That all changed Sunday night, when the movie from first-time feature director Garth Davis caused a theater packed with jaded industry types to break into full-blown sobs.
Although often misquoted as "free speech doesn't give you the right to shout 'fire!' in a crowded theater," the actual quote is: "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater, and causing a panic" (I guess the theaters were less crowded back then).
"The most stringent protection of free speech," Justice Holmes wrote, "would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic".
As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic".
And: "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic".
Borrowing (without attribution) an analogy used by the prosecutor in his closing argument, Holmes invoked the following argument-stopper: "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic".
"The most stringent protection of free speech," he observed, "would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic".
As Oliver Wendell Holmes so famously quoted (and was so often misquoted) in Schenck vs. United States in 1919, "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic" (italics added).
"The most stringent protection," he wrote on behalf of a unanimous court, "would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic". Holmes' test — that words are not protected if their nature and circumstances create a "clear and present danger" of harm — has since been tightened.
Because while it is indeed a generality that everyone can agree with (if you cause a panic in a theater and people are injured or killed, that's a bad thing and even "free speech" doesn't protect you), the specific case it came out of is not an easy lesson for children to learn.
