The Golden Age of America As Created in Hays Code Era Movies
The Apartment (1960), via IMDb
Abstract
Hollywood’s self-imposed Motion Picture Production Code of 1934 influenced every aspect of filmmaking through the 1960s, and its effects are still felt in today’s filmmaking and American society. The Code aimed to make all movies appropriate for all audiences, in accordance with conservative Christian leanings in the early 20th century and media theory of the era that suggested all media affects all audiences uniformly. It also came at a time when Hollywood was flush with scandals, and the Code was designed to appease audiences and bring in more money. The Code weakened as time went on, eventually being replaced by the MPAA ratings system in 1968, but its sensibilities and storytelling tricks live on in movies and a greater American social consciousness. Hollywood’s Golden Age is viewed by many as America’s “golden age,” a more moral and innocent era that lives only in nostalgic mythology that was born on the silver screen.
Keywords: movies, censorship, nostalgia.
The Golden Age of Hays
The glitz and glamor of Hollywood’s Golden Age was as mystical as the moving myths playing out on the silver screen. The era of Classical Hollywood spanned from the 1910s through the 1960s, but really took hold after the introduction of sound into major motion pictures with 1927’s The Jazz Singer revolutionizing the medium (Heckmann, 2021). Throughout the 1930s through 1960s, the stars’ names we still recognize today were key box office draws, including Cary Grant, James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Clark Gable, Katharine Hepburn and more. These stars were all part of the Hollywood studio system, wherein the major studios controlled every aspect of movies, from script to stars to production to distribution to exhibition. The Golden Age of Hollywood was also governed by the Motion Picture Production Code, an act of self-censorship on behalf of the studios to avoid regulation amid growing concern over the morality of the movie business and the movies themselves (Perez, 2015). The Code and its governing board determined exactly what was and was not allowed to be shown on screen, with particular focus on sex and crime, but above all on morality, decency and sin (Fillol, 2019).
The Code dictated the content of the Classical Hollywood films that are revered today, which some viewers liken to a simpler, more moral and just time in American society. There were bad guys, but they didn’t win. There was violence, but it wasn’t gory. There was sex, but it wasn’t on-screen. Plots of crime and romance were all the rage, just as they are today, but they were somehow more wholesome, signaling to some that there is a more wholesome past we could find our way back to. However, these were not symptoms of a fairer age, but mandates of the Code, which limited all these things, or a film would never see the light of day. Scripts were thrown in the trash before they hit a soundstage, and independent films were few and far between until the 1950s and 60s, largely because until a major Supreme Court case, the studios owned the means of production as well as distribution, with each studio owning most of the movie theaters in the country. Movies made between the 1890s and the early 1930s included blood, nudity and “immorality.” These Pre-Code movies reflected many things we take for granted, or perhaps despise, in films from the 1960s and on.
Despite this, there is a nostalgia for a bygone era, whether or not that era was accurate to the historical era. Nostalgia is described by theorist and playwright Svetlana Boym as “longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed” (2001, pp. xiii). I propose that the Motion Picture Production Code continues to influence our vision of the America that existed during the Golden Age of Hollywood, but which was never accurately represented in films of the era. This continues to impact our relationship with movies, history and censorship today. My goal is to provide a framework through which to view the films and American society of the Code era and offer a critical look at censorship moving forward. I guided my research by asking (1) how the Motion Picture Production Code continues to influence our perception of early-to mid-20th century America, and (2) how the Code continues to impact our relationship with movies, censorship and media literacy today.
The movie industry is still changing as rapidly as ever, with new pressures from the public amid social media fandom, the pivot to streaming and on-demand, heightened competition from television, lower box office sales, and questioning again of the ethics of the Hollywood movie industry. I believe it is useful to look at these current issues by beginning with Hollywood’s first reckoning, which began about a century ago, in the 1920s, because it is the industry’s self-imposed production code that shows us where today’s issues may lead. More importantly for this original analysis is focusing on the intricacies of the Code. This focus is because most of the world’s defining films, the films created during the Classical Hollywood Era, the films that created the language of cinema, the language we all can speak and experience across time and cultures, were created under the guidance of the Code. It was created to help Hollywood draw attention away from its scandals behind the scenes and liberal politics on screen, in order to make more money and avoid the costly headache of local, state and federal regulation. However, it was not common knowledge then nor is it now that the Code is the reason movies were more “moral” and appropriate for all audiences during the 1930s through 1960s. Instead, a mystical American golden age has been conjured out of the ashes of Hollywood’s Golden Age, which portrayed a more innocent United States that was largely palatable to the Christian nation. This misunderstanding of the truth of our history, on and off screen, is something I plan to address with my research.
Content Analyzed
The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the connection between Hollywood films made under the Hays Code and modern American nostalgia for the first half of the 20th century. To answer my research questions, I relied on a combination of historical sources and documents and more recent databases and books detailing the distinctive processes by which the Code was formed and how it influenced Hollywood movie making for decades. In addition, I conducted interviews with media scholars and industry professionals. The research also included watching a number of films spanning from the mid 1910s to the 1970s.
This began with a deep dive into the text of the Code in its most widely available and prominent form, The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930, which was not enforced until 1934 by the Production Code Administration (Doherty, 1999). The Code builds on the previously released “Don’ts and Be Carefuls” and offers deep insight into not only how cinema was monitored and self-censored at the time, but also how mainstream theory viewed media and its publics at the time. This is best encapsulated by the popularity of the hypodermic needle or magic bullet media theory at the time, which assumed that all audiences experienced all media in the same way and that it led directly to action. It was with this understanding that I proceeded to continue parsing through historical newspaper articles, proposed codes, court cases and retrospective analyses.
I also dedicated a significant portion of my research to actually sitting down and watching as many Hays Code movies as I could get my hands on to analyze them and to portray them as accurately as possible, whether the reader has seen the films or not. I took notes during and after watching, learning about the filmmaking process when possible, and noting how the Code cropped up, how filmmakers worked around it and how it changed as the years went on. The Hays Code was a live document and the Production Code Administration was a living, breathing body that oversaw Hollywood studios for decades.
In order to better understand the gravity of the Code’s impact, I also studied films from before the Code as it stood in 1930 was created or implemented. This included going back to early silent pictures from the 1910s and 1920s as well as the Pre-Code talking pictures that existed in their risque, bold and newly vocal medium only briefly, from roughly 1927 to early 1934, before the Code took full effect. The films created toward the end of the Code’s dominance and immediately following were also of interest to compare the start differences, but also to track the natural progression from relatively clean to having relatively no on-screen limits. International films made during this time period were also interesting and, to me, necessary to help create a fuller view of the movie industry and through it, the world. There is little focus on these films because it is outside the scope of this paper, but points of comparison will be offered when appropriate.
Literature Review
The development, enforcement and evolution of the Motion Picture Production Code has been studied extensively by film and media scholars and enthusiasts, including a handful of people I was lucky enough to interview.
One of the major pillars of the code, outside of its strict moralizing of movies, was its business savvy. The Code was not a written law, which it is frequently mistaken for, but a self-imposed and enforceable code of conduct that leveled the playing field in a lot of ways. It kept the costs of constant editing by state and local censors to a minimum and made the “least objectionable product” possible, according to media scholar and professor at Syracuse University, Dr. Robert Thompson.
The Code itself was also a major point of study and reference, in its various iterations and forms before and after 1934. It focused a lot on enforcing the norms and morals of the time, and particularly the hard lines that should be drawn between “good” and “evil,” “right” and “wrong,” “moral” and “immoral.”
A content analysis of the religious fervor brewing in the early 20th century leading up to the implementation of the Code found that without the standardization of the Code, things would have only gotten more hectic and costly, as outlined in an American Quarterly journal article, “Hollywood, Main Street, and the Church: Trying to Censor the Movies Before the Production Code” (Couvares, 1992). This was also substantiated by research in the book Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema; 1930–1934, in which the social, political, religious and economic factors leading up to the Code’s implementation are meticulously catalogued and contextualized (Doherty, 1999).
An interview with early American media scholar and Columbia University professor Dr. Robert King also led to insights into how the Code influenced filmmaking conventions and tricks that are still seen in modern storytelling, their origins in early films and how these even impact today’s ratings system, though in different and subtle ways. He also brought my attention to exploitation films of the era and helped narrow my focus on nostalgia that was almost built into early Hollywood and especially the Code through its moralizing worldview.
Reading Svetlana Boym’s book The Future of Nostalgia taught me a great deal about the use of nostalgia as a personal and even societal tool, for good, bad or gray purposes. It helped me identify a framework through which to view the nostalgia embedded in American culture and American movies, through understanding that nostalgia does not necessarily have a place in time but a feeling in time, especially in more uncertain times.
Analyzing movies was also a key part of this project. All of the films discussed in this paper are listed in Appendix A, including The Philadelphia Story (1940), Citizen Kane (1941), Casablanca (1942), Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), The Apartment (1960), and many more. This allowed me to also identify landmark filmmakers who made the Code work in their favor as often as possible, or changed it altogether, including Billy Wilder and Otto Preminger.
Findings
While media theory today shows that perception and action drawn from media, if any, is not equal amongst audience members, there is little doubt that media has an effect on the world. The world informs media, and media informs the world, and back again in a feedback loop that helps define our shared reality. Because few people were aware of the Code at the time, let alone today when many of these Golden Age films are known more as a shared collective memory and presence in the media rather than a firsthand experience, there is a gap between the perception of these movies even as we are watching them and the reality under which these films were created. My research shows that it is not the Code itself that was inherently bad, because it served a monetary and, at the time, moral purpose that allowed this burgeoning industry to proliferate worldwide consciousness. It is the lack of understanding of the Code and how it functioned and influenced the foundations of filmmaking that we take for granted today.
Many American storytelling conventions that are repeated and taken as canon today originated during the Classical Hollywood Era, which thrived under the Hays Code. Some of these conventions, such as allusions to passionate kisses that are quickly faded to black, romance movies ending in a marriage, or the law taking down the bad guy, were requirements of the Code, to not show too much lust, to not glorify unions outside of marriage, and to show that evil doesn’t win, respectively. The Code continues to influence filmmaking today, though in much more subtle ways, and it gave way to the MPAA (now MPA) ratings system we have today. Finally, this lack of understanding fosters a nostalgia for a past that didn’t exist except on the carefully coded silver screen.
Pre-Code Hollywood and the Creation of the Motion Picture Production Code
By the beginning of the Roaring Twenties, the studio system had already formed and began consolidating the means of production, doing everything in-house, from pre-production to distribution in the movie theaters that the studios largely owned in major markets (Kolker, 2014). The “Big Five” major studios—consisting of Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer (MGM), Paramount Pictures Inc., Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) Pictures, Twentieth Century-Fox, and Warner Bros. Pictures—dominated the movie industry and by extension, American popular culture. The movies were a major part of the public consciousness shortly after their introduction to the masses in the early 1910s and had an even larger presence in the 1920s at the peak of the Silent Era. However, this section will focus on the 1920s and the transition to sound in cinema due to its immediate relevance to the Motion Picture Production Code. Pre-Code Hollywood is classified as the brief time period between the incorporation of sound into most motion pictures by 1929 and the establishment of the Production Code Administration in 1934, as led by Joseph I. Breen (Mintz et al., 2016, p. 120). The MPPC was implemented in the early 1930s, but attempts to de-scandalize Hollywood were made throughout the previous decade, to little success.
America was in a transitional period during the 1920s, beginning with the end of the first World War and ending with the Great Depression. Many Americans were enjoying the excesses of the Jazz Age, with more money to go around and the new, improved and inexpensive automobile that made the world bigger and easier to access than ever. It was a period of rebelling against Victorian values and a step forward for progressive ideals, including the long-fought 19th amendment that earned women the right to vote. At the same time, there was a considerable push toward conservatism that contradicted this. It was also the era of Prohibition, the banning of the sale and production of alcohol, beginning in 1919. Though repealed, Kolker writes that it shaped the gangster-led and crime-heavy films of the 1920s and early 1930s.
The films of this era reflected these conflicting and evolving values, often erring on the side of the spectacular and surprising. Radio was a major competitor with movies, and what better to make the moving pictures to stand apart than to inject them with glamor and gore, delights and desire? Harry Beaumont’s 1928 release Our Dancing Daughters, which featured an opening shot of a bare-breasted woman’s statue, scattered various other risque visuals throughout and grabbed the audience’s attention. The romantic leads in this film are introduced in a suggestive style still prevalent in Hollywood storytelling: “He [John Mack Brown] stares at her [Joan Crawford’s] legs and they exchange glances in what was already an essential part of the Hollywood style—the locking of glances indicating the transfer of emotion” (Kolker, 2014, p. 85).
Women also played a more prominent role, in front of and behind the camera, before the introduction of sound into motion pictures. The roles for women were still often stereotypical, but not without their power and distinctly confident and complex charm (Kiriakou, 2022). These women were complicated, allowed to make messes and mistakes, to embrace their sexuality, though still they did often end up married. But importantly, the women were not perfect, and did not have to be portrayed as such. What’s more, female writers and directors including Alice Guy-Blaché and Lois Weber made an impact on filmmaking forever with their silent movies, and Dorothy Arzner was the sole relatively mainstream female director to survive in the industry during the tumultuous transition to sound (Tang, 2010). There was a distinct change in how women were portrayed before and after the Code as well as the implementation of taking pictures (Gregorie, 2017). Hollywood, and its national and global audience, was forever changed by an innovation that was just around the corner: sound.
Sound was a revelation, and part of what propelled the apparent need for order in Hollywood. Audiences and filmmakers could not get enough of the talking pictures once the momentum got going, but it was not an immediate process. Over two decades of attempts had been mostly expensive and lackluster, a complicated process that had little consistency and was difficult to replicate, according to Kolker. It was largely pioneered and pushed by Warner Bros.
Studios to bring it to wide audiences and make it the new standard for motion pictures. The 1927 Warner release of the musical The Jazz Singer is credited as being one of the first mainstream talking pictures, and the other studios were racing to catch up (Jewell, 2007). Live-sound pictures were here to stay, and continued being pumped out. The next seven years before the implementation of the enforceable MPPC saw many more risque films. This included 1932’s Scarface, a gangster film directed by Howard Hawks, that was rejected by many individual censors for its violence and potential glorification of crime and criminals. The move into “talkies” accelerated the industry’s reaction to an increasingly unhappy religious segment of the population that was making it difficult to efficiently release movies with petitions and protests.
The Long Road to the Motion Picture Production Code
Before the 1930 Code was drafted and implemented in mid-1934, there were a number of attempts to appease the state and city censorship boards that were popping up across the country, especially in light of early Hollywood scandals. Among these headline-grabbing scandals was the murder of actor-director William Desmond Taylor and the alleged rape by actor Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle of fellow star, Virginia Rappe (Doherty, 1999). Additionally, studios were releasing films that were too risque, either due to sex or violence or both, for conservative audiences. Hollywood was getting attention, but not the attention it wanted. Under the 1915 Supreme Court decision Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, the movie industry was to be treated as a business only and did not have First Amendment freedom of speech protection to defend itself. The morals of the motion picture industry were called into question, and at risk of government intervention and in light of continuously losing profits due to having to re-edit each film for each censorship board, Hollywood took matters into its own hands—with some respected help.
In 1922, the studios came together and implemented their own censorship board: The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), which was headed by Presbytarian elder, Postmaster General and former Republican National Committee head William H. Hays. The MPPDA became known as the “Hays Office” and the Motion Picture Production Code called the “Hays Code,” though through the majority of the Code era, the office was led by Breen. Hays set out 13 points for filmmakers to avoid: (1) dealing with sex in an improper manner; (2) were based on white slavery; (3) made vice attractive; (4) exhibiting nakedness; (5) prolonged passionate love scenes; (6) were predominantly concerned with the underworld; (7) made gambling and drunkenness attractive; (8) might instruct the weak in methods of committing crime; (9) ridiculing public officers; (10) offending religious beliefs; (11) emphasizing violence; (12) portraying vulgar postures and gestures; (13) using salacious subtitles or advertising (Kolker, 2014, pp. 45-46). Now, these points were not followed throughout the 1920s or the early 1930s; if anything, movies got more salacious and offensive to some. There was no way to enforce these 13 points, and Hollywood as a whole was still not convinced they needed to give up their exciting storytelling in exchange for safety. However, these are important because they evolved into the 1930 text basis for the MPPC that existed and was enforced for decades. The 13 points were followed by the “Don’ts and Be Carefuls,” which outlined in more detail the things to avoid.
In 1930 came the Motion Picture Production Code, which extensively described its own reasoning and basis. I will quote the 1930 Code as it was published by Doherty, as there is no “definitive” copy of the code (1999). It begins by outlining the general principles upon which the code was built, which included that “theatrical motion pictures...are primarily to be regarded as Entertainment.” However, it is noted that entertainment can be either “helpful or harmful,” that “which tends to improve...or degrade human beings.” Thus, “the moral importance of entertainment is something which has been universally recognized.” It designates a difference between “correct entertainment [which] raises the whole standard of a nation” and “wrong entertainment [which] lowers the whole living condition and moral ideals of a race.” It continues, saying that motion pictures are an important art form, but again, it is important to distinguish between morally good or morally evil art, the latter of which is seen in “unclean art, indecent books, [and] suggestive drama.” It continues to differentiate between good and bad and why it is important that art be good, because the motion picture form has special moral obligations due to the fact that the motion picture is accessible to people of all classes of society, including those “unpenetrated by other forms of art.” Hence, “it is difficult to produce films intended only for certain classes of people.” The Code was seeking to create a universal medium and was creating the myth of a universal audience, which persisted in media theory and in the Code’s enforcement, until its dissolution, in the 1960s.
The Code says that “no picture should lower the moral standards of those who see it,” which is done by making evil appear attractive and good unattractive, and when an audience’s sympathy is improperly thrown on the side of a crime and sin itself. It distinguishes that one can feel sympathy for a sinner, but not for the sin itself, and thus, “evil must not be presented alluringly...[and] evil and good are never confused.” The sympathy with a criminal should never overshadow sympathy with the law, and the courts should not ever be shown as unjust. There is a serious worry about people becoming numb to badness and that is why the distinction between good and evil must never become fogged. This led to Code era films ending with a sinner or criminal punished by arrest, death, defamation, or other clear statement of disapproval.
There were some distinct things to avoid: adultery (especially in comedy); seduction and rape; scenes of passion; sexual immorality (including homosexuality); no decenegration (interracial partnership); making criminals into heroes, even in biographical dramas; no nudity is allowed (semi-nudity is sometimes permitted); no ridiculing any religion; no profanity; and more. It also details the context in which murder, drinking, and sexual instances may occur, which was to dissuade filmmakers from falling into its clutches, but that it may be allowed under certain circumstances. With this in mind, it is time to turn to the films produced under the Code.
The Golden Age of the Hays Code (1934-1948)
Hollywood’s Golden Age is thought to have lasted from the proliferation of sound in mainstream film circa 1928 until the dissolution of the Hollywood studio system in 1948 through the Paramount Decrees. The Hays Code was instituted in 1930, but was enforced beginning July 1, 1934, with the inception of the Production Code Administration, which was led by former public relations man and prominent Catholic layman Joseph I. Breen (Doherty, 1999). Under Breen’s twenty year leadership, the PCA oversaw thousands of projects from conception to reception, and had the power to significantly change or reject projects that did not live up to the standards of the Code.
One of the first films to be censored by Breen’s PCA was Tarzan and His Mate, an early 1934 Pre-Code era movie in spirit that still managed to fall under Breen’s watchful eyes (American Film Institute). It fell into PCA crossfire and much back and forth until finally a brief scene of female nudity was removed from the master negative, but she was still dressed provocatively in a way that would not be permitted by the Code. The same year, Frank Capra’s screwball romantic comedy It Happened One Night was a huge success and won all the Oscars for which it was nominated. It was released just before the PCA came to power, and likely would have been a fairly different movie, as it dances dangerously close to adultery.
An important aspect of the Code is its aspirational goals of imposing Christian morals and American values on society (Doherty, 1999). These specific morals and hallmarks were
more important to the religious framers of the Code than to most people working in the movie business, but nevertheless these were the goalposts set by the MPPC. Many films of this era took place in high society, even when it was used as a backdrop for comedy, satire or crime. The glittering backdrop and adorned outfits are the perfect place for screwball mischief to take place and bring everyone down to earth. For example, My Man Godfrey (1936) sees a wealthy woman run through butlers and behave badly, while the formerly homeless Godfrey triumphs and creates a better life for men like him—after a lot of hijinks. George Cukor’s 1940 romantic comedy film The Philadelphia Story follows a wealthy divorcee (Katharine Hepburn) on the eve of her second wedding, wherein a number of couples and her ex-husband (Cary Grant) get entangled in relationships that eventually lead to what now may be a familiar Hollywood ending: two scrappy exes can’t help but fall back together, and true love conquerors all. There is a similar plot in the breakneck fast His Girl Friday, wherein Cary Grant again plays a meddling ex-husband aiming to get his engaged ex-wife back. In neither film is there explicit adultery, but it is implied.
Filmmakers during the Code-era found meticulous and clever ways to work within the boundaries of the MPPC. There was a trick employed in many Code-era films that has stood the test of time, highlighting that the Code had an impact on storytelling long after the Code itself was defunct. It is what Dr. King called an ‘ellipses.’ He described it as happening when “there was a passionate embrace or kiss, often in a bedroom, and then we cut away for a period of time where two unmarried people are implied to have sex.” This happens in the aforementioned The Philadelphia Story, where two unmarried individuals in other relationships go for a supposedly innocent dip in the pool, but it is gratuitously implied that the two have drunken sex. There is also a famous instance of this in Casablanca, when protagonist Rick (Humphrey Bogart) kisses love interest Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) on a bedroom couch and cuts away before things are implied, but not shown, to get more intimate. “It allowed for plausible deniability in the face of the Code,” Dr. King continued. “It’s a schrodinger’s cat of cinema...they did and they didn’t.”
Infamous business magnate, inventor, pilot, director and sometimes provocateur, Howard Hughes went to bat with the PCA multiple times throughout his film directing and producing career. Perhaps most notable is his long campaign over his 1943 production of western The Outlaw, which was repeatedly denied its seal of approval, largely because the movie heavily featured star Jane Russell’s breasts (fileroom.org). It was released for a week in 1943 and then pulled for Code violations, then was again eventually released wide in 1946 after Hughes secured approval, in part due to Hughes’ intense public campaigning for the movie (Turner Classic Movies). Dr. Thompson noted how this happened throughout the years of the Hays Code’s influence, especially once powerful directors proved it could be done. “There were filmmakers getting around it [the Code] in really clever ways,” he said. “There were content rules but all of that, like so much in Hollywood, was porous and negotiable on some level.” Below is a dramatized and humorous version of the incident as portrayed in Martin Scorsese’s 2004 biographical drama about Hughes’ life, The Aviator, in which Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) appeals to the censorship board by comparing actress's breasts. It plays up the humor of and simplifies the situation, but it portrays some of the absurdity of the rules at the time.
Gone With the Wind (1939), remains the top-grossing film of all time and signaled the ability for filmmakers to fight for their vision if they could convince Breen and the PCA that a MPPC rule was worth bending, such as in its iconic ending line (AFI). A film passing the PCA didn’t necessarily make it up to today’s moral standards, with the film glorifying the racist antebellum south and Confederacy, as Dr. Thompson pointed out, saying:
In completely stripping so much content from the films they stripped some of the good stuff that would've been told, but some of the bad stuff too. It was both a business model and the way they made it was it did allow a massive cultural form, the movies, to have some kind of control over them that most of everything you saw was going to be appropriate for everyone across all ages... If you’ve got to be appropriate for an eight-year-old, you can’t necessarily do something that is going to raise the consciousness of a 30-year-old.
Still, Hollywood only grew in popularity throughout the 1940s, with film noir, screwball comedies, westerns and movie musicals all being major box office draws, especially up through the end of the second World War. Orson Welles’ debut Citizen Kane (1941) is regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, using inventive storytelling and blocking techniques still emulated today to tell the story of the titular Kane, a newspaper magnate who was taken from his mother at a young age and is dealing with that trauma.
Throughout the Pre-Code and Hays Code era, exploitation films went under the radar but were produced cheaply and consistently, according to Dr. King. They were not going to be the most accurate or appropriate representation of marginalized groups, but for years it was virtually the only way to see that these groups existed at all because they were pushed out of Hollywood films by way of the Code or into demeaning roles that were not representative at all. He explained:
These exploitation films, as in the name, were exploitative and sensationalist. But for the 1930s through the 1950s, the showed things that were never going to be shown in PCA-approved Hollywood films, such as drug use, extramarital pregnancy, discussions and decisions about abortion, trans people...we assume due to Hollywood that these things and these people did not exist. They existed, just not in Hollywood movies. (King, 2022)
Even in film noir, which was typically the darkest of the mainstream fare, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. As tortured as a protagonist may be, it was written into the Code that evil must not triumph and the law must not appear unjust (Doherty, 1999). Noir filmmakers were prolific during this time, with movies including John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon (1941), Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and Notorious (1946), and Billy Wilder’s controversial classic Double Indemnity (1944) are among the classics.
The mid 1940s was another major transitional period in American history, with millions of young men returning home and millions more Americans moving out of cities and into the new suburban sprawl (Nicolaides & Wiese, 2017). The country was changing, and the mood was reflected in the films following the end of the war. 1946 was the biggest year in American movie-going history, with a whopping 57% of the population—over 80 million people—heading to theaters weekly (Purtell, 1994). People’s new expendable income and perhaps desire to escape from the anxiety and horrors of war led them into busy theaters every week. The highest-grossing film of the 1940s and Best Picture winner from 1946 was William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives, also called Home Again and Glory For Me, was an epic drama about three U.S. servicemen from various socioeconomic backgrounds from different services and ranks who struggle to readjust to civilian life (Wyler, 1946).
The Breakdown of the Hays Code and Hollywood Studio System (1948-1968)
The power of the Hays Code was intrinsically tied to the power of the Hollywood studio system, and as numerous hits in the form of Supreme Court decisions, increased competition and changing tastes, both the Code and the studios began slowly but surely losing some of their power over the motion picture industry. Motion picture viewership hit an all-time high in 1946, immediately following the second World War, and largely trended downward ever since (Maltby, 2003). Many factors led to this decline, not the least of which being the popularization of televisions in homes across the country. At the same time, there were still glorious innovations and reinventions of the still young medium, including full-color vibrant Technicolor, the astonishing breadth of CinemaScope, and darker, more risque storytelling that could compete with shifting tastes and independent and international competition (LaFrance, 2015).
The Hollywood Antitrust Case of 1948
The 1948 United States v. Paramount Pictures Supreme Court ruling changed the movie business forever. Filed a decade prior in 1938, the U.S. Department of Justice alleged that eight of the largest Hollywood motion picture companies had conspired to control the industry through their monopolistic ownership of film production, distribution and exhibition in their own theaters that allowed them to keep smaller and foreign players out. The original eight defendants were Paramount Pictures, Inc., Twentieth Century-Fox Corporation, Loew’s Incorporated (now MGM), RKO (which was dissolved in 1959), Warner Brothers Pictures, Columbia Pictures Corporation, Universal Corporation, and United Artists Corporation. A district court found the allegations to be substantiated, that the major industry players had engaged in a large conspiracy of illegally price fixing movies and monopolizing the distribution and movie theater exhibition. Though the defendants appealed, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s ruling, though it disagreed with its solution. The lower court decided that allowing the exhibitors to bid competitively would prevent a monopoly or collusion, but the judge who wrote the Supreme Court’s opinion, Associate Justice William O. Douglas, disagreed (Sklar, 2012). It did not get to the root of the issue, which was first-run exhibition in large cities. The “big five” mentioned earlier owned less than twenty percent of theaters nationwide, but the majority of theaters in these major cities.
Each of the defendants then entered into “the Paramount Decrees” with the Justice Department, which mandated a separation between the distribution and exhibition of films. The five defendants that still owned theaters at the time were required to divest either their distribution or theater exhibition operations. The decrees also outlawed various practices that the motion picture industry had been using for decades. One of these practices was block booking, which was bundling multiple films into one theater license. Typically this would include one or two major motion pictures that would draw an audience along with as many as dozens of B- or C-movies that wouldn’t usually fill seats (Department of Justice). Another was circuit dealing, which involved a single license that covered an entire circuit of theaters. Resale price maintenance was also banned, which was setting minimum prices on tickets, as well as granting overboard clearances, or giving exclusive film licenses to specific areas.
These changes led to a massive shift in the motion picture industry, which was already experiencing a steep downward trend in cash flow and attendance following the economic boom during and immediately after World War II. Now Hollywood was beginning to see more competition as its Golden Age monopoly was not only fading but forbidden. Those hit hardest by the downturn in attendance, though, were the independent theaters that had just gained more freedom from the dominance of the studios. Part of this was a result of independent theaters having to raise prices to compete for first-run bids, according to Sklar.
Hollywood was once again exporting its films overseas with the war over, and a few more international pictures were slowly creeping into theaters, especially the independent ones that survived. The assembly line studio movies came to a stop in the late 1940s between the antitrust case that meant not all movies could be forced on theaters, so Hollywood movies generally had to be made of higher quality. They also were not sticking or creating classics the way many films from even a few years prior were, when film noirs, comedies, musicals and westerns were being pumped out and adored throughout the earlier half of the decade. Perhaps it was a change in the postwar air, Sklar suggests, or it was a seeming disconnect between the impeccable Hollywood sets contrasted with the honest landscapes of European cinema, such as in Vittoro De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948) and Ingmar Bergman’s Summer with Monika (1953). Then there were the British films that were pushing boundaries and representing sex and sexuality, including homosexuality, in films such as Basil Dearden’s Victim (1961) and Tony Richardson’s A Taste of Honey (1961), or the form-bending style of the French New Wave, such as in François Roland Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959) or Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960). Now that these more sensational or real-feeling films could not be barred from theaters, there was more competition for Hollywood.
This is not to say there were not still hits among more misses—Billy Wilder’s 1950 Hollywood noir Sunset Boulevard is a particularly interesting and unforgiving film in the context of its release. Its narrator, an up-and-coming screenwriter, tells the story of his life and untimely death after his life became entwined with that of an obsessive Silent Era film starlet who hasn’t made peace with her falling star or talking pictures as a medium. Another 1950 release that analyzes the power struggle between the old and new generation of Hollywood is Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve. In the film, the titular Eve (Anne Baxter) steals the show from her stage actress hero (Bette Davis) after manipulating her. Both films straddle the line between nostalgia and neuroticism, an unreachable past and uncertain future, like that of Hollywood.
As the movies now had to compete with the small screen that was entering everyone’s living rooms at an alarming speed, it was imperative Hollywood innovate and differentiate to pull people out of their homes and into theaters. Full-color Technicolor spread throughout Hollywood, even coloring some traditionally dark and monochrome film noir. Into the early 1950s, CinemaScope and Cinerama were introduced and improved upon, with CinemaScope becoming a still widely accepted and even expected picture size, that created the modern association of movies with wide screen, black bars and a 2:35 aspect ratio (Roggen, 2019).
The Miracle Decision: Movies Win Free Speech Protection
One of the most important rulings in Hollywood history, and thereby Hays Code history, was 1952’s Burstyn v. Wilson, also known as The Miracle Decision. The Supreme Court reversed the 1915 Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, which had denied motion pictures the First Amendment protection of free speech for over 37 years. The earlier decision was argued under the guise of the early twentieth century understanding of media persuasion that posited that representation led to replication and that media had a direct cause and effect and equal impact on all audiences under the theory of propaganda and silver bullet media hypotheses of the time. Thus, the decision read that “there are some things that should not have pictorial representation in public places and to all audiences” and that motion pictures are a business, “originated and conducted for profit” before art or anything else.
The Miracle Decision was the result of New York state censors attempting to ban the second part of Roberto Rossellini’s 1948 anthology film, L’Amore (Mintz et al., 2016). The contested second part, Il miracolo, or The Miracle, was decried as sacrilegious by censors and received a tumultuous 1950 U.S. release, distributed by Joseph Burstyn, amid this controversy. The 1952 “miracle” reversal extended First Amendment protections to movies and allowed filmmakers to challenge the findings of censors in court. The decision empowered filmmakers and was another blow to the slowly but surely weakening power of the Hays Code. It would only become less necessary over the next decade and a half as censors lost some of their power, which was the major reasoning behind the Code’s implementation.
The following year, Otto Preminger’s romantic comedy The Moon is Blue became the first major American film to be released without the Production Code Administration’s seal of approval (AFI). Despite Preminger’s numerous revisions to the script, it was repeatedly rejected by Breen’s office for its “unacceptably light attitude towards seduction, illicit sex, chastity, and virginity.” The film was still distributed by United Artists after renegotiating a contract that had initially required PCA approval, and the risk was rewarded: it was reportedly the fifteenth highest-grossing of 1953 and as such, an enormous shift in power from the PCA to filmmakers (Variety, 1954). Preminger’s 1955 film, The Man with the Golden Arm, starring Frank Sinatra as a drug addict who gets clean in prison and struggles to exist without the drug upon release, was also widely released without the PCA’s seal of approval according to the AFI. Despite its controversial subject matter and various state censorship struggles, the film was lauded a success, with Sinatra garnering a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the 1956 Academy Awards.
There were other 1955 films that pushed the boundaries but not as far as the likes of Preminger. The PCA’s job was to work with filmmakers, and the AFI describes how the Administration worked with filmmaker Charles Laughton on making the controversial The Night of the Hunter worthy of its approval. The film follows a psychopathic man pretending to be a preacher who will stop at nothing to take a large sum of money from two children, and the PCA worked specifically to make it clear he was not a real preacher so as to not offend. Still, audiences were lukewarm at best and outraged at worst, with some religious organizations standing against it and others simply warning against the imagery. The same year, Rebel Without a Cause reached excited teenagers and frightened parents with its beautiful performances and performers, violence and melodrama (Landry, 1955). While released with PCA approval, it had a harder time with general audiences overseas, specifically for its graphic violence, and received harsher ratings and even bannings in some European nations (AFI). Rebel was one of the first mainstream movies to directly appeal to American teenagers, and young adult movies continue to be lucrative.
Swedish director Ingmar Bergman continued bringing international introspection to the screen not once but twice in 1957, first with The Seventh Seal and then Wild Strawberries. The former, which was more acclaimed at the time, particularly in the U.S., chronicles a reckoning of fate and religion in the face of the Black Death, in which a knight challenges Death to a chess match for his life. The latter follows a retired doctor on a journey across Sweden who meets various hitchhikers who make him reflect on his life in a dreamlike film. Sidney Lumet’s intense and exciting courtroom drama 12 Angry Men kept audiences and critics guessing until the end and set a standard for making something that could just as easily be dry keep someone on the edge of their seat by focusing on the argument between jurors with distinctive perspectives, all behind closed doors. Just around the corner, more directors were ready to break down the crumbling barriers of the Motion Picture Production Code.
Some Like It Hays-Free
Billy Wilder’s 1959 classic Some Like It Hot, a comedy about Marilyn Monroe’s character helping two men escape the mob—all while disguised as women in an all-girl band—was another nail in the coffin of the Hays Code. It was racy, it was not Code-approved, and it was a hit. The Code was supposed to “protect” audiences from moral decay, but the audience showed that it didn’t need the office’s stamp of approval to watch a film. Wilder followed this up with The Apartment, about an insurance agent (Jack Lemmon) who passes the key to his bachelor apartment around to upper management to use for illicit affairs in order to quickly move up the corporate ladder. Meanwhile, he is falling in love with his boss’s girlfriend (Shirley MacLaine). The film was partially inspired by David Lean’s 1945 British romance, Brief Encounter, about a moving extramarital affair that never would’ve been approved under the Code as it was during that time, though Wilder’s film was approved in 1960 (O’Connor, 2017). The Apartment was debonair with its innuendo and won Best Picture at the Academy Awards that year.
The turn of the decade continued to be bold. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 cross-country chase classic starring Cary Grant, North by Northwest, is known for a lot of running, a lot of charm and a lot of innuendo. The ending scene was referenced by Dr. Thompson, “They came up with all these hysterical ways to suggest sex. A couple will embrace, and the next shot will be a train going through a tunnel.” Stanley Donen’s 1958 film Indiscreet, reuniting Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman as love interests, features a game of cat and mouse and breaks down the few barriers left in place by the Code. It shows a split screen of each character in their respective beds, talking on the phone—not unlike the one in 1989’s When Harry Met Sally—and the two sides blend together to the point that you can’t tell they are in separate beds.
The sexual and countercultural revolution of the 1960s showed on the silver screen with little able to stop filmmakers from exhibiting their films. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) brought a new wave of psychological horror to the mainstream, as did Michael Powell’s creepy Peeping Tom the same year. The former was even released with the PCA seal of approval, after some cuts were made. A number of films with suggestive subject matter followed that were reluctantly given PCA seals of approval, including the Audrey Hepburn movies The Children’s Hour (1961), which dealt explicitly with unreciprocated lesbian romantic interest, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1963), which was toned down from the Truman Capote novella of the same name, in which Hepburn’s character and her love interest were prostitutes and not just suggestive. The former is a remake of Wyler’s own 1935 film, These Three, both based on the same play, which was inspired by the true story of two school teachers whose lives were destroyed by rumors of a lesbian relationship between the two women (AFI). Wyler’s first adaptation, released when the Code had a much stronger presence, replaced the lesbian implications with a confusing straight love triangle narrative. This adaptation was approved by the updated Code, showing how much it had been liberalized over time. The Code, on its last legs, gave a “Suggested for Mature Audiences” label for the first time in 1966, to Mike Nichols’ debut feature, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Powers, 1966). It was a step forward into a new, Code-free era.
Post-Code Hollywood: MPAA and Beyond
Instead of perpetuating through the Motion Picture Production Code that there was one universal audience, the introduction of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America, shortened in 2019 to MPA) ratings system, effective November 1, 1968, marked a distinct change in movie culture and allowed the audience to take their movie experience into their own hands (Maltby, 2003). The system began with four ratings symbols: “G” for general exhibition, “M” suggested for mature audiences, “R” was restricted to people 16 or older (unless accompanied by an adult), and “X” for no admission to anyone under 16.
There were a few changes to these initial ratings over the years, but the meanings have not fundamentally changed. In 1970, “M” was changed to “GP” for general exhibition with parental guidance, then to “PG” in 1972, which it has stayed as “parental guidance suggested” for fifty years and counting (Perez, 2015). The “PG-13” rating was introduced in 1984 as an intermediary between films aimed at most audiences (“PG”) and those at adult audiences (“R”). The last symbolic change was in 1990, when “NC-17” replaced the “X” rating for “under 17 not admitted,” because of its association with pornography due to its appropriation of the “X” symbol throughout the 1970s through 1990s.
Looking back at the films that were created as the Hays Code faded and after it was retired entirely, it is not surprising that the Code lost its allure when audiences were craving more of everything. Dr. Thompson pointed out the stark difference between the Oscars under the Code and after the Code: “The Academy Award for Best Picture [in 1965] went to a movie about a nun who sings—The Sound of Music. The Code ends, and it immediately goes to Midnight Cowboy [an X-rated film about a male prostitute].” Other stateside films that were released following the implementation of the ratings system included Stanley Kubrick’s still-controversial A Clockwork Orange (1971), Tobe Hooper’s classic horror The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon (1975).
In an interview with a working screenwriter, director, showrunner and producer, David H. Steinberg, he said that while the Code did leave remnants of itself behind in the ratings system. He also noted that the intended rating presents itself early in his process from conceiving a project to pitching it, because the guidelines are written between the lines of the ratings. Dr. King also commented on this and how, like with the MPPC, there are still ways to work around the ratings system. There are exceptions, but the rule is generally one (or occasionally two) F-bombs per PG-13 movie or you’re out of luck and will have to edit your film or accept your R-rating, which boxes out a large portion of the audience that goes to the movies as a family event. It is similar with violence or sex. In the MPA ratings system, one must limit sex and nudity is only allowed briefly and in a nonsexual context, such as the notable instance in Titanic (1997).
However, particularly in the 21st century, there is a workaround with fantasy violence, according to Dr. King, in which characters can inflict much more harm on computer-generated (CG) characters than on other humans through practical effects. He sees this as a loophole that allows superhero movies to be violent but not turn an audience—or the MPA—off of a film, and keeps many action blockbusters and Disney productions in the PG-13, which is considered ideal because it can capture the four quadrants that make up the entire possible audience: females under 25, males under 25, females over 25, and males over 25 (ScreenCraft Staff, 2016). One could make the argument, he says, that PG-13 has become what was once the “general audience” goal under the Hays Code.
The Makings of a Mythical American Golden Age
The art and contributions to society left behind by past generations tell us what kind of people they were, how they lived, how they were similar and different to us. There is an expectation of truth in this long trail of memories and creations. One of the greatest contributions in the last 150 years was the development of motion pictures: for the first time, time could be captured not just in a painting or photograph, but left rolling, and soon could capture the laughter and tears of generations long gone. Movies are an audiovisual medium, with storytelling at its core, and so it is no wonder it is one of the most moving mediums we have access to at this point in time. Boym writes:
By the twenty-first century, the passing ailment [of nostalgia] turned into the incurable modern condition. The twentieth century began with a futuristic utopia and ended with nostalgia. Optimistic belief in the future was discarded like an outmoded spaceship sometime in the 1960s. Nostalgia itself has a utopian dimension, only it is no longer directed toward the future. Sometimes nostalgia is not directed toward the past either, but rather sideways. The nostalgic feels stifled within the conventional confines of time and space. (2001, pp. xiv)
To see a film is to see time frozen and warped. It may even seem like the films from the mid 20th century were from a more pure age that did not have the same issues with crime, adultery, violence and sadness that freely flows on screens in the latter half of the century and into the 21st. Dr. King noted that seeing the meticulously crafted, perfected and pruned films from the Classical Era of Hollywood is to not see the whole picture, because it was purposely kept off screen. “The nature of the Code unfortunately nurtures that kind of nostalgia for Hollywood films as if they stand for a better age, but they don’t,” he said.
We often see what we want to see, and this was made easier because the Code made it difficult to present what many powers that be did not want to be seen or fostered in society at that time. “Nostalgia (from nostos–return home, and algia–longing) is a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed. Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also a romance with one’s own fantasy” (Boym, 2001, pp. xiii-xiv). Through a mix of tumultuous times, church power and influence, conservative backlash, a war-filled start to a century and an economic crash, it is not difficult to sympathize with people who, given the benefit of the doubt, wanted to create a better, more moral country (Doherty, 1999). Because the Code was not publicized, because it was designed to take attention away from the less glamorous inner-workings of Hollywood, it is not common knowledge that these movies were purposely manipulated. This is not an inherently bad thing, but it takes away an enormous amount of context from what was shown on screen, because it was not representative of real life, but of an imagined life, of an American utopia. It is easy to fall into nostalgia for a past we don’t remember well or perhaps never knew at all.
Conclusion
The films created during Hollywood’s Golden Age and simultaneous age of the Hays Code were undoubtedly influential, impacting filmmakers and film-lovers for over a century. We learn a great deal about our world and our place in it through what we see on screen. There were fantastic films made during this most restrictive era in American filmmaking, and it gave way to the ratings system that is employed today. Even if we don’t know about the Hays Code, it is impacting us and our worldview. The conservative leanings and black and white moralizing left a mark on storytelling—on and off-screen—over the past century. The audiovisual communal experience of a movie theater is still unmatched. While movies do not tell us how to act or how to think, as in hypodermic needle media theory, they do suggest what to think about and provide an option of how to think about it. The films from the Code era may feel comfortable, perhaps because we know the “good” guys win, and it’s safe to turn to Turner Classic Movies no matter who is in the room. It is the knowledge of the context in which these films were created that is most crucial to understanding our story-built world and can help us fight a nostalgia for a place that doesn’t exist, and never existed.
Self-Censorship
The MPPC was an act of industry-wide enforceable self-censorship that kept all the major players safe from the threat of regulation or avoidable costs of doing business. There is potential that this could come back, especially by my estimation following the industry over the past several years, in the form of a diversity requirement. This has already begun, though not on an industry-wide scale like the Code—yet. In 2020, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences implemented diversity rules in front of and behind the camera, which will take effect by 2024 (Buchanan, 2021). Two out of four standards below must be met by films in order to be eligible for Best Picture:
One of the following criteria must be met for Standard A: (1) at least one actor from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group must be cast in a significant role; (2) the story must center on women, L.G.T.B.Q. people, a racial or ethnic group or the disabled; or (3) at least 30 percent of the cast must be actors from at least two of those four underrepresented categories. At least two criteria from Standard B must be met: (1) two or more department heads—meaning jobs like director, cinematographer or composer—must be female, L.G.T.B.Q., disabled or part of an underrepresented racial or ethnic group; (2) at least six other crew members must be from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group; and/or (3) at least 30 percent of the film’s crew must hail from the four underrepresented groups continually laid out in these guidelines. At least one of two Standard C criteria must be met: (1) the film’s distributor or financing company must have at least two interns from an underrepresented group; (2) the film’s production, distribution or financing company must offer training or work opportunities to people from those underrepresented groups. Finally, Standard D asks that at least some senior distribution, marketing and publicity executive be from diverse or underrepresented groups.
Now, this is just the Oscars. But in an industry built on hard work, reputation and for many, going for gold, meeting these requirements will help encourage more people to think about their hiring practices in front of and behind the camera, and help make the industry more inclusive and representative of the world in which it exists. I could predict more major studios and independent companies alike establishing these rules into written hiring practices, if for no other reason than to remain in Oscar contention, and to move the industry forward as a bonus.
Social Media’s Impact on Movie Culture and Business
Social media has revolutionized our lives, the world simultaneously interconnected and filter-bubbled. Its impact on the culture and business of movies is still being investigated. A 2021 study of 400 Thai citizens analyzed how their social media interactions with movie promotional materials impacted their decision of whether to watch a movie and even predicted how much they enjoyed a movie (Suvattanadilok, 2021). It found that social awareness of a movie made a person more likely to watch a movie, and various factors—including social media activities and engagement, promotional programs, trailer assessment and advertising—need to work together to inspire audiences to watch a film. The study also suggests that it is important to employ different strategies to encourage people to frequent movie theaters.
Movies now have to compete with all types of digital media. It was a hard transition for the movie industry around 1950 as televisions were entering every home, but now most people have a world of passive and active entertainment in the palm of their hand (Rosatelli, 2019). It takes intense and intentional planning to capture the online audience—which now is most of the audience, and especially the under 40 audience—at exactly the right time in order to guide them into theaters. Too early, and the hype dies down and people forget or get bored of watching trailers. Too late, and there’s not enough time to have a blowout opening weekend. With theaters cycling most movies out after only a few weeks out of necessity now, that is a huge risk. Timing is everything with the short attention spans of social media users. It may be contributing in part to the world seeing more blockbuster franchises and fewer original movies being made, and actors claiming that sometimes a role will go to someone with a larger social media following so that a film can be promoted to their built-in audience, rather than someone with little or no social media presence (Nealey, 2014).
Looking Ahead
The movies made during the Hays Code are valuable and sometimes incredible. These films continue to impact the stories we tell, even the stories we tell ourselves. We have long thought in the simplest of narrative forms: a beginning, middle and end. We can take the knowledge not only from the cleverness of the filmmaking, but lessons from the self-censorship of the Code and the pitfalls of not allowing freedom of speech in art. The First Amendment has long been a hot-button issue, and continues to be in the context of art, media and especially social media. As the world continues to reckon with the past, make amends in the present and create a brighter future, we should remember where this all started and not give in to the ghostlike embrace of nostalgia. It is neither here nor there, it is nowhere. Motion pictures are still an incredibly young art form and industry. It must not stagnate or push itself into one box. Even a lengthy list of debatable dos and don'ts couldn’t stop creative people from making the most of this incredibly versatile and ever-evolving medium.
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Appendix A
This serves as an in-depth literature review of all movies mentioned in the body of the thesis, ordered by release date, with accompanying brief plot descriptions.
Crosland, A. (Director). (1927). The Jazz Singer [Film]. Warner Bros. Studios.
This film is particularly notable because it was the first talking picture mainstream success (though not the first talking picture, period). It tells the fictional story of a white Jewish musician who defies his family and goes on to become a jazz performer while wearing blackface.
Beaumont, H. (Director). (1928). Our Dancing Daughters [Film]. MGM.
This Pre-Code film is just one highlight of how different storytelling was before the Code was implemented. It follows Joan Crawford’s flapper character as she chases after a man with an alcoholic wife—all elements that would soon be addressed by the 1930 Code.
Hawks, H. (Director). (1932). Scarface [Film]. The Caddo Company.
More famously remade in the 1980s, Scarface was even more scandalous in its original iteration, directed by Howard Hawks and produced by Howard Hughes. The gangster film was standard-setting but perhaps too bleak and too close to the line of glamorizing violence and criminal activity for audiences at the time, or censors, to accept.
Capra, F. (Director). (1934). It Happened One Night [Film]. Columbia Pictures.
One of the last major films untouched by the Code for decades, It Happened One Night is a screwball romantic comedy that follows a secretly wed woman who eventually confesses her love for a different man she is on a journey with.
Gibbons, C. (Director). (1934). Tarzan and His Mate [Film]. MGM.
This early 1934 film following the classic tale of Tarzan and Jane was one of the first to be changed by the Production Code Administration under Breen. It was filmed before the Code’s proliferation, but still caused a headache with the PCA and it ended with its brief full-frontal female nudity being omitted from the master negative, though it still was considered quite racy.
La Cava, G. (Director). (1936). My Man Godfrey [Film]. Universal Pictures.
Set during the Great Depression, this is a screwball comedy about the rise of a homeless man to butler and later to helping other men in his previous position, after a lot of hijinks and rich people specifically behaving foolishly.
Fleming, V. (Director). (1939). Gone With the Wind [Film]. MGM.
Still the highest grossing film of all time (adjusted for inflation), it is an epic historical romance set in the antebellum south.
Cukor, G. (Director). (1940). The Philadelphia Story [Film]. Loew’s, Inc.
A romantic comedy film with an expansive and star-studded cast, including Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Stewart and Ruth Hassey, The Philadelphia Story is the tale of a wealthy divorcee who gets into all sorts of romantic mischief on the eve of her second wedding. While indecency and infidelity are not shown, they are strongly alluded to, as was common for films from the Code era.
Hawks, H. (Director). (1940). His Girl Friday [Film]. Columbia Pictures.
This classic romantic screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell follows a divorced couple working in the newspaper business as the ex-wife tries to leave to remarry a more sensible fellow. She is drawn back in by her ex-husband’s antics, their similar personalities, and her love of being a “newspaperman.”
Welles, O. (Director). (1941). Citizen Kane [Film]. RKO Pictures.
Regarded by many as among the greatest films of all time, Welles’ debut feature film tells the story of newspaper magnate and titular Charles Foster Kane, whose traumatic past surfaces throughout the film and his adult life as he makes decisions for better and for worse.
Huston, J. (Director). (1941). The Maltese Falcon [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.
Humphrey Bogart stars as a private investigator, Sam Spade, who is dealing with three people competing to obtain the titular bejeweled falcon. It is a film noir classic.
Curtiz, M. (Director). (1942). Casablanca [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.
A surprise Best Picture Oscar winner, the romantic drama with political undertones follows Humphrey Bogart’s Rick as he runs his bar and tries to keep to himself. His expatriate life is complicated when German soldiers turn up looking for his ex-love, Isla (Ingrid Bergman), and her lover, and Rick turns out to be the man who can help them, despite his internal conflict and eventually risking himself to do so.
Hughes, H. (Director). (1943). The Outlaw [Film]. RKO Pictures.
This controversial film was inspired by the exploits of Billy the Kid and his relationships with Sheriff Pat Garrett and Doc Holliday. It was notable for all of the press surrounding the PCA board struggles for its scantily clad lead actress.
Hitchcock, A. (Director). (1943). Shadow of a Doubt [Film]. Universal Pictures.
A psychological noir of a secret life, a teenager shocked out of boredom, and an influential film that inspired remakes and various noir interpretations over the years.
Wilder, B. (Director). (1944). Double Indemnity [Film]. Universal Pictures.
Starring Barbara Stanwyck as a provocative woman accused of murdering her husband and conspiring with an insurance adjuster to claim his policy—which pays double if it looks like an accident. It was considered unfilmable, according to the AFI, but negotiations with the PCA and revisions to the script made this controversial noir a classic.
Lean, D. (Director). (1945). Brief Encounter [Film]. The Rank Organization.
This British romance film follows a woman who engages in a short but deeply affecting extramarital affair. It was beloved at the time as it is today, even being nominated for an Academy Award. It also served as partial inspiration for Billy Wilder’s 1960 Best Picture Oscar-winning romance The Apartment.
Hitchcock, A. (Director). (1946). Notorious [Film]. RKO Pictures.
A spy noir about a man and woman going undercover to infiltrate and take down a Nazi organization, but things get complicated when everything is not as it seems and the woman who was supposed to seduce the Nazi and her partner begin falling in love.
Wyler, W. (Director). (1946). The Best Years of Our Lives [Film]. The Samuel Goldwyn Company.
The film follows the lives of three servicemen, from three different branches of the armed forces, with different ranks that did not correlate with their civilian statuses. When they come home after World War II, they all must reckon with their irreversibly changed lives and selves as they reintegrate into their small town. It was the Oscar winner for Best Picture in its year and the highest grossing film of the decade.
Rossellini, R. (Director). (1948). L’Amore [Film]. Finecinema.
This Italian anthology film is particularly notable for its second part, translated to The Miracle, as in the 1952 Supreme Court “Miracle decision” that granted movies the right to First Amendment free speech protection. It was challenged by New York state censors for its “sacrilegious” content.
De Sica, V. (Director). (1948). Bicycle Thieves [Film]. Produzioni De Sica.
This Italian neorealist drama follows a poor Roman father searching the city for his stolen bicycle, without which he cannot work, after the second World War.
Wilder, B. (Director). (1950). Sunset Boulevard [Film]. Paramount Pictures Studios.
A Hollywood noir, Sunset Boulevard chronicles the downfall of a Silent Era starlet whose delusions of grandeur entrap a young screenwriter in her clutches. There is a darkly nostalgic, comedic and mysterious undertone to the film. A star who is stuck in the past and a man trying to make it in a changing industry is a notable film to mark this tumultuous period in Hollywood history.
Mankiewicz, J. (Director). (1950). All About Eve [Film]. 20th Century Fox.
This drama follows Eve (Anne Baxter) on her manipulative journey as she seeks to steal her idol’s (Bette Davis) Broadway role. It’s a story of obsession, aging and adaptation that was particularly timely as Hollywood was in a transitional period heading into the 1950s following the fallout of the Paramount Decrees that effectively ended the studio system and the Classical Era.
Bergman, I. (Director). (1953). Summer with Monika [Film].
A Swedish romance film controversial but also beloved for its nudity and sexually liberated attitude that was ahead of the times and placed it as such in the public consciousness, according to the AFI.
Preminger, O. (Director). (1953). The Moon is Blue [Film]. Otto Preminger Films.
A romantic comedy about sex, love and hilarious attempts at seduction. Preminger notably pushed boundaries throughout this career, and this film, which was simultaneously released in Germany with the same premise and set but an all-German cast, was the first major film to be released in the United States without the approval of the Production Code Administration.
Laughton, C. (Director). (1955). The Night of the Hunter [Film]. Paul Gregory Productions.
In this horror-noir inspired by the visuals of early German expressionism, a serial killer posing as a self-appointed preacher cements himself in the lives of a widow and her two young children, who are hiding $10,000 that belonged to their late father. The psychopathic “preacher” will stop at nothing to get the money and eventually is defeated after some terrifying sequences that the PCA worked on with Laughton.
Preminger, O. (Director). (1955). The Man with the Golden Arm [Film]. Carlyle Productions.
This drama starring Frank Sinatra as a drug addict and ex-convict marks Preminger’s second film in three years to be released without the PCA seal of approval. It was largely a critical and audience success, despite some protests, and led to a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Sinatra and yet another major blow to the Code offered by Preminger.
Ray, N. (Director). (1955). Rebel Without a Cause [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.
This teenage classic stars James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo. Dean plays the new kid in town who’s chasing after Wood and it’s rife with melodrama and violence. Despite worrying parents and igniting a teenage movie fire that really took off later, particularly in the 1980s on, it opened Hollywood’s eyes to a new, lucrative audience and that audience to the film’s stars.
Bergman, I. (Director). (1957). The Seventh Seal [Film]. AB Svensk Filmindustri.
In this Swedish landmark epic, a knight returns home from the Crusade to find the Black Death descending upon his country. An atheist, he challenges Death to a life or death chess match and on his journey he finds and questions life, death, faith and fate. It was Bergman’s first true international success and invoked new techniques.
Bergman, I. (Director). (1957). Wild Strawberries [Film]. AB Svensk Filmindustri.
This dreamlike feature film follows a retired doctor traveling across Sweden to obtain an honorary degree from university, meeting life changing characters along the way who make the bitter protagonist reflect on his life.
Lumet, S. (Director). (1957). 12 Angry Men [Film]. Orion-Nova Productions.
This is not your standard courtroom drama. It elevated the tried and true formula and centered on a large cast of characters with differing perspectives to keep audiences guessing until the end, and transformed what a legal procedure could look like on screen.
Donen, S. (Director). (1958). Indiscreet [Film]. Grandon Productions.
Donen’s romantic comedy film, reuniting Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman as love interests, creates and plays up a lot of conventions of romantic filmmaking, such as suggestive usage of a split-screen while both are in their respective beds talking on the phone. At one point, Bergman’s character exclaims, “How dare he make love to me and not be a married man!”
Truffaut, F. (Director). (1959). The 400 Blows [Film]. Les Films du Carrosse.
A defining French New Wave film about a young boy with a penchant for stealing and misbehaving growing up in Paris as we watch his life, adventures and misadventures unfold in a fairly naturalistic style.
Wilder, B. (Director). (1959). Some Like It Hot [Film]. The Mirisch Company.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest comedies of all time, this film was as racy as it was successful. It had more mainstream success than previous films that had been released without the PCA seal of approval, and with its powerhouse director and cast, including Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, not to mention hilarious script and performances, it was a hit that proved you didn’t have to follow the rules of the Code to be successful or accepted by the public anymore.
Hitchcock, A. (Director). (1959). North by Northwest [Film]. MGM.
Cary Grant plays an advertising man who is mistaken for a spy and engages in a deadly chase across the country. The film is full of drama, humor and innuendo.
Godard, J. (Director). (1960). Breathless [Film]. Les Films Impéria.
An early French New Wave staple, this crime drama follows moments in time with a French criminal and an American student journalist who are in a turbulent relationship with each other, themselves and society.
Wilder, B. (Director). (1960). The Apartment [Film]. The Mirisch Company.
A Best Picture Oscar winner, The Apartment follows a lonely, lowly insurance agent (Jack Lemmon) who passes out the key to his bachelor apartment to higher-ups at the firm to conduct their extramarital affairs in as a way for him to move up in the company quickly. His life grows more complicated when he falls for his boss’s girlfriend (Shirley MacLaine) and begins to question, then own his sense of self.
Hitchcock, A. (Director). (1960). Psycho [Film].
A classic psychological thriller starring Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, at the center of a scandalous disappearance and investigation. It is one of Hitchcock’s most famous works and still influences the horror and thriller genres.
Powell, M. (Director). (1960). Peeping Tom [Film]. Michael Powell (Theatre).
This controversial and compelling film followed a serial killer who stalked women and killed them all the while recording their last moments with a camera. It was received negatively but the AFI says that it inspired many later slashers and psychological horror-thrillers.
Wyler, W. (Director). (1961). The Children’s Hour [Film]. United Artists.
This film is a remake of Wyler’s own 1935 film, These Three, both based on the same play, which was inspired by the true story of two school teachers whose lives were destroyed by rumors of a lesbian relationship between the two women. Wyler’s first adaptation, released when the Code had a stronger presence, removed the homosexual nature of the accusation. This version was released with the PCA seal of approval, showing how much had changed.
Dearden, B. (Director). (1961). Victim [Film]. Allied Film Makers.
This 1961 British film noir was one of the first mainstream movies to portray homosexuality in a sympathetic rather than negative light. The protagonist, a closeted gay man, is the victim of blackmail that would out him to his wife and could lose him his life. It is also a message film that potentially helped turn public opinion in England in favor of decriminalizing homosexuality, as the section that outlawed it was overturned in 1967.
Richardson, T. (Director). (1961). A Taste of Honey [Film]. Woodfall Film Productions.
This controversial but important British film follows a 17-year-old who has a turbulent relationship with her alcoholic mother and falls in love with a young Black sailor and becomes pregnant. He sails off on a job before she knows, and she packs up again and finds friendship with a young gay man who supports and even offers to marry her.
Edwards, B. (Director). (1963). Breakfast at Tiffany’s [Film]. Paramount Pictures Studios.
Based on the Truman Capote novella of the same name, this film follows Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, a naive playgirl who has dreams of grandeur and a plan to get what she wants.
Wise, R. (Director). (1965). The Sound of Music [Film]. 20th Century Studios.
One of the last great hits with the PCA seal of approval, this anti-Nazi film about a young woman studying to become a nun and bringing joy to the Von Trapp family is a classic and one of the highest grossing films of all time.
Nichols, M. (Director). (1966). Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.
Mike Nichols’ debut feature film was the first to be released with an MPAA “Suggested for Mature Audiences” (SMA) label, a step into a new era, out of the Code. Based on the stage play of the same name, it is about a bitter fight, fueled by alcohol, between a married couple played by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
Schlesinger, J. (Director). (1969). Midnight Cowboy [Film]. Florin Productions.
The only X-rated film to ever win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, Midnight Cowboy is a buddy drama film starring young male prostitutes. It had received the X for homosexual allusions and potential influence on the youth, but it was reissued with an R rating in 1971.
Kubrick, S. (Director). (1971). A Clockwork Orange [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.
A controversial dystopian film that uses violence as social commentary. Its antisocial criminal lead character commits “ultra-violence,” along with rape and theft, with the group he leads. He is taken in for an invasive procedure that will rob him of agency for his crimes. A post-Code landmark film.
Hooper, T. (Director). (1974). The Texas Chain Saw Massacre [Film]. Vortex.
This low-budget horror success spawned a franchise that continues to this day, with a new installment that was distributed by Netflix in 2022. It follows a group of young people who are victimized by a family of cannibals.
Lumet, S. (Director). (1975). Dog Day Afternoon [Film]. Artists Entertainment Complex.
Based on a true story, the film follows an attempted bank heist that escalates into a hostage situation and police standoff. It became a real-life media circus, as its strong LGBTQ themes and representation are revealed throughout the film, that the would-be robbers held up the bank in attempt to pay for his partner’s sex-change operation.
Reiner, R. (Director). (1989). When Harry Met Sally [Film]. Castle Rock Entertainment.
This modern classic romantic comedy follows the twelve-year friendship and relationship between its title couple, asking the question of whether men and women can really be just friends. Referenced in relation to Indiscreet (1958) for split-screen phone call scenes.
Cameron, J. (Director). (1997). Titanic [Film]. Paramount Pictures.
An epic romantic tragedy and lifelong love kindled aboard the doomed S.S. Titanic.
Scorsese, M. (Director). (2004). The Aviator [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.
A biographical drama film chronicling the life and career of aviator, director and wealthy inventor Howard Hughes. Referenced for its portrayal of Code-era Hollywood.
Appendix B
Interview with Dr. Robert Thompson
This appendix consists of an interview with Dr. Thompson. The transcript has been lightly shortened for clarity. Italics denote paraphrasing for context.
Interviewee: Dr. Robert Thompson, media scholar and professor at Syracuse University (RT)
Interviewer: Kyra Lieberman (KL)
Date, time and location: February 14, 2022, 3:30pm, by phone.
KL: Movies are a common language we all speak, but without knowledge then or now about the Hays Code, how are we misunderstanding and misinterpreting the past?
[Dr. Thompson shared his framework for understanding some of the “ridiculousness” of the Code era, which he has presented at conferences and in his classes. It goes that the Hays Code indirectly caused lung cancer for a couple of generations, by not only having the glamorous stars smoking up a storm on screen, but by having cigarettes stand-in as sexual innuendo or, in some noirs, imply the act itself. It left a key part of life off screen for decades in mainstream Hollywood, but not the implication of it, and led to some misinterpretations and dangerous associations by audiences even back then.
Cigarettes worked as a stand-in for sexuality. The leap from Pre-Code movies with sex being shown (more or less) in storytelling was quickly curtailed by the Hays Code. There were many ways it was suggested instead, and one of the primary ways of doing this was through the use of cigarettes, with suggestive imagery and connotations at the time, especially in the context of films, and especially film noir.]
RT: The idea that they were so concerned with where the culture was going in the ‘20s and the idea that they were gonna totally clean it up... you couldn’t completely tell stories pretending sex didn’t exist anymore after seeing it in Pre-Code movies...They came up with all these hysterical ways to suggest sex. A couple will embrace, and the next shot will be a train going through a tunnel. They did a lot of that...They used the smoking of cigarettes, especially those noir films, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall [who got married and co-starred in movies such as The Big Sleep and Dark Passage]. The smoking of cigarettes became a symbol that stood in for sex, which makes sense with the oral nature of smoking, it is sort of erotic...There was a lot of sexy smoking going on. ... A couple generations of people grew up with the idea of completely associating steamy sexuality with cigarette smoking, and all these high school kids are smoking and it becomes sexy.
KL: Could this be a missing piece surrounding the still controversial debate from health professionals, parents, and politicians around cigarettes in movies leading to youth smoking?
RT: Cigarettes were not only cool and glamorous because the stars did it, but because they were a stand-in for sex and sexuality.
KL: Some people pushing for censorship or self-censorship today seem surprised to learn that there was something like this in the past, and that movies were self-governed to appeal to everyone at one point. What was lost and how can these movies be recontextualized using modern media literacy?
RT: People think it was a federal law! Which was absolutely not the case. It was self-imposed to avoid that. If we show the federal government we’re controlling it, they’ll get off our backs. Sell more tickets! It was business savvy, and to the studios’ advantage to comply. There was a thought at the time that, “Maybe nobody will truly love these films because we're trying to appeal to everybody.” To make the least objectionable product. Everybody was working under the Hays Code so it was a way of controlling the content without having to worry about competitors going out and doing it. Because the entire industry was obeying it, there wasn’t a worry from MGM that Paramount would show them up by having nudity or gratuitous violence, because no studio could do it. It created a sort of level playing field in that sense.
[Despite being good business, it was also detrimental.] The Production Code silenced some important voices. When Hollywood was—when you watch some movies just before the Hays Code—some of them were starting to do some really interesting things and starting to explore some things that were starting to be discussed in novels and in poetry. [Such as race, class issues, sexuality, homosexuality, and more.] And some of those were coming from women filmmakers. In completely stripping so much content from the films they stripped some of the good stuff that would've been told, but some of the bad stuff too. It was both a business model and the way they made it was it did allow a massive cultural form, the movies, to have some kind of control over them that most of everything you saw was going to be appropriate for everyone across all ages... If you’ve got to be appropriate for an eight-year-old, you can’t necessarily do something that is going to raise the consciousness of a 30-year-old.
It was also an era of prolific creation. An enormous body of work that was, for the most part, according to certain standards, inoffensive, to the extent that if you turn on Turner Classic Movies you can be pretty comfortable that if the kids come into the room it’s going to be okay. [In discussing the aforementioned “certain standards,” the Hays Code standards of the time, Dr. Thompson notes that they do not necessarily live up to all the moral standards we hold today—or some of us even then. For example, blackface was frequently used in motion pictures and women and minorities often had poor or negative, if any, roles, and were underrepresented behind the camera.]
It was a very savvy move. For all of the ridiculousness-–and the more you know about the Hays Code, the more it seems laughable. But there were a lot of great movies made under the Hays Code. It seems ridiculous to tell somebody they have to make something under all these rules...but it was crazy good. It was like sonnet rules, but there were incredible movies made under these sonnet-like rules.
KL: There are some notable examples of filmmakers, especially powerful filmmakers, getting around the rules of the Code, and being tremendously successful at the box office. How did these directors do it, and did it in part lead to public acceptance of the end of the Code?
RT: There were filmmakers getting around it [the Code] in really clever ways. There were content rules but all of that, like so much in Hollywood, was porous and negotiable on some level... If you were a powerful director, the more powerful you became, certain movies got away with things—broke some rules fully, for example Billy Wilder, especially as the Golden Age and Code waned. The Hays Code was a big dam. All these things had changed. The sexual revolution, most of the ‘60s had happened...movies operating under the Hays ‘Law’ but it really didn’t reflect life at all anymore, if it ever did.
And look what happened right after the Code was officially done away with. The Academy Award for Best Picture went to a movie about a nun who sings-–The Sound of Music. The Code ends, and it immediately goes to Midnight Cowboy [an X-rated film about a male prostitute].
KL: The end of the Golden Age of Television coincided with the end of any efficacy of the Hays Code and with it the remnants of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Were these events related? What major changes happened that made 1959 such a landmark year in media?
[The NAB Code of Practices for Television Broadcasters was created just as the Golden Age of Hollywood was waning, and TV’s Golden Age was beginning (the NAB Code was introduced in 1952, the same year as movies gained First Amendment protection). This Code also changed through the years and included similar quote “ridiculous” sorts of things. Like the Hays Code, the NAB Code was also negotiated, though its rules were very different and were more easily enforced because broadcast television was publicly owned, plus televisions were right there in the living room (more access by children) versus the protection of having to leave the home and buy a ticket. Later came industry-imposed measures, such as content warnings and a ratings system, for fear of laws being made.]
RT: TV right up into the 70s became very sanitized when it comes to language and sexuality... TV right up into the 70s became very sanitized when it comes to language and sexuality. It did give us this sense of living in a parallel universe. Now on television, husbands and wives slept in separate beds. Not only that premarital sex wasn’t allowed, but marital sex wasn’t allowed either...Generations of people who grew up during the Hays Code and NAB code grew up with a very misplaced understanding of a huge part of life...Not sure how healthy it was. In an attempt to protect us from stuff that got too steamy or sexy, they presented a really kind of odd script of so many important parts of human life...Kids may as well have come from the Cabbage Patch or the store.
At the time, TV didn’t have a ratings system. There was a real fear that someone was gonna see that stuff accidentally. TV came through the airwaves that belonged to the American citizen...the First Amendment could be adjusted and regulated on our behalf by the FCC. Movies were in theaters, on private property. The TV was right in our living rooms.
[As far as the end of the Golden Age of Television and Hollywood, 1959 was a “breaking point” year [and also the year of Dr. Thompson’s birth]. Some Like It Hot was released and was one of the final nails in the coffin of the Hays Code; there was the major quiz show scandal; Motown. The world was changing and the media would soon change too.]
Appendix C
Interview with Dr. Robert King
This appendix consists of an interview with Dr. King. The transcript has been lightly shortened for clarity. Italics denote paraphrasing for context.
Interviewee: Dr. Robert King, media scholar and professor at Columbia University (RK)
Interviewer: Kyra Lieberman (KL)
Date, time and location: February 15, 2022, 9:30am, by Zoom video conference.
KL: Movies were the biggest media event at the time, especially once sound was introduced in the late ‘20s. How did the public react to the Code after the wild days of the Pre-Code era?
RK: Hollywood was getting a level of visibility it did not want...There was a strong and specifically conservative backlash against cinema and Hollywood. State censors were muddying the process and the Code was designed to make everyone–but mostly state censors and influential people, who were causing fuss–happy essentially and draw attention away from controversy. There was also the high-cost matter of cutting [editing] films differently state-by-state given the various standards.
KL: Would it be fair to say Hollywood has never quite shaken off the Hays Code? These rules fell out of fashion and were done away with, but not before they became tradition and what movies looked like. If the first talking pictures employed these tricks, did they become common tropes we still see today?
RK: A consequence of the Code is it generated a number of innovative strategies to create a plausible deniability. It [the Code] generated a number of conventions that allowed Hollywood filmmakers to tiptoe around controversial topics they would have gotten in trouble for... The PC [Production Code] introduced the ‘ellipses.’ Meaning, there was a passionate embrace or kiss, often in a bedroom, and then we cut away for a period of time where two unmarried people are implied to have sex. It allowed for plausible deniability in the face of the Code... It’s a schrodinger’s cat of cinema...they did and they didn’t.
[This sort of fade out, then fade in, quickly became a convention of cinema and is still frequently used today, though it isn’t necessitated by the restrictions of something like the Hays Code anymore. There is a famous instance of this in Casablanca.]
Under the Code, crime always has to be punished. That becomes a norm that has significant implications in storytelling and in society.
KL: You mentioned earlier how the Code was kept quiet at the time, and unfortunately it is still missing from conversations about this era of filmmaking. It seems to be a media literacy issue across time. Do you think this important missing context has led to a misunderstanding of these films and the past?
RK: The nature of the Code unfortunately nurtures that kind of nostalgia for Hollywood films as if they stand for a better age, but they don’t.
[Dr. King described exploitation films of the era, many of which were made and many more were lost to time, which helped paint a fuller picture of the era, and which he thinks should be in the conversation when discussing and experiencing films from the Code era. Exploitation films were created outside of the industry and not submitted to the PCA—Production Code Administration—at all, and were shown outside of normal movie theaters, most of which were owned by studios at the time, prior to the 1948 Paramount case. These exploitation films showed more sides of life that existed at that time. Dr. King also teaches a class where his students analyze exploitation films.]
These exploitation films, as in the name, were exploitative and sensationalist. But for the 1930s through the 1950s, the showed things that were never going to be shown in PCA-approved Hollywood films, such as drug use, extramarital pregnancy, discussions and decisions about abortion, trans people...we assume due to Hollywood that these things and these people did not exist. They existed, just not in Hollywood movies.
[He also noted the question and issue of propaganda. You could argue, he said, many of the movies made during some of this time (particularly after the U.S. entered the second World War) were propaganda, and that Hitler, Stalin, and others reportedly looked at Hollywood cinema and emulated it to get their messages out.]
It wasn’t purely restrictive. It generated a lot of creativity and incredible films and storytelling.
KL: Do you think that the ratings system successfully replaced the Hays Code and allowed for more nuance in filmmaking and film censorship?
RK: The [MPA] ratings system says that not all audiences are the same. Soon after the introduction of the ratings system, the X-rating becomes trouble, and is changed to the NC-17 film, because the “X” was appropriated by pornography.
[Still today, though, most filmmakers (and perhaps more importantly, financiers) avoid anything that will get an NC-17 rating because it is disastrous at the box office. Studios always aim for an R-rating, though the ideal, the most broad, is PG-13. He says this goes back to Hays-era morality and “plausible deniability” in these films that are just adult enough, but can be seen by kids and appeal to all audiences. He also noted how there has been a significant shift in ratings since the turn of the century and especially with Disney’s prolific movie-making and the proliferation of computer-generated images.]
With today’s MPA, now it’s the quantification of explicit material... It sort of makes nonsense of the categorization. Ratings were introduced to go beyond the fiction of the general audience—but PG-13 is now a sort of fiction of the general audience, as every Disney movie is PG-13.
[For example, only one f-word is allowed per movie or there is an almost automatic R-rating applied, with few exceptions, and a similar but slightly more qualifiable attitude towards rating sexual or romantic content, violence, and substance use. There are still workarounds in today’s ratings system, just like there were during the Code era films, a major one being CGI. CGI violence against fictional characters is given more lenient ratings (“they call it fantasy violence”) versus similar violence taken against a human character. A loophole or, again, plausible deniability. He argues that this arguably began in the mainstream with Lord of the Rings, which were very dark and war-heavy films, but very CGI-heavy, and this continues with superheroes, aliens, and more today.]
Appendix D
Interview with David H. Steinberg
This appendix consists of an interview with Mr. Steinberg. The transcript has been lightly shortened for clarity. Italics denote paraphrasing for context.
Interviewee: David H. Steinberg, screenwriter, director and producer (DS)
Interviewer: Kyra Lieberman (KL)
Date, time and location: February 22, 2022, by email.
KL: Are there ways you write or plan to work around certain facets of the rating system to get the desired rating?
DS: When you conceive of a project, at the very inception it's going to have a tone and a target audience. If I'm thinking about an animated movie I'm not thinking sex and violence, I'm thinking family. That means PG. The idea itself defines the rating. Now there are of course cases where you have to decide whether your idea is PG-13 or R if it's a movie or TV-14 or TV-MA if it's TV but I don't think people think in those terms. You think, ok my new idea for a half hour comedy or a one hour drama seems like a good fit for CBS. That means it's broadcast TV so no swearing and no nudity. Or, my idea is an edgy drama that seems like HBO. I'll have swearing and nudity. Of course you can sometimes do different versions of the same idea-- the network version and the streaming version. Or the PG13 movie and the more violent and/or swearing/nudity R-rated version. But for the most part, you're choosing a lane.
KL: Have you ever had to change a script or project to get a different rating?
DS: So the self-censorship is happening at the stage where you're mentally forming a marketing plan to sell the project. Once you sell it, there could be some tweaks in one direction or another, but it's unlikely that CBS is going to say let's make it more like HBO. The tone is already baked into the pitch or script. Sure, a movie could go from PG-13 to R or the other way around, but for the most part, the writer has to define the tone from the start and that's going to define the project.