Hollywood Dictator

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23009, 9 April 1938, Page 18 (Supplement)

Hollywood Dictator

America s Supreme Film. Censor And Right-hand Man of Will Hays EVENTFUL CAREER OF JOSEPH BREEN

By GLYN ROBERTS

No single man in the world has more power in determining what goes into your cinema than a husky, two-fisted Irishman named Joe Breen. a Joseph Ignatius Breen is America s supreme film censor and the right-hand man of Will Hays. It has been claimed for him that he has never yet lost a single fight to a finish, verbal or otherwise, and that he "can outshout the pick of the Hollywood hog-callers "

BREEN is the one man in the fclm business who has tried out-arguing the Schenck brothers, Samuel Goldwyn, the Warners, Adolph Zukor, Harry Cohn -and Darryl Zanack —and come out on top.

the stars. His influence is exerted in devious and occasionally subtle ways.

A confirmed believer in the Catholic view of life, he has no hesitation in encouraging propaganda in pictures, propaganda for religion generally and for Catholicism specifically. You remember the athletic priest who knocks out Gable ifa one of those "friendly set-to's" in "San Francisco ?" Spencer Tracy did not want to play that role, and, believe it or not ? Nat Pendleton, determined to put himself over as a serious actor, was very much in the running for it. But Joe Breen knew the risk of having a priest laughed at on the screen; we occasionally laugh with Spencer Tracy, never at him. Spencer Tracy played the part. Another of Breen's diplomatic victories was the white-washing of Tolstoy's "Resurrection," in the GoldwynSten version which made the screens under the name "We Live Again." Breen himself was inclined to be broadminded about it; but the censors in many American states wanted to slash it to bits.

Charged by tens of millions of Catholics, Protestants and Jews to keep up the moral standard of pictures, Breen has put on a magnificent one-man performance in Hollywood.

Frequently arguing a comparatively email point for hours on end and outmanoeuvring his contradictors, he also makes many aeroplane journeys to some distant Eastern city to discuss censorship niceties with the local authorities. In American journalism, Breen is a legendary figure; he grew up in a famous "tough" suburb of Philadelphia, Fairmount Park, an Irish-Ameri-can quarter which has produced some celebrities in very varied walks of life.

Breen went into journalism, and holds the unique distinction of having been dismissed from every paper in Philadelphia.

After hectic talks with Samuel Goldwyn, who was rather annoyed and said that he had made the picture strictly according to Breen's notions of decency, Breen went East and after some immense battles won a complete victory, and got the picture shown almost exactly as it left the cuttingroom.

The climax came with the famous 6outh' Philadelphia fire, which destroyed a huge section of the city. Breen's regular assignment was to cover the "downtown" police district ;—a number of working-class suburbs he came to believe, nothing more than a small brawl ever happened. So Breen took to spending his oven-

A bespectacled, two-fisted giant, Joe Breen has become one of the most powerful men behind the scenes in the

ings at theatres on passes given him by his dramatic critic friends; in the intervals he would telephone his paper and say, "As usual, nothing doing." Then one night an oil refinery on the edge of the city caught fire and burnt up half the town; the flames could be seeu from the editor's room at the newspaper office. While the Btaff was frenziedly waiting for his story, Breen was comfortably enjoying a new musical comedy. At last he came through: "Breen, downtown, talking.—As usual, nothing doing."' Irish Diplomacy From there on, Breen slipped into various jobs, showing a remarkable flair for that curious blend of strongarm 'method and blarney which constitutes Irish diplomacy. He worked for a Chicago coal magnate, Stuyvesant Peabody, and learnt how to break strikes, protect vested interests, out-talk and occasionally outslug labour leaders. Will Hays watched Breen handle a strikers' protest meeting—and at once offered him a job. lb happened on a sweltering evening in New York in July, 1934. . „ The Hays organisation was at its wit's fend * to know how to reconcile the mutually exclusive demands of one public avid of sensation and titillation and another righteously determined to exclude certain basic emotions and their expression from America's 14,000 screehs. It was estimated that the militant "Legion of Decency" iq its campaign to boycott the films its inspirers regarded as indecent and unchristian were bringing pressure on more than 65,000,000 people. Better Moral Standards The producers were in a panic; weekly attendances at America's cinemas had'fallen, within a very short time/ by over ]5,000,000. Joseph Breen just talked to them, and he talked eloquently and savagely. He told them that reforms and small modifications would not be enough, and that the preSs, pulpit and public were in a really dangerous mood. They ate out of his hand/because they knew that what he said was true. Shortly after thi\ they themselves got together to organise joint action to purify pictures, and** elected Joseph Ignatius Breen to be their "Lord High Purifier " Hollywood's all-powerful "Decency Dictator " Moderate Course Kept Himself a very religious man, Breen tries to preserve a reasonable and moderate course. So many protests come in from cranks and extremists of every kind that, one day, in desperation, he said: "Pretty soon the movies will have to eliminate all villains and have entire easts of heroes " If Turkish patriots write in to protest against the gross libel of their race in pictures: if big industrial corporations complain of unsympathetic treatment of big business in pictures: if trade unions get excited about the anti-labour bias in Hollywood, it is always Joe Breen who has to meet their objections. e «w? .^ an ma il is usually more than 6,000 letters a week. Occasionally, he get® a pat on the back, but the great majority are violent complaints. It does not get Joe Breen down: firstly, because he is hardboiled by training and secondly, because he maintains ho never asked for the job. Ho has become a well-known Hollywood figure, and has"* many friends in the industry, though not many among

United States. He himself is an amiable, extremely conscientious and quiet burgher. To understand him, stand by the door of the Church of The Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills any Sunday morning. Rain, sleet, fog or shine, Joe Breen, Mary Breen and the six little Breens Helene, Natalie, Joseph Junior, Frances, James and Thomas — troop in religiously. They never miss. That is the sort of man Joe Breen is.