Defense Against Dirt

"They call us the dirty-movie ladies," says Mrs. Margery Shriver. "They don't realize," adds Mrs. Mary Avara, "the headaches we get from watching this stuff." "Can you imagine," asks Mrs. Rosalyn Shecter, "kids at drive-ins getting to see stuff like this? They do elsewhere, you know."

The "stuff" is flesh flicks, and the three middleaged, middle-class mothers constitute Maryland's defense against them. The last state to censor motion pictures in advance of distribution, Maryland pays the members of its Board of Motion Picture Censors between $4,000 and $4,500 a year each. In fiscal 1969, the trio previewed 687 movies, censored objectionable portions from 14, and rejected 59 outright. Half of those rejected were 8-mm. porno productions made on a shoestring, which is more than most of the performers wore. None of the disapproved films was produced by members of the Motion Picture Association of America, which voluntarily rate their movies for their suitability for different audiences. To look at the issue through the censors' eyes, TIME Correspondent Art White spent a day with the ladies in the Baltimore State Office Building theater. His report:

Electrodes. "O.K., let's go," says Mrs. Shriver, 44. The first film of the day is a Japanese import, The Daydream, a collage of sensual sounds and sadomasochistic fury. On the screen, a man hangs a girl from the ceiling by ropes, then cuts off her clothing with a knife. "I'm either out of touch with Oriental culture," says Mrs. Shriver, wife of an oil-company executive, "or there's something here that escapes me." In another scene, the man strokes the girl's private parts. Both are naked except for masks. "I can't tell what they're doing," says Mrs. Shriver. "Don't ask," replies Mrs. Avara, 60, a widow who has been on the board since 1960.

Electrodes are placed on the girl's breasts. "This is going to be shocking," cracks Mrs. Shriver. The film grinds to a finale in which the hero stabs the nude girl. "We're turning the whole picture down," says Mrs. Avara. "They insult us by submitting stuff like this." Among the films banned last year was I Am Curious (Yellow), the Swedish import found by federal district courts to possess sufficient "redeeming social value" to qualify for constitutional protection.*

Italian Shoes. The projector again whirls, and the women settle back behind their desks to watch Decameron 69. They see two figures squirming on a bed; he removes her sweater, she fondles his fly. "Mark that," Mrs. Shriver shouts to the technician; the scene will be deleted. "Look at his testicles showing there," she calls later. "Mark that." As the film grinds on, the women exchange comments. "I can't tell which country this is because there's no dialogue," complains Mrs. Shriver. "They look like Italian shoes," says Mrs. Shecter, 55, wife of a Baltimore advertising executive.

Watching as a girl is stripped by a male partner (he wearing gloves). Mrs. Shecter observes: "Some of the girls have wonderful undergarments, wonderful bras." Adds Mrs. Shriver: "When I first started seeing these films, they looked like they were made by underwear salesmen."

Susan Saved. At this point, the soundtrack voice interrupts: "As a prostitute, Samantha Jane makes 20 times as much as she'd make as a secretary." The scene shows a young man and a big-bosomed brunette in what appears to be a motel room. Says the brunette: "I need it all the time now." Says Mrs. Shriver: "You make a film like this for a couple of thousand dollars and gross ten or twenty times as much. All you need is a bed, a photographer, and a man and a woman."

As lunchtime approaches and the ladies watch a man mutilate another man with a knife, the board's pretty administrative assistant enters the screening room. "Don't look, Susan," Mrs. Shriver warns, and Susan rushes out. The women send out for sandwiches and coffee, then sit grimly munching in the dark, eyes on the screen.

By now, the cinematic activities have begun to exhibit a staggering sameness, and the joking becomes more strained. Two lesbians perform for the camera, and Mrs. Avara wonders aloud "what's going through their minds." Whatever it is, there is little likelihood that other Marylanders will get a chance to guess. The dirty-movie ladies rejected the film.

-* The film's American distributor is challenging Maryland's ban in the U.S. Supreme Court, which has also been asked to rule on the constitutionality of the Maryland board.

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