Here Is Where: Discovering America's Great Forgotten History

by Andrew Carroll

As Chief Justice Warren predicted, Jacobellis prompted a surge in the number of movies the Court had to review, and adult movie day became a regular event. The films were shown in a large ceremonial room on the first floor. Justice Thurgood Marshall relished the screenings and particularly enjoyed when directors made gratuitous attempts to bestow an element of educational or artistic merit on their otherwise lurid movies. Near the end of a soft-core film called Vixen, one of the female leads is caught up in an attempted hijacking to Cuba, allowing another character to wax philosophical about the differences between communism and democracy. “Ah, the redeeming social value,” Marshall joked. He also took pleasure in needling his fellow justices. After watching a graphic documentary about the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases, Marshall looked over at a visibly mortified Justice Harry Blackmun and deadpanned, “Well, Harry, I didn’t learn anything, how about you?”