At Trader Vic’s, Marshall had just launched into another story when he suddenly stopped. He stared at his watch a moment. It was about 1:50.

“My God, I almost forgot,” he said in a stricken tone. “It’s movie day, we have to get back.”

Movie day was the humorous highpoint of most terms. Year after year, several of the Justices and most of the clerks went either into a basement storeroom or to one of the larger conference rooms to watch feature films that were exhibits in obscenity cases that had been appealed to the Court.

. . .

But the others sat on folding chairs with their clerks, watching such films as I Am Curious (Yellow) projected onto a white wall. During his later years, Harlan watched the films from the first row, a few feet from the screen, able only to make out the general outlines. His clerk or another Justice would describe the action. “By Jove,” Harlan would exclaim. “Extraordinary.”

Clerks frequently mocked Stewart’s approach to obscenity, calling out in the darkened room: “That’s it, that’s it, I know it when I see it.”

Marshall’s quips were the best. The previous term, a pornographic movie had used the familiar ruse of posing as an educational film. The actor playing a psychologist had concluded by stating, “And so our nymphomaniac subject was never cured.” Marshall retorted, “Yeah, but I am.”

Now the lights were about to go off as Marshall and White’s clerks plunged through the door to see Vixen, a “soft-core” feature with nudity but no explicit intercourse.

The last thirteen minutes consisted of an attempted hijacking of the plane carrying the female protagonist by an Irish Communist bound for Cuba. He gave a talk on the comparative merits of Communist and Western societies. “Ah, the redeeming social value,” Marshall said.

The clerks were disappointed that the movie was such soft-core.

Powell left after the first film.

The second movie was Sexual Freedom in Denmark, a feature documentary that had been released two years before. A very serious commentator explained the harmful effects of liberal Danish sexual attitudes, and showed a photograph of a penis in the last stages of syphilis. The dull narrative was punctuated by drawings of sexual and reproductive functions in color.

Blackmun sat stone-faced, ignoring the banter from Marshall and the clerks. Marshall turned to him when the lights came on as the projectionist changed reels. “Well, Harry, I didn’t learn anything, how about you?”

Blushing, Blackmun joined the rest of the room in a hearty laugh.

The second reel had the first hard-breathing segment as two women made love. Then the film returned to its clinical, documentary style. Blackmun found it distasteful. The film’s tone, if not its content, degraded women. That alone was enough to predispose him against all pornography.

Back in chambers, Powell’s clerks remarked to him that Vixen had been disappointing. Two clerks confessed that they had seen all the movies of the director Russ Meyer—the master of sexexploitation films. Yale Law School had even presented a Russ Meyer festival.

Powell’s gaunt face was expressionless. He had never before seen such a film, he explained slowly. He had had no idea such movies were even made. He was shocked and disgusted. He did not wish to discuss it further.

Powell’s clerks were amazed. There could not have been a milder movie for him to have seen. There had been nothing more than nudity, and facial and bodily expressions that suggested orgasm.