In 1927 Tod Browning made a silent movie called London After Midnight, starring Lon Chaney Sr. as an evil character returned from the dead as a predatory monster. The film, considered a horror classic, no longer exists. The last known copy was destroyed in an accidental fire in 1967. If you happen to have a copy, you could sell it for a fortune.
In 1928 a man on trial for murder offered as his defense the claim that Chaney’s performance in London After Midnight made him temporarily insane and drove him to kill someone. The jury didn’t buy it.
So, okay, one movie did not drive one individual to commit murder.
But what about a colossal, endless flood of sleazy and unwholesome movies, TV shows, novels, comic books, video games, political speeches, and public education? Could such a deluge of filth, going on without interruption for 70 or 80 years, tear a big chunk of Western society loose from its moral moorings? Or can we just wallow in this muck forever without being in the slightest bit affected by it?
Just asking…
Thanks for your bit of cinema history-most Lon Chaney Sr. movies are indeed classics. I am aware of this one you mentioned, but not that it drove anyone to become a killer and claim insanity as a defense.
The reason so many of us are not influenced negatively by these movies is that evil was played as evil. Good somehow always triumphed. You know, like white hat cowboys being heroes and black hats being evil and not good.
Today’s films in general do spew filth and vomit and get worse by the minute.
Like I said… just asking.