How Close To The Edge Could A Showman Go?

Compulsion To Sell Vs. Local Proprieties

Have written about Compulsion before, and delved some into ad art which supported the theatrical release in 1959. Compulsion has  since been more visible thanks to Blu-Ray availability from Kino Lorber. Promotion at left is typical of how selling for the film was customized to meet local needs and standards. A between-the-eyes tag line proposed by Fox marketers was "You know why we did it? Because we damn well felt like doing it." This was calculated challenge to staid advertising used up to then. Local showmen had to decide for themselves whether to gamble with it, based on  individual circumstance and newspaper policy re profanity in ads. In this instance, "darn well" has been substituted for "damn well," which of course, saps shock value altogether and makes for tepid copy. Also note the title change from Compulsion to Compulsion To Kill, as if maybe readers wouldn't fully understand the meaning of the word compulsion by itself. Left intact is art of a young woman beneath a darkened figure clearly intent on rape, this the dominant image in most advertising for Compulsion. Murder was OK enough for a sales pitch, but Charlie Chan could solve those; rape, however, was an outrage that could be more explicitly addressed now that the Production Code was weakening. Peyton Place had used the situation to considerable benefit for Fox the year before, so they'd sell Compulsion to tried-and-proven blueprint. Theatres were left to juggle balls of exploitation while avoiding local censure, this ad an effective sampling of chances they'd take, or wouldn't.