The Lovers

For a brief moment, in November 1959, Cleveland Heights served as the focal point in a national debate about a community's ability to prescribe standards on obscenity. Louis Malle, just 25, had directed a scandalous French film about marital infidelity (starring Jeanne Moreau) that had already caused trouble in Europe for its graphic sex scenes. Now the controversy was coming to Cleveland's Heights Art Theater and its manager, Nico Jacobellis. Publicity for the film aroused the attention of Cleveland Heights Police Chief Edward Gaffney, who suspected it might violate state obscenity laws. His deputies attended the first screening and determined the film was obscene. As the second screening of that evening began, Cleveland Heights police raided the theater, seized the film, and arrested Jacobellis. Within days he was indicted by a Cuyahoga County grand jury and charged with violating state obscenity laws. The case went to the Supreme Court, where Justice Potter Stewart acknowledged that “hard core pornography” could be prohibited by law, but ended by famously concluding, “I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” Exercise your constitutional rights and see what the fuss was all about. (In French with English subtitles) – B.B.