... and how it was unleashed on comic actor Roscoe Arbuckle and ushered in an era of self censorship into Hollywood.
The first half of the episode is concerned with the Roscoe Arbuckle case involving his alleged rape of actress Virginia Rappe that was supposedly so violent that it culminated in her death due to a ruptured bladder days later. This allegedly happened during a Labor Day weekend party being held at a San Francisco hotel by Arbuckle and two of his friends. It was the original "bonfire of the vanities" in which the press printed big headlines about Arbuckle's alleged debauchery, the local district attorney saw a chance to make a name for himself by bringing down such a big star, and then there was "the crowd", just as dangerous and easily swayed as it always has been. Arbuckle went through three trials before he was ultimately acquitted with even an unprecedented apology being issued by the jury to Arbuckle.
By the time this happened, though, nobody was paying attention anymore, and the land was calling for Hollywood to clean itself up or shut down. The industry was not so entrenched that this could not have happened at this point either. The studio execs called on postmaster general Will Hays to be the industry censor, and he managed to convince all of the local and state censorship boards that Hollywood would police itself. But first, there had to be a sacrificial lamb, and that was Arbuckle, who at the peak of his career was ousted from motion pictures despite the acquittal which nobody remembered anyways.
The rest of the episode is about how Hollywood continued to broach taboo subjects and even have licentious scenes by showing an orgy, such as in De Mille's Ten Commandments, but then saying "BUT THAT WAS WRONG!". There were other taboos such as not showing women drinking, holding kisses to three seconds, etc. But the censorship would not become severe until the sound era starting in 1934 with the Joe Breen era which would usher a naive viewpoint of life into the movies that would last through the 1950s and not die out completely until the mid 1960s. But that's another story.
I'd recommend this one, but do realize that some of the statements made about Virginia Rappe and about Arbuckle are now known to be wrong. I would point the interested viewer in the direction of the book "Room 1219", which has its problems too, but is a more complete picture of what happened.
