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From The Cardinal to The Shoes of the Fisherman: Hollywood’s Curious Fascination with Vatican II

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Catholicism Opening to the World and Other Confessions

Part of the book series: Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue ((PEID))

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Abstract

The paper recovers original archival documents and film footage to fill a surprising lacuna in scholarship on Hollywood’s reception and depiction of Vatican II. These neglected sources, buried in the archives of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, demonstrate how a host of film industry producers, screenwriters, actors, and actresses reacted to the events and official teachings of Vatican II, especially in light of Nostra Aetate and Gaudium et Spes. The study further posits how these forgotten examples of a secular response to Vatican II can better inform and integrate both scholarly and popular narratives of the council’s reception and influence beyond the confines of Catholicism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Gregory D. Black, The Catholic Crusade against the Movies, 1940–1975 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997). See also Frank Walsh, Sin and Censorship: The Catholic Church and the Motion Picture Industry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996); Thomas Doherty, Hollywood’s Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Association (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); and Alexander McGregor, The Catholic Church and Hollywood: Censorship and Morality in 1930s Cinema (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2013). On the Legion of Decency, see James M. Skinner, The Cross and the Cinema: The Legion of Decency and the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures, 1933–1970 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993); Una M. Cadegan, “Guardians of Democracy or Cultural Storm Troopers? American Catholics and the Control of Popular Media, 1934–1966,” The Catholic Historical Review 87, no. 2 (April 2001): 252–82.

  2. 2.

    Anthony Burke Smith, The Look of Catholics: Portrayals in Popular Culture from the Great Depression to the Cold War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2010), 8–15.

  3. 3.

    Robert P. Waznak, “The Church’s Response to the Media: Twenty-Five Years after Inter Mirifica,” America 160, no. 2 (January 21, 1989): 36–40.

  4. 4.

    Ibid., 37. The American prelate Martin John O’Connor, then rector of the North American College in Rome, had a key hand in drafting both documents as the head of various incarnations of the Vatican office for communications from 1948 to 1971. Records of O’Connor’s leadership of this body can be found in The Archbishop Martin J. O’Connor Collection in The American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC (hereafter ACHRCUA).

  5. 5.

    Giuseppe Alberigo, A Brief History of Vatican II, trans. Matthew Sherry (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2006), 28, 39.

  6. 6.

    Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Pastoral Instruction Communio et Progressio, AAS 63 (1971): 593–656.

  7. 7.

    Walther Kampe, “Communicating with the World: The Decree Inter Mirifica,” in Vatican II Revisited: By Those Who Were There, ed. Alberic Stacpoole (Minneapolis: Winston, 1986), 197; see Inter Mirifica 18; Communio et Progressio 100. In 1992 the same pontifical body commemorated Communio et Progressio with a new document, Aetatis Novae. Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Pastoral Instruction Aetatis Novae, AAS 84 (1992): 447–68.

  8. 8.

    Compare, for instance, Communio et Progressio 142–147 to Inter Mirifica 14.

  9. 9.

    “Catholic Church’s Bright View of Communications covers Pix,” Daily Variety 152, no. 11 (June 21, 1971): 1, 8. The report compares the tone of “extreme caution” and “suspicion” in Inter Mirifica with that of “positive, optimistic and constructive” language in Communio et Progressio.

  10. 10.

    The other discourse on the subject is Pius XII’s apostolic exhortation, “To the Representatives of the Italian Cinematograph Industry,” June 21, 1955.

  11. 11.

    See File 90 “Clark, Kenneth,” Box 9, Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) Records, and File 678 “THE NUN’S STORY—Censorship 1957,” Box 50, the Fred Zinnemann Papers, both in Special Collections, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California (hereafter SCMHL, AMPAS). The AMPTP copy contains a note from Kenneth Clark to Duke Wales (AMPTP spokesman), inviting Wales to use the encyclical in public relations; Zinnemann seems to have examined the encyclical while producing The Nun’s Story (1959).

  12. 12.

    See Thomas Patrick Doherty, Hollywood’s Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007).

  13. 13.

    On this shift, see Black, The Catholic Crusade, 176–80.

  14. 14.

    For example, compare Variety’s headline, “Networks Fear Sponsor Scare in Vatican Edict to Supervise TV” (September 18, 1957) with a new headline one week later, “Catholic Church and Good Films, Italian Filmites Think Pope Put It Just Right” (September 25, 1957).

  15. 15.

    Paul Greenhalgh, “All Knock and No Boost,” Motion Picture Exhibitor 58, no. 26 (October 23, 1957). Greenhalgh, after contrasting Miranda Prorsus and the more positive resolutions of a recent international Catholic conference on film in Havana with the Legion’s foot-dragging in the United States, concludes, “From where we sit, most of the influence of the Catholic Church [in the United States] seems to be directed at, and not with, the motion picture business…a policy of all ‘knock’ and no ‘boost.’”

  16. 16.

    A copy of Greenhalgh’s article is attached to a memo by Msgr. Little, notifying episcopal leadership that he is in the midst of arranging a meeting with Greenhalgh about his criticism of the Legion. See Folder 1, “Information Media: Motion Pictures: Censorship, 1956–59,” Box 31, Series 1.1, General Administration, Records of the Office of the General Secretary, ACHRCUA.

  17. 17.

    Skinner, The Cross and the Cinema, 37, 155.

  18. 18.

    Thomas F. Little to Paul Tanner, May 17, 1965, in File 2, “Information Media: Motion Pictures: Censorship, 1960–1966,” Box 31, Series 1.1, General Administration, Records of the Office of the General Secretary, ACHRCUA.

  19. 19.

    “Many Catholic Churches Here Omit Legion of Decency Pledge,” Daily Variety, 138, no. 4 (December 11, 1967): 1; Skinner, The Cross and the Cinema, 175–76.

  20. 20.

    Variety, October 16, 1963, clipping in File, “The Cardinal (Gamma Prod., 1963),” Motion Picture Association of America, Production Code Administration Records, SCMHL, AMPAS.

  21. 21.

    Motion Picture Daily, October 16, 1963, clipping in File, “The Cardinal (Gamma Prod., 1963),” Motion Picture Association of America, Production Code Administration Records, SCMHL, AMPAS. Despite its negative evaluation of the film’s content, Variety (October 16, 1965) echoed Motion Picture Daily in recognizing the film’s timeliness: “It might even enjoy what the trade calls blockbuster business in view of the fortuitous ‘pre-sell’, so to speak, coming out of Rome as a consequence of the Ecumenical Council and the curiosity it has engendered about the Catholic Church and its hierarchy among people of all faiths.”

  22. 22.

    Foster Hirsch, Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), 197–98.

  23. 23.

    “Cardinal on ‘Cardinal’: New Film is Superb,” The Pilot 134, no. 37 (September 14, 1963).

  24. 24.

    See note and copy of Cushing’s review from J. Raymond Bell to Thomas Little, October 8, 1963, in Folder 3, “The Cardinal,” Box 21, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Communications Department/Office of Film and Broadcasting Records (hereafter OFB), ACHRCUA.

  25. 25.

    Thomas Little to Archbishop John Krol, October 31, 1963, Folder 3, “The Cardinal,” Box 21, OFB, ACHRCUA.

  26. 26.

    Thomas Little to Archbishop John Krol, November 4, 1963, Folder 3, “The Cardinal,” Box 21, OFB, ACHRCUA.

  27. 27.

    Press Release from Raymond Bell, Folder 3, “The Cardinal,” Box 21, OFB, ACHRCUA.

  28. 28.

    Moira Walsh, “The Cardinal,” America (January 4, 1964), clipping in File, “The Cardinal (Gamma Prod., 1963),” Motion Picture Association of America, Production Code Administration Records, SCMHL, AMPAS.

  29. 29.

    Moira Walsh, “Otto Preminger Looks at the Catholic Church” Catholic World (March 1964): 365.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., 370.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., 371.

  32. 32.

    Bosley Crowther, New York Times (December 15, 1963); Courier Journal (January 10, 1964), clipping in Folder 3, “The Cardinal,” Box 21, OFB, ACHRCUA.

  33. 33.

    Morris L. West to Fred Zinneman, October 15, 1962, in File 1719 “W (1932–1990),” Box 110, Fred Zinnemann Papers, SCMHL, AMPAS, emphasis original.

  34. 34.

    Ibid.

  35. 35.

    Kathryn Hulme to Harold C. Gardiner, June 2, 1959, File 708, “The Nun’s Story: Correspondence, Religious 1958–1976,” Box 52, Fred Zinnemann Papers, SCMHL, AMPAS. This letter was published with Hulme’s permission in “‘The Nun’s Story’ – A Symposium,” America (June 27, 1959). Aside from West’s explicit reference to the council as an ecumenical event, he curiously omits key scenes. For instance, he remains silent about how Kiril ventures out into the streets of Rome incognito and prays over a dying Jewish man in Hebrew, something the pope claims to have gleaned from a friendship in his Siberian prison. Was West concerned that Zinnemann, a Jewish producer and director, would judge such a scene as a superficial interfaith encounter? West’s reason remains unclear.

  36. 36.

    See James Wall’s review in The Christian Century, clipping in File “The Shoes of the Fisherman (MGM 1962),” Motion Picture Association of America, Production Code Administration Records, SCMHL, AMPAS.

  37. 37.

    Untitled review by John Mahoney, clipping in File “The Shoes of the Fisherman (MGM 1962),” Motion Picture Association of America, Production Code Administration Records, SCMHL, AMPAS.

  38. 38.

    Joseph Morgenstern, “The Shoes of the Fisherman,” Newsweek (November 25, 1968), clipping in File “The Shoes of the Fisherman (MGM 1962),” Motion Picture Association of America, Production Code Administration Records, SCMHL, AMPAS.

  39. 39.

    Untitled review from Time, November 29, 1968, clipping in File “The Shoes of the Fisherman (MGM 1962),” Motion Picture Association of America, Production Code Administration Records, SCMHL, AMPAS.

  40. 40.

    Trevor Wyatt Moore, “Habemus Papam ex M-G-M,” The Christian Century, clipping in File “The Shoes of the Fisherman (MGM 1962),” Motion Picture Association of America, Production Code Administration Records, SCMHL, AMPAS.

  41. 41.

    Moira Walsh, “The Shoes of the Fisherman,” America 119, no. 18 (November 30, 1968): 577.

  42. 42.

    David Poindexter to Raymond Bell, January 27, 1967, File 584, “A Man for All Seasons, Correspondence, 1967,” Box 45, Fred Zinnemann Papers, SCMHL, AMPAS. See also the Catholic announcement in “A Man for All Seasons,” “A Guide to Current Films,” in NCOMP Classifications, March 9, 1967 (vol. 32, no. 12), copy in File 392, “National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures—Classifications, 1966–1968,” Box 40, AMPTP Records, SCMHL, AMPAS.

  43. 43.

    Jack Valenti (MPAA President) to Raymond Bell, February 6, 1967, File 584, “A Man for All Seasons, Correspondence, 1967,” Box 45, Fred Zinnemann Papers, SCMHL, AMPAS.

  44. 44.

    Paul C. Marcinkus to Emilio Panchadell (Columbia Pictures), August 2, 1967, File 584, “A Man for All Seasons, Correspondence, 1967,” Box 45, Fred Zinnemann Papers, SCMHL, AMPAS.

  45. 45.

    Moira Walsh review in America, clipping in File 662, “A Man for All Seasons—clippings and reviews (United States) 1967–1968,” Box 44, Fred Zinnemann Papers, SCMHL, AMPAS.

  46. 46.

    The translation above is my own; the Latin reads, “Tamen fraternum hominum colloquium non in istis progressibus, sed profundius in personarum communitate perficitur, quae mutuam reverentiam erga plenam earum dignitatem spiritualem exigit.”

  47. 47.

    Walter Kasper , Mercy: The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life, trans. William Madges (New York: Paulist Press, 2014), 162–63.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology, Milwaukee, WI, USA

    Paul G. Monson

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Correspondence to Paul G. Monson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Vladimir Latinovic

  2. Department of Theology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA

    Gerard Mannion

  3. Pontifical Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Rome, Italy

    Jason Welle, O.F.M.

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Monson, P.G. (2018). From The Cardinal to The Shoes of the Fisherman: Hollywood’s Curious Fascination with Vatican II. In: Latinovic, V., Mannion, G., Welle, O.F.M., J. (eds) Catholicism Opening to the World and Other Confessions. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98581-7_12

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