.⁵ Irresponsible and indifferent, society was pervaded by a blinkered hypocrisy that refused to acknowledge obvious social problems, as across the nation extreme poverty contrasted with opulence and luxury.⁶

The source of dissatisfaction was identified by Reich, who opened his book The Greening of America (1970) with the observation, America is dealing death, not only to people in other lands, but to its own people.⁷ Promising that a revolution was coming, instigated by a new generation, Reich wrote: Their protests and rebellion, their culture, clothes, music, drugs, ways of thought and liberated lifestyle are not a passing fad or a form of dissent and refusal, nor are they in any sense irrational.⁸ Many Americans felt that since they were not in control of the machinery of their society they needed a new culture;⁹ new ideas invited reflection and re-examination, and offered personal choices for change. Reich identified the loss of self, or death in life as the most devastating impoverishment in contemporary America:

Beginning with school, if not before, the individual is systematically stripped of their imagination, their creativity, their heritage, their dreams and their personal uniqueness, in order to style them into a productive unit for a mass technological society. Instinct, feeling and spontaneity are repressed by overwhelming forces.¹⁰

Obviously this is a dehumanizing process, and one that would inevitably impact on society and meet with resistance.

Critiques of society, politics and sexuality appeared in many contemporary films such as the sarcastic observations found in one of the segments in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask (Woody Allen, 1972). In Allen’s film the deranged Dr Barnardo (John Carradine) claims credit for discovering how compulsive masturbation leads to a career in politics, reflecting a common perception of politicians. However, more developed critiques are found in other Woody Allen films such as Sleeper (1973), where Allen satirizes the problems of contemporary American society as well as paying homage to slapstick comedy.

Owner of a health food store in Greenwich Village, Miles Monroe (Woody Allen) is cryogenically frozen in 1973 after routine surgery and revived in 2173. The twenty-second century, however, is radically different to the one in which he lived; it is a utopia of right-wing ideas where official dogma and enforced discipline prevail. After a nuclear war in the twenty-first century the tumultuous, promiscuous and democratic society he remembers was obliterated and replaced by a fascist state, the American Federation. All of the population are frigid, relying on technology for sexual gratification, an ominous forewarning of the consequences of militarism, conservative ideology and moral crusades in the 1960s and 1970s. Told that his re-awakening was illegal and, if caught, his punishment would be to have his brain electronically simplified, Monroe is horrified because his brain is his second favourite organ. When he is also told that those who resist the reprogramming are exterminated for the good of the state Monroe is prompted to ask, What kind of government you guys got here? This is worse than California! which was under the governorship of Ronald Reagan when Monroe was frozen.

Several scenes in the film are used to lampoon contemporary events and satirize American society. Ignorant of twentieth-century history Dr Tryon (Don Keefer) asks Monroe to identify some photographic artefacts that survived a nuclear war. Sarcastically Monroe identifies Bela Lugosi in one picture and claims he was mayor of New York, suggesting that the real mayor of New York was a blood sucker. After being shown a picture of evangelist Billy Graham, Monroe explains that he was very big in the religion business and knew God personally, adding that Graham’s relationship with God was so close that they were rumoured to go on double dates together and some people suspected a romantic link.

A news broadcast made by President Richard Nixon has also been preserved and is an important topic of discussion for those trying to understand the past. The doctors speculate Nixon was a president who did something so awful that all records about him were destroyed, a bleak appraisal that Monroe confirms. He also adds that Nixon was considered so untrustworthy that, even while president, each time he left the White House Secret Service agents had to check the silverware, to make sure it had not been stolen.

Other contemporary films commented on the moral hypocrisy of politicians and the political system in relation to sexual morality. Most of Shampoo (Hal Ashby, 1975) takes place within a frantic forty-eight hours and follows the activities of George (Warren Beatty), a womanizing hairdresser who has sex with many of his female clients. Attending a ‘Nixon for President’ party with his girlfriend (Goldie Hawn), George finds that several of his lovers are also present, creating an awkward situation. Numerous sound bites from Republican political speeches committing Nixon to put a halt to permissiveness, sharply contrast with the conduct of his supporters at the party.

The illegal activities of Nixon’s administration were exposed during the Watergate investigation and his resignation address is incorporated into an early scene of the Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975), broadcast on the radio as the conservative and sexually repressed Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon) drive through a thunderstorm. Nixon’s resignation tarnished his administration and the political excesses called into question the traditional values he claimed to champion. The radio broadcast foreshadows Brad and Janet’s visit to Dr Frank-N-Furter’s castle where their traditional sexual values are challenged. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry) is an updated Dr Frankenstein, a sexual scientist, who creates his own Adam, an Adonis not a monster, to help relieve his tension. The bisexual Frank-N-Furter’s singleminded pursuit of absolute pleasure is a hedonistic inversion of the traditional Christian philosophy of abstinence and monogamy.

Sleeper likewise satirizes the sex-politics debates of the day. After being shown a picture of Norman Mailer, Monroe (Woody Allen) notes that the writer donated his ego to the Harvard Medical School and, identifying a feminist bra burning protest, he plays down the significance of the act when he mockingly observes, notice it’s a very small fire. Shown a Playboy centrefold Monroe explains that the women in the magazine did not really exist, they were actually blow-up dolls made from rubber. Nonetheless, he still wants to take the centrefold with him for further study and promises he will submit a full report later.

There is no partisan political ideology behind Allen’s satire, and at the conclusion of Sleeper Monroe criticises all political systems. Confused by his stance Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton) asks him what he does believe in, to which Monroe retorts sex and death, quipping, at least after death you’re not nauseous. The irony is unfortunate since Snuff sought to exploit public curiosity about pornography in a film that promised a new twist on sex and death, causing nationwide, and later international, outrage.

In The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (1986) Peter Stallybrass and Andrew White observe: what is socially peripheral is so frequently symbolically central.¹¹ Nowhere was this more evident than the obscenity debate, which was a major ongoing issue for Middle America. From the 1930s to the mid 1960s the motion picture production code enforced a set of standards that Hollywood filmmakers had to adopt if their work was to get the approval of conservative moralists. Section II of the Production Code stipulated, Excessive and inhumane acts of cruelty and brutality shall not be presented. This includes all detailed and protracted presentation of physical violence, torture and abuse. The Code also determined that the sanctity of marriage and family life was to be respected: No film shall infer that casual or promiscuous sex relationships are the accepted or common thing, and the subject of adultery could be addressed as a topic, but never condoned. Scenes of passion were only to be used when essential to the plot and not presented in any way that could stimulate the baser emotions. Rape was not to be shown graphically, only suggested if essential to the storyline. Abortion, prostitution and white slavery were all to be avoided, as were venereal diseases and Sex perversion or any inference of it [was] forbidden. But changes within the film industry and throughout American society during the 1950s and sixties undermined the power of the Production Code — and the depiction of sex and violence grew progressively more graphic.

Beginning in 1957 and continuing throughout the 1960s decisions made by the Supreme Court relaxed legal definitions of obscenity, sparking numerous anti-smut organisations that exaggerated the prevalence of pornographic material and the danger it posed in the course of their crusades. Simultaneously, sensing an opportunity, business entrepreneurs exploited the new freedoms by developing a legitimate market for adult entertainment which eventually culminated in a short lived era of ‘porno chic,’ during which middle-class Americans openly consumed adult orientated books, magazines and films. Throughout the 1960s conservatives felt they were losing the ongoing legal battle to establish the social boundaries for adult materials. Numerous local crusades across the nation warned of the consequence: an apocalyptic chain of events beginning with the proliferation of obscene material that would eventually destroy American society, turning children into corrupt and degenerate sex criminals, and as adult materials became prevalent and more acceptable anti-obscenity groups became more desperate.

The wave of ‘porno chic’ announced in the New York Times in 1973 had, by 1976, become a ‘porno plague’ according to Time.¹² As a consequence of various social crusades a public perception of pornography developed and John B. McConahay identified the three dangerous myths about pornography that emerged in the 1970s: belief in the increase in violence in pornography, the existence of snuff films, and the availability of child pornography.¹³ Anti-obscenity crusaders created and aggressively promoted all of these myths to advance their political agenda.

Released in the wake of ‘porno chic’ and prompted by the mainstream success of Deep Throat (Gerard Damiano, 1972) and the judicial retrenchment of Miller v. California (1973) in the Supreme Court, the low-budget sexploitation film Snuff provided militant feminists and conservative moralists with a focus for their attacks on pornography. In 1976 the release of Snuff, a film with no credited cast or crew, called into question the realism of the events depicted by claiming that a woman had in fact been murdered in the course of filming, providing feminists and anti-obscenity activists with an easy target.

As a form of popular entertainment, cinema is based on the understanding that the audience suspends disbelief to become engrossed in the spectacle on-screen, yet remains secure in the knowledge that the people and events they are watching are not real. The idea of filming a real murder for the purpose of entertainment and financial gain was not new in the 1970s. In response to a contemporary film Les Incendiairies (George Méliès, 1906)¹⁴ Guillaume Apollinaire wrote a short story entitled ‘Un beau film’ (published on 23 December 1907) that parodied the censorship of Méliès’ work.¹⁵

Apollinaire’s story is recounted by one Baron d’Ormesan, a wealthy aristocrat who, along with a few associates, has established the International Cinema Company (ICC) with the aim of finding newsworthy films to exhibit. Several notable sequences of film footage are acquired by the company but d’Ormesan also wants to see the commission of a crime of the right quality which could be distributed by ICC. Accepting that it is unlikely that such a piece of film could be found legitimately the filmmakers organize to make their own.

Six perpetrators are involved in perpetrating and filming the crime. They begin by abducting a young elegantly dressed couple, followed by the kidnapping of an older gentleman in evening dress to complete the cast. All of the captives are taken to a villa (rented anonymously) where a photographer is waiting with his camera. The cooperation of the older gentleman is acquired after d’Ormesan assures him that he will not be harmed if he follows instructions and kills the young couple. Yielding, the gentleman’s only request is that he would like to be masked while carrying out the murders, to protect his identity.

The story continues: Despite his part as co-conspirator, d’Ormesan describes the shooting of the footage as a dismal scene.¹⁶ The young woman is first to die, stabbed in the heart after a brief struggle, while the young man is murdered quickly afterwards, his throat slit from ear to ear. Although the two victims are partially undressed by their captors before filming commences, there is no nudity and no sexual activity during the film. Surprisingly competent, the gentleman carries out the role of assassin almost professionally and his mask is not disturbed during the murders. Later, the filmmakers remove the evidence of their activities in the villa and release the gentleman assassin to return to his club to gamble.

The discovery of the murder causes a terrible scandal, the victims being the wife of a Minister of a small Balkan state, and her lover, the son of a pretender to the crown of a North German principality.¹⁷ The scandal is reported widely and some newspapers publish a special edition due to public interest. Predictably, when the film is released amid the hysteria it is a huge financial success in Europe and America. The police however do not suspect that the film is an actual recording of the murder, even though it is advertised as such.

Needing to close such a high profile case the police arrest and charge a Levantine who is unable to provide an alibi for his whereabouts on the night of the murders. He is subsequently convicted and sentenced to death. In a cynical act of opportunism the film company send a photographer to record the execution of the scapegoat, and the new scene in turn is added to the existing murder footage and reissued achieving further financial success. Apollinaire’s story closes two years after the ICC is dissolved and d’Ormesan has received more than a million francs as his share of the profits (only to lose it all at the races).

The idea of real murder being passed off as fake was notably exploited by Herschell Gordon Lewis in The Wizard of Gore (1970). The wizard, Montag the Magnificent (Ray Sager), delivers a monologue to his audience pointing out that in the past the roman arena catered to those who wished to see a violent and bloody spectacle, then wryly asserts, Today, television and films give us the luxury of observing grisly accidents and deaths without anyone actually being harmed. Then Montag distorts the situation when he hypnotizes his audience into believing that the murders he commits onstage are just theatrical effect. As Robert Kolker points out in A Cinema of Loneliness (1988), ‘snuff’ movies would require the conventional understanding that films are not reality to be revised:

The question would no longer involve a viewer becoming a prisoner to an illusion of reality — or of attending a documentation of reality — but being guilty of assenting to the actual event of murder. The only real meaning of such films would emerge from the moral choice of attending them or not.¹⁸

Amidst the advertisements for Snuff and the media debate many people did attend, making the film a box office success in a number of cities. Paul Schrader, who wrote and directed Hardcore (1978), understood the fascination:

Movies are a flexible medium. It’s easy to simulate death on film, which is partly why people think snuff films exist. They’ve seen simulated versions and believe they’re genuine. I think it’s conceivable these films exist, but whether they do or not is less important than the public’s belief that they do — their willingness to believe in an evil fantasy. That’s what’s interesting here.¹⁹

In the 1970s, it was largely due to the apocalyptic rhetoric of anti-obscenity group Citizens for Decent Literature (CDL)²⁰ and militant feminists, that the ‘evil fantasy’ found a wide audience. The story and characters in Snuff were not compelling, and the special effects were unconvincing. For all of the hype and hysteria the film was not the first time a reputedly ‘real’ murder had been caught on film, nor was it the first time sex and murder were addressed in fictional settings.

Throughout the 1960s Mondo movies attracted audiences with the promise of exotic spectacles, graphic violence, and occasionally documented human death.²¹ Elsewhere, in the art-house film Blowup (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966) a photographer accidentally takes a series of pictures of a murder in progress, but the body disappears, the incriminating film is stolen and the mystery never solved. The thematic connections between sex and death were thoughtfully explored in Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960) and Charlotte (Roger Vadim, 1974), but Snuff went further. Publicity for Snuff claimed the film documented the murder of an actress for sexual titillation and in doing so extended the anti-obscenity myth that pornography corrupts people and turns them into sexual deviants and depraved killers.

As an idea, ‘snuff’ would not have been be so outrageous if it referred exclusively to a murder caught on film. In documenting events for educational and informative purposes television and Mondo movies had already shown that was possible. However, murder as the climax of a pornographic film, done purely for entertainment, was a shocking idea and an awful comment on the moral standard of American society. Allan Shackleton exploited public curiosity and aroused the anger of militant feminists in his advertising campaign for Snuff, in the same way as the pioneering ‘40 Thieves’ exploited the conservative sexual morality of the 1950s and sixties to sell films. His campaign was a success primarily because of the protest by women’s groups that drew more attention than the advertisements, making Snuff the most controversial film of the decade.

The term ‘snuff’, as a euphemism for death, had existed in the English language for more than 100 years, but in the 1960s it received new and disturbing prominence.²² In newspaper reporting of the Manson Family murders, allegations circulated in the tabloid press that some of the killings had been filmed as part of a cult ritual, and the rumour became firmly embedded in popular culture. According to Sgt. Don Smyth (LAPD vice squad) the idea of ‘snuff’ films originated during the investigation into the Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969 when The media was mistakenly informed that the Manson people had taken home movies of the murders. The press used the term ‘snuff film’ to describe these supposed films and the name stuck.²³ Ed Sanders embellished the idea of ‘snuff’ films in his sensationalized Manson exposé The Family (1971) to include ritualistic murders with sexual elements, and Smyth also noted The present-day connotation — the idea of filming an unsuspecting actress’ murder with the intent to distribute commercially — that was added later.²⁴ This was an elaboration created by anti-obscenity activists CDL.

In the early 1970s Raymond Gauer, national spokesman of the prominent anti-obscenity organisation CDL, expanded the definition of the term ‘snuff’ to suit his own political agenda when he used it as a reference to a specific type of pornographic film with explicit sex scenes where an unsuspecting actress was actually murdered on screen as the film’s climax. If ‘snuff’ movies really existed, as he claimed, then no one could doubt that permissiveness in American society had reached the nadir of decadence. It would also be impossible to deny that national values had been corrupted to the extent that in the pursuit of individual freedom and self-realisation people had turned away from traditional values and religion and instead used drugs and watched pornographic films. His rhetoric was repeated in speeches, articles and mass mailed fundraising letters for CDL, even prompting an FBI investigation. The term resurfaced in newspaper reports late in 1975, a few months prior to the release of Snuff, and was further adapted and promoted by militant feminists during the 1970s and eighties as evidence of the amoral and exploitative adult film industry.

The debate around Snuff magnified an existing piece of propaganda into a moral panic and eventually into an urban legend. As a consequence it developed into a contentious symbolic topic of debate, often used by moral conservatives and militant feminists in their rhetoric. In Killing for Culture (1993) David Kerekes and David Slater note the paradox, Snuff as a commercial commodity is a fascinating, but illogical concept. It reads well in crime fiction and, from the journalistic angle, it is one of the all-time great moral panics to feed the people; a malleable and terrifying superstition.²⁵ But, in practical terms, it is absurd. The surrounding panic primarily benefited conservative politicians and anti-obscenity activists, whilst a number of filmmakers exploited the possibility that ‘snuff’ films exist.

It is not a coincidence that when ‘snuff’ movies are discussed it always in relation to heterosexual pornography, never gay porn. Anti-obscenity activists such as CDL were obsessed by the corruption of young men by pornography, turning them into deviants, rapists and murderers who attacked vulnerable women, a cherished icon in conservative America and one that was sure to attract sympathy and support. Beginning with the idea that all pornography is abusive to women, ‘snuff’ movies were, to CDL and militant feminists, the logical consequence of the industry and the ultimate example of woman hating. In fact, no one had obtained, or even seen, such a film. The idea of ‘snuff’ is the idea of pornography taken to an extreme, an embodiment of a breakdown in social values where real explicit sex and violence are presented solely for the purpose of entertainment. The panic surrounding ‘snuff’ films had philosophical implications for American culture, where everything is a commodity in the economic market. When everything is for sale, the only question is — ‘at what price?’

1Tom W. Smith, The Polls — A Report: The Sexual Revolution? Public Opinion Quarterly 54 (1990): 415.

2Ibid: 419.

3Ibid: 416.

4Charles A. Reich, The Greening of America, Penguin, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1971: 13.

5Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, Longman, New York and London, 1980: 528.

6Reich, The Greening of America: 13–15.

7Ibid: 11.

8Ibid: 11.

9Ibid: 12.

10Ibid: 16.

11Peter Stallybrass and Allan White, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression, Cornell University Press, 1986: 5.

12The Porno Plague, Time (5 April 1976): 46–51.

13John B. McConahay, Pornography: The Symbolic Politics of Fantasy, Law and Contemporary Problems 51 (No.1, 1988): 62–65.

14Also known as Histoire d’un Crime, the film was about a criminal who sets fire to a farm but is caught in the act by the police and subsequently beheaded. At the time of its release the film was suppressed because the final scene was considered too graphic. Georges Méliès (b.1861–d.1938) was one of the pioneers of cinema. Mainly associated with fantasy films he also made advertising films and melodramas, but experimenting with the medium he was one of the first filmmakers to present nudity on screen with Après le Bal (1897).

15Guillaume Apollinaire, The Wandering Jew and other stories, trans Remy Inglis Hall, London, Hart Davis, 1967: 172–175.

16Ibid: 173.

17Ibid: 174.

18Robert Phillip Kolker, A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988: 199.

19Rider McDowell, Movies To Die For, San Francisco Chronicle (7 August 1994) This World section: 9.

20Citizens for Decent Literature was founded in 1956 but in 1962 it became ‘Citizens for Decent Literature and Motion Pictures’ and in the early 1970s it changed its name to Citizens For Decency Under the Law. However, despite the changes it maintained the acronym CDL.

21Mondo films are usually feature-length films that invariably promise to show authentic footage of unusual or shocking events, mainly pertaining to sex or violence, from around the world. In Mondo a narrator that is rarely reliable usually guides the film’s viewers through the unfamiliar and disjointed material. The films try to justify themselves by claiming to be educational, but they rarely are. The popularity of Mondo Cane gave the genre its name, spawned numerous imitators, and created a wave of pseudo-documentaries that exploited public ignorance and curiosity while satisfying a thirst for sex and violence. For a detailed discussion of Mondo films see Mark Goodall Sweet & Savage: The World Through the Shockumentary Film Lens, Headpress, London, 2006.

22Paul Beale dates the phrase ‘snuff it’ as a euphemism for ‘to die’ to the late nineteenth century. Paul Beale (Ed.), A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1984: 1107.

23Smyth quoted in McDowell, Movies To Die For, San Francisco Chronicle (7 August 1994) This World section: 8.

24Smyth quoted in ibid.

25David Kerekes and David Slater, Killing for Culture: An Illustrated History of Death in Film from Mondo to Snuff, Annihilation Press, 1993: 310.

Chapter One

PERVERSION FOR PROFIT

Citizens for Decent Literature and the Crusade against Porn

THE STORY OF ‘SNUFF’ MOVIES BEGAN ALMOST TWO DECADES BEFORE THE American bicentennial with the establishment of the anti-obscenity organisation Citizens for Decent Literature Inc. (CDL) in staunchly conservative Cincinnati, Ohio, by Charles H. Keating Jr. on 1 November 1958. Reflecting on the entrenched traditionalism that kept the city of Cincinnati lagging behind the rest of the nation, Mark Twain allegedly said, I’d like to be in Cincinnati when the world ends, because it will happen ten years later there.¹ Decades later Larry Flynt and his supporters described Cincinnati as The state where the dumb come to die. Even in the 1970s, it was a reactionary stronghold.²

According to one version of the story, while attending the Milford Retreat for Catholic men in 1956 Charles H. Keating Jr., a former Navy pilot, lawyer, businessman, champion swimmer and family man with six children, was asked by Reverend Nicholas Gelin, along with an FBI agent, a business executive, and two rug salesmen who shared the same beliefs, to do something about the filth flooding our newsstands.³ However, in an article for the Nation (5 July 1965) Norman Mark recounts a different version of Keating’s reason for becoming an anti-obscenity activist. Taken from a CDL pamphlet, Mark’s story describes how one day in 1956 Keating saw some boys at a newsstand looking at magazines featuring nude women and abnormal sexual behaviour, prompting him into action.⁴ Whatever the reason, Keating accepted the moral responsibility and became active, giving talks about the dangers obscenity posed to American society. On the way to his first big anti-obscenity talk Keating went to a cigar store and bought $50 of adult books and magazines to use as examples of the $500 million porn industry. His first direct action against pornography came when he participated in a raid on a small candy store owned by an elderly woman. Emphasising the store’s proximity to a school to justify the arrest he noted that the shop also sold sex toys. During the trial Keating, as the prosecuting attorney, even used ‘expert’ witnesses to prove that obscene materials were harmful and the old woman was convicted, fined $100 but, most important, publicly shamed.⁵ For Keating public displays of morality were essential.

The significance of CDL is largely unacknowledged by historians and the organisation’s influence on American culture largely unappreciated. Linking the sectarian Catholic groups and the anti-Communists of the Old Right with the broader conservative ideology of the New Right, CDL created a continuum in right-wing politics. Whitney Strub gauged the organisation’s influence and importance saying, CDL taught modern conservatives how to profit from perversion by playing off public ignorance and fear and how to harness that fear for political gain. In doing so, CDL helped foster a transformative shift from which American politics has yet to recover.⁶

When Keating incorporated Citizens for Decent Literature he urged the public to read classics, not smut. The same day the organisation was established, CDL put on workshops for police, prosecutors and clergy from fifteen states on how to tackle obscenity.⁷ From then on Keating was never one to miss a chance to lecture on his favourite subject whenever the opportunity arose. By February 1959 CDL had attracted the attention of 500 communities who requested information and a meeting was convened in Cincinnati to appoint a steering committee aimed at establishing a national organisation.⁸

At a national level like-minded politicians aware of the value of anti-obscenity rhetoric voiced similar concerns to CDL. In 1959 Representative Kathryn E. Granahan (Democrat, Pennsylvania), chair of a House Post Office subcommittee, called for a nationwide campaign by decent-minded citizens, to take action against smut and filth. She asserted, The peddling of smut to children is a heinous crime that must be stopped, but that in many instances communities are seemingly unaware of the size and seriousness of this problem.⁹ This sentiment was echoed a few months later by Keating at the ninth annual communion breakfast for Roman Catholic employees of Best & Co. at the Waldorf Astoria, where he condemned juvenile delinquency and traced its roots to newsstands where cancerously filthy literature was freely available.¹⁰ Still a local, or at best regional, organisation CDL needed to expand its membership to become a nationwide force with political influence. The word ‘smut’ is synonymous with ‘obscenity’ but in CDL speeches and publications Keating emphasised the use of the latter, and words like ‘pornography,’ because they carried legal connotations. Printed Poison (1960) clearly demonstrated the legalistic vocabulary used by Keating when he said, I don’t know what smut means, and I don’t think anyone else does either, but ‘obscenity’ and ‘pornography’ were used because they occur in the law.¹¹

Despite the superficial authority derived from the language used, from the outset there were serious problems with the claims made by CDL because they were usually based on speculative estimates about the size of the pornography business. Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield estimated that pornography was a $500 million a year industry. However, CDL assumed he was only talking about adult materials sent through the mail so they doubled his estimate to include non-mailed items and used the figure of $1 billion in their speeches and literature. Soon Summerfield began quoting the CDL figure of $1 billion, citing them as an authority. But when CDL saw Summerfield estimating $1 billion, assuming once more that it was only for adult materials in the mails, they doubled it again, arriving at a figure of $2 billion. If the $2 billion estimate were true then every family in America would have to spend $50 annually buying porn — a substantial expenditure in 1950s society. In contrast Peter Jennison, executive director of the National Book Committee, estimated that the pornography business was worth about $25 million annually.¹² Keating claimed his statistics came from