Cinema: Censor's Censor

Italy's prizewinning The Bicycle Thief (TIME, Dec. 12), one of the screen's most widely acclaimed films, has been called honest, moving and classic. It remained for sharp-eyed Hollywood Censor Joseph Breen, who administers the industry's production code, to call it indecent and unacceptable for the bulk of U.S. moviegoers. Last week the picture's sponsors were fighting Breen's edict that the movie must be cut before it can go from the art theaters into most U.S. cinemansions.

Breen demanded two cuts: 1) the shot of the little boy "about to make his toilet against the wall" and 2) all the interior shots...

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