Henry Herx

Who was Henry Herx?

Henry Herx was an American film critic who specialized in creating brief capsule reviews intended for Roman Catholic moviegoers. During his 35-year career, Herx reviewed thousands of films for the Media Review Office of the Catholic News Service.

Herx was born in Chicago on June 29, 1933, and graduated from Loyola University Chicago, where he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in history. In contrast to the National Legion of Decency's model of "the purification of the cinema" in which films deemed to be offensive to Roman Catholics were listed so that they could be avoided, Herx began his film reviewing effort on 1962 together with Rev. Ronald Holloway, when they created the Chicago Center for Film Study as a way to look at films from a perspective that engaged cinema. Herx worked for the Catholic News Service's Media Review Office, which is a successor to the National Legion of Decency and then the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures, and would become the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office for Film and Broadcasting after Herx retired.