Fanfare Films, Inc. v. Motion Picture Censor Board of Maryland

¹² Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Fanfare Films, Inc., was ordered by the Maryland State Board of Censors of motion pictures (the Board) to delete from the film entitled “Have Figure — Will Travel” certain scenes showing girls unclothed while cruising on a boat. It took an appeal to the Baltimore City Court, which affirmed the order of the Board. In its appeal to this Court, Fanfare argues that the Maryland censorship act, Code (1957), Art. 66A, violates the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (as made binding on the State by the Fourteenth Amendment) and Article 40 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, and that the scenes ordered cut from the picture are not obscene, as the Board found. “Have Figure — Will Travel” is in form a travelogue portraying the story of three girls, two of whom are confirmed nudists, who take a vacation cruise through the inland waterways from upper New York to Florida on a cabin cruiser belonging to the father of one of the girls.

Scenes are shown during stops at New York City and Charleston and at nudist camps in New Jersey and Florida. The third girl becomes a convert to nudism as the trip — and the film — progresses. The Board passed the scenes in the nudist camps, in which there were both unclothed men and women, but it disapproved the scenes of the girls on the boat, unclothed above the waist. It is conceded that no sexual activity or awareness was presented and that while on the boat the girls were seen unclothed only by each other.

The Chairman of the Board said that the photography was very good, the dialogue was unobjectionable, and the picture had artistic value. The Board took the position that if the picture contained only scenes of nudity within the nudist camps it would have been licensed without deletions, but that while nudity in the camps was not obscene, it was on the boat because in that locale it was not a normal way of life, normal people would not so comport themselves and there was no reason for its