# the most morally bankrupt films according to the catholic legion of decency **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 21, 2020, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253 "2020-04-21T06:09:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/1 "2020-04-21T06:09:32Z")
While looking up various movies from mortsalfan’s banned movie on the net list this popped up from the IDMB [Poll: Morally Bankrupt Classic Movies - IMDb - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/poll/KG5d3KqfWkI/?ref_=tt_po_q1) Its a list of the most “morally bankrupt” movies judged by the catholic film reviewers the catholic “legion of decency” from the 30s until it was folded in with various other groups in the church they’re pretty much the reason for the various rating and censor boards in American films throughout the decades Even non-Catholics used them to judge "decency and appropriateness " in movies …now if you’re a member you can vote in the poll… but I wanted opinion as to whether the label “morally bankrupt” was warranted ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/2 "2020-04-21T07:05:20Z")
They clearly didn’t like Clint Eastwood (3 leading roles), but surprisingly we don’t see Dirty Harry. I understood that its release triggered a debate about the justifiability of using violence and vigilantism as an instrument of the law. Its hard to see why some of these were picked while other releases were given a pass. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/3 "2020-04-21T08:56:05Z")
I guess that they are the in-flight movies on the way to hell. Some great entertainment. I have seen all but 3 of them, so that trip looks like one I will be making. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/4 "2020-04-21T11:31:44Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > They clearly didn’t like Clint Eastwood (3 leading roles), but surprisingly we don’t see Dirty Harry. I understood that its release triggered a debate about the justifiability of using violence and vigilantism as an instrument of the law. > > Its hard to see why some of these were picked while other releases were given a pass. Maybe because Dirty Harry was a police officer dispensing justice against criminals while the Josie Wales and The Man With No Name were basically amoral outlaws? Just my WAG. Curious why Spartacus is on that list. ---
**Author:** ![Loggins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/74df32/32.png) [@Loggins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loggins)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/5 "2020-04-21T11:33:26Z")
It is ironic that the catholic church takes the moral highground. The one word that i think of when someone says catholic is “paedophilia” ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/6 "2020-04-21T11:45:21Z")
What sort of debts (and capital for repayment) would one have to run up to be morally bankrupt? ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/7 "2020-04-21T12:02:17Z")
Grease? I guess the Producers might be on the list for the play director is pretty much openly gay. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/8 "2020-04-21T12:14:07Z")
The American Catholic church used to have a database of movie reviews with their own rating system, which was considerably more conservative than the MPAA’s. It was very extensive – rare to not find a film in it – and the reviews were quite accurate, succinct, and clearly written by intelligent literate people. I used it for many years while my daughter was a child and we rented movies to watch as a family (we never had a television). It was a great tool for finding child-appropriate films, or even just good films. Their rating system was something like “all audiences” “older children” “mature teens and adults only” and “morally objectionable”. The Morally Objectionable films that I did watch were indeed morally objectionable either on Catholic doctrine grounds – glorifying homosexuality or sex outside marriage for example, but far more often on general depravity/ethics grounds, or because of gratuitous violence. Most films with artistic merit were not given such a rating, just a highly cautionary review. Gay characters would not cause a bad rating, just a cautionary note, by the way. I remember The Butcher’s Wife got an M.O. rating. Deserved in my view. The Producers definitely did not. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/9 "2020-04-21T12:32:16Z")
> [@Loggins](#): > > It is ironic that the catholic church takes the moral highground. The one word that i think of when someone says catholic is “paedophilia” It is a curious definition of morality that apparently considers pedophiles not as bad as Felix and Oscar. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/10 "2020-04-21T12:43:26Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > It is a curious definition of morality that apparently considers pedophiles not as bad as Felix and Oscar. Is there a backlog of major studio releases that portray pedophiles in a positive light? They can’t very well condemn movies that aren’t out there. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/11 "2020-04-21T12:54:33Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Maybe because Dirty Harry was a police officer dispensing justice against criminals while the Josie Wales and The Man With No Name were basically amoral outlaws? Just my WAG. > Curious why Spartacus is on that list. In High Plains Drifter he is an Sheriff who comes back from the dead to take vengeance against his killers So its amorality is iffy at best. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/12 "2020-04-21T13:01:37Z")
> [@Loggins](#): > > It is ironic that the catholic church takes the moral highground. The one word that i think of when someone says catholic is “paedophilia” I disagree with this line of thinking. Were there Catholic priests who either engaged in or covered up pedophilia? Yes. But very few. It would be like saying that when I think of Italians I think mafiosi. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/13 "2020-04-21T13:13:55Z")
There’s nothing indicating that those are the “most” morally bankrupt movies. It’s just a poll that some random user named **urbanemovies** put up. So he’d got the hard on for Clint’s westerns, not the Catholic church. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/14 "2020-04-21T13:40:26Z")
When I was a kid we used to get a weekly Catholic newspaper, _The Monitor_, which listed the current movies by rating. They went from A-1 (“Morally unobjectionable for anyone”) through A-2 (“Morally unobjectionable for adults and adolescents”) through A-3 (Morally unobjectionable for adults") and A-4 (“Morally unoibjectionable folr adults, with reservbations” as a kid, I thought that meant that if you made reservations to see the movie before you got a chance to read the paper, it was still OK to go) to B(“Morally Objectionable in part for Everyone”) to C (“Condemned”) It was never clear to me why there was a distinction between B and C. If it was Morally Objectionable In Part, could you still go see it? Did you have to cover your eyes during the Bad Parts? If you couldn’t go see it, why not just lump these films in with Condemned? As the authors of the book _Growing up Catholic_ pointed out, people paid attention to these ratings. A daring thing to do was to go see the Condemned movie **Carnal Knowledge**. I eventually just got annoyed with a bunch of bishops ruling on what I could or could not see, making assumptions about my moral stature and adulthood, and just saw them anyway. Although there are still some Condemned films (like _Anatomy of a Murder_) that I still haven’t seen. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/15 "2020-04-21T13:47:54Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > When I was a kid we used to get a weekly Catholic newspaper, _The Monitor_, which listed the current movies by rating. They went from A-1 (“Morally unobjectionable for anyone”) through A-2 (“Morally unobjectionable for adults and adolescents”) through A-3 (Morally unobjectionable for adults") and A-4 (“Morally unoibjectionable folr adults, with reservbations” as a kid, I thought that meant that if you made reservations to see the movie before you got a chance to read the paper, it was still OK to go) to B(“Morally Objectionable in part for Everyone”) to C (“Condemned”) > > It was never clear to me why there was a distinction between B and C. If it was Morally Objectionable In Part, could you still go see it? Did you have to cover your eyes during the Bad Parts? If you couldn’t go see it, why not just lump these films in with Condemned? > > As the authors of the book _Growing up Catholic_ pointed out, people paid attention to these ratings. A daring thing to do was to go see the Condemned movie **Carnal Knowledge**. > > I eventually just got annoyed with a bunch of bishops ruling on what I could or could not see, making assumptions about my moral stature and adulthood, and just saw them anyway. Although there are still some Condemned films (like _Anatomy of a Murder_) that I still haven’t seen. I remember Parents Magazine used to list current films and the amount of nudity/violence/cursing in them. It was my guide for which movies to sneak into at the mall (that were rated R). ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/16 "2020-04-21T15:06:12Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > There’s nothing indicating that those are the “most” morally bankrupt movies. It’s just a poll that some random user named **urbanemovies** put up. So he’d got the hard on for Clint’s westerns, not the Catholic church. And a public poll is going to favor movies that are well-known. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/17 "2020-04-21T15:52:22Z")
Yet another useless list that is there only to stir up people. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/18 "2020-04-21T16:01:56Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > …Curious why Spartacus is on that list. The homosexual innuendo directed by Laurence Olivier toward Tony Curtis? “…some people enjoy both snails AND oysters…” ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2020, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/19 "2020-04-23T15:56:45Z")
Wikipedia, of course, has a list of films condemned by the Legion of Decency: [List of films condemned by the Legion of Decency - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_condemned_by_the_Legion_of_Decency) _Dirty Harry_ is still not on that list–1971 saw _Billy Jack_ and _Clockwork Orange_ condemned, but not _Dirty Harry_. \*Spartacus \*apparently had some lines of dialog edited out to avoid a condemnation. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2020, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253/20 "2020-04-23T16:00:36Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada](#): > > Wikipedia, of course, has a list of films condemned by the Legion of Decency: [List of films condemned by the Legion of Decency - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_condemned_by_the_Legion_of_Decency) > > _Dirty Harry_ is still not on that list–1971 saw _Billy Jack_ and _Clockwork Orange_ condemned, but not _Dirty Harry_. \*Spartacus \*apparently had some lines of dialog edited out to avoid a condemnation. It’s just a wikipedia list, and I’m by no means convinced it’s anywhere near complete. It’s a long time ago, but I distinctly remember in the 70s our Catholic church bulletin had a list of movies in the theater and their Legion of Doom rating. There were newly condemned movies nearly every week. ETA: Some popular 1976 movies not on the wikipedia list that I’m sure would have been condemned. A Star is Born Silver Streak Bloodsucking Freaks Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-morally-bankrupt-films-according-to-the-catholic-legion-of-decency/852253.md?page=2)