Corporate DS/UK/223 Joseph Burstyn; 1900-1953; Film distributor Joseph Burstyn 1900-1953 Film distributor

1900-1953. Defunct. U.S. film distributor who specialized in the commercial release of foreign-language and American independent film productions. Born in Poland, he arrived in the U.S. in 1921 and initially worked as a public relations representative for the Yiddish theater circuit in New York City before becoming active in film distribution in the early 1940s. His most famous releases included the Roberto Rosselini classics Rome, Open City (1945) and Paisà (1946), the Academy Award-nominated Little Fugitive (1953), and Fear and Desire (1953), the first feature film directed by Stanley Kubrick. From 1951 to 1953, Burstyn was at the center of Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495 (1952)[1], which resulted in a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court which largely marked the decline of motion picture censorship in the United States.[2] It determined that certain provisions of the New York Education Law allowing a censor to forbid the commercial showing of any non-licensed motion picture film, or revoke or deny the license of a film deemed to be "sacrilegious," was a "restraint on freedom of speech" and thereby a violation of the First Amendment; in this case, the film in question was "The Miracle", directed by Roberto Rossellini, an Italian short film that was part of the anthology film Ways of Love (1950). Burstyn died in 1953 of a coronary thrombosis during a trans-Atlantic flight International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families - ISAAR(CPF) 2nd edition - ICA 2004 ISBN 2-9521932-2-3 National Council on Archives, Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997 Yes Kstuckey 24/02/2009 Kstuckey 27/03/2009 ac1276f8-ce81-45de-a98d-6d1c8ef6c8e4