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The first thing is to discuss the word “censorship.” What does it mean? We all know it has to do with the suppression of ideas, pictures, writing, etc. We all know that some people are concerned by too much censorship restricting what the public may write, read, see, etc. Others think there should be more to protect society from negative influences After a bit of thought and research I want to start with these main points.

Censorship does not necessarily mean government control. There are other kinds of censorship, too–economic, institutional, social, moral etc. But government censorship is at least potentially the most powerful because it carries the threat of legal sanctions with it. Also, there is the question of what is being censored–views, language, arguments,? I would argue(as one who usually opposes censorship) that the worst kind is ideological censorship because it effectively prevents ideas from circulation. I also think that government ideological censorship, in other words the government having the right to dictate thought and belief, is the most dangerous kind of censorship to freedom and a free society.

Another question is in some ways the most important. If there is to be censorship, who gets to do it? This is why I find it difficult, in more cases than not, to accept censorship as part of our society. Whom should we trust that much? Should there be boards of censors with competing views? If so, who gets to pick the board? The issues sometimes seem endless.

I raise these questions to show how difficult this issue might become. I do not intend to settle them finally, or maybe at all. Possibly there will be a hint here and there–or the opportunity to draw a conclusion

My main concentration here, however, is much more narrow. I wish to write about movies and the American past and particularly the influence of something you may have heard of called, informally, the Hays Office. Though a private rather than a public(government)office it had great influence over what appeared on US movie screens for more than a generation, from the mid 1930’s to about the middle or late 1960’s, though its power was declining in its later years for a number of reasons that may be suggested later.

The process of filming things is dateable to the late 19th century and seems to have begun with a pair of French brothers, ironically named Lumiere.(light?) The knowledge seems to have spread around the globe rather quickly and by the end of the 19th century or at least the early 20th, movie industries were emerging in different places. The American movie industry, which eventually settled in Hollywood, and stayed there for at least half a century, was one of the earlier but not first in everything.

By World War I the American film industry was on its way to becoming a serious economic influence. It provided employment, entertainment and a fair amount of money for the Gross National Product. But it was not until after the war, in the 1920’s that things in Hollywood really took off. It became a “fast town” in many ways, reportedly full of wild parties and wilder movie stars. The content of the movies in the 20’s was somewhat wild too.

I do not care for silent films a lot(Exception-“The Big Parade”-WWI story) and haven’t seen too many but by all accounts they exhibited a lot of behavior, particularly regarding sex, drinking and overall raunchiness that seriously bothered a number of people around the country. This was true in all areas of the US and certain states and cities began to set up their own censorship rules. Films exhibiting certain things were not allowed to be shown in specific cities or states. Of course this varied widely from state to state and within states, so there was little consistency and motion picture companies were in a bit of a bind. The wanted some regularity and they wanted as little interference as possible,. They feared more and more local/state censorship and certainly did not want the US government to get involved.

The only role the feds had played up to the middle ’20’s was that in 1915, by unanimous vote, the Supreme Court ruled in “Mutual Film Corporation v Industrial Commission of Ohio” that the constitutional guarantee of free speech did NOT extend to the movies. That was why the censorship boards had appeared–could appear– in the first place.

By the middle or late twenties there was a feeling that the old ways were going out of style(true in a number of cases)and being replaced by no standards or bad ones(arguable-endlessly arguable to both sides, or however many sides there were). Politics seemed to have gone downhill. There were gangsters and gang influence almost everywhere(likely not quite as widespread as the popular imagination had it, but definitely there). The movies seemed to be a part of this and now it became known that the corruption extended even to baseball, when it was revealed that the 1919 Chicago White Sox, or rather some of them, had taken money to “throw” the World Series. This was the infamous Black Sox Scandal which I am calling by its real(then used)name and risking not being politically correct. A bit more on this in a moment.

Movie companies feared federal intervention as noted above, and by the mid-1920’s the feeling was becoming entrenched that “Hollywood” ought to police itself and thereby forestall having the government do it. So, enter on the scene Will H Hays, a Presbyterian “elder”(this meant he took part in running the church-Presbyterians are governed by elders rather than by bishops from above–Episcopalians–or the Congregations from below–Congregationalists, now UCC). He was also a one time campaign manager for Warren Harding and had served as US Postmaster General and as chairman of the Republican National Committee(so he likely had a certain mental orientation. but that is possibly not very relevant here)

Some people pointed out that this was similar to the sports world. If you are a baseball fan you may recognize the name Kenesaw Mountain Landis(I guess you’d have to be spectacular with that kind of name). A retired federal judge, he had become the first Commissioner of Baseball after the Black Sox mess and was determined to rid the game of corruption–he ruled with an iron hand and stood for no nonsense from players or owners. Hays was similar in that he was a man with experience in government now coming to the rescue of some kind of private enterprise. I doubt that he had the power, character or sense of Judge Landis, but he was there.(Some thought Landis extreme, both as a judge and as commissioner and likely he was–but baseball was likely cleaner because of him– for what it’s worth)

For more than twenty years Hays held the job of President of the MPPDA(Motion Pictures Producers & Distributers of America-later the Motion Picture Association of America-MPAA) where he tried to protect the industry from outside interference and negotiate with people who, for whatever, reason, appeared to be opponents. Backed by several powerful studio bosses he pushed the idea of self-censorship and in 1927 some of the studio leaders drew up a list of “Don’ts” and “Be Carefuls” which were guidelines to be followed in making films. There was nothing imperative about them, they were just advice on ways to make your film safe from attack from the outside

Three years later, in 1930, Fr Daniel Lord, a Jesuit priest and Martin Quigley, a Roman Catholic layman who was editor of an influential newspaper, the “Motion Picture Herald,” created a code of movie standards and presented it to the movie studios. Irving Thalberg of MGM had been on the Dont’s-Be Carefuls group in 1927 and he was one of the studio bosses involved now. After some negotiations and perhaps a few changes, they accepted the code. Keep in mind that the studios main object here was TO AVOID DIRECT GOVERNMENTAL INTERVENTION. It appears that they thought this was the way and as things turned out they were mostly right.

The MPDDA would enforce the code and was commonly known as the “Hays Office” though no actual organization of that name existed. The code also acquired his name and became “The Hays Code” even though Hays had no really active part in writing it. He did, however, invite it and and urge it upon movie studios and for more than 20 years he was MPDDA(later MPPA)President so he played a large role.

The code had two parts, the first of which was a statement of “principles” which stated a movie should not cause “lowering the moral standards of those who see it.” It particularly seemed to concentrate on the life styles of about anyone who deviated from middle-middle class WASP behavior and it had a near hysterical fear that movies would cause a loss of respect for “correct standards of life.” (By the way, there was, obviously, a heavy Roman Catholic influence in all this, but middle class Catholic and WASP values in many ways were similar, though with significant exceptions).

There was also a very strong dislike of “ridicule” of the law and any encouragement of law-breaking behavior. Though not as evident as the above in the “principle,” there would also be a very restrictive(not to say abnormal)view of sex and a hesitancy to allow anything sexual get into moves. We will likely look at this a little more closely later.

The second part of the code was the “particular applications” which rather specifically forbade the inclusion of a number of things in American films. There are too many to list specifically, but we will deal with some as we go along, and I hope to suggest a realistic understanding of the code by this method.

The code was accepted and officially put in place by the MPDDA in 1930, but it had little immediate noticeable effect. In fact, from 1930-1934 American films were in a sense as “racy” as many of those which appeared on screen in the 1960’s and later. There was not the more or less graphic display of sex and violence that has been seen in recent decades, but in plot and values some of these films were extremely different from the kind of morality the code was intended to celebrate and extend. I will try to cite a few relevant examples when we get to comparisons of “before” and “after” movies.

The reason for the above was that while the code had been officially promulgated, the MPDDA did not make a consistent, serious effort to enforce it. This changed in 1934 with the appointment of Joe Breen as the chairman of the PCA(Production Code Administration)which had been created by the studios to enforce the code.

He announced that beginning July 1, 1934 any film released in the US had to obtain a certificate of approval from the PCA. The PCA(acting as the Hays Office’s enforcer)would then be able to rule the roost of American movies– nothing they did not approve would be certified. This made a huge difference in American films. You may have noticed that occasionally TCM will reference something as being a “pre-1934 film.” I will note this difference as we go along, BUT PLEASE KEEP IN MIND–the Hays Office and its PCA were creatures of the film industry itself. They were NOT formally connected to the government and their real purpose, at lest originally, was to keep Hollywood free of government censorship. The Hays Office had NO LEGAL AUTHORITY to prevent a film from being shown.

The only weapon the Hays office had was its prestige and making use of its prestige to intimidate film makers who might be threatened with not receiving a certificate of approval if they did not toe the line. Apparently the office figured this would be enough because the studios would fear a public boycott of any film released without a certificate. This, presumably, would prevent the film’s success at the box office and possibly would affect the public attitude toward other works by the director or studio or both. For more than 2 decades they were nearly always right

From 1930-July 1, 1934 the Hollywood bosses did largely as they pleased–the Hays Office would occasionally negotiate with them and they would occasionally change a plot item or a candid film shot to please the office, but there was no serious censorship. Though not having the frank scenes of sexual activity of the after the Code era, the films produced at this time often reflected the more relaxed attitude toward sexuality(and the discussion of it) that had come along in the early 20th century, particularly in the urban US, partly as a result of World War I, the Roaring ’20’s, etc.. It is a mistake to maintain the code was solely or almost exclusively about sex, but sexuality was likely the biggest difference noticeable in the pre-1934 films.

IN 1932’s “Red Headed Woman” Jean Harlow plays a gold-digging young woman who will gladly seduce whomever she needs to, to get wealth and social status. It is not really a very good film, one of its weak spots being that Lillian Hyams(who??)played the wife of Harlow’s main seduction target. She was a lovely, cultured blonde and it is hard to imagine a guy with any taste preferring the obviously willing and sexy, but also obviously shallow and hardened Harlow character. There are some other weaknesses in style and story-telling skills(this was 1932)but the film is a good example of the point regarding what movies could get away with pre-July 1, 1934. A character such as Harlow’s in this film would later have had to be watered down and her moral shortcomings merely hinted at after the 1934 change.

Two 1933 films come to mind. In “Baby Face” Barbara Stanwick(one of the greats of early films) plays a girl not too unlike the one described above. Like her, she uses sex to get to the top. Although her morals are about the same, she seems(at least to me, anyway)to be more likeable, for what that’s worth. But the point is, again, a young woman uses her desirability to men to advance her social-economic status and the screenplay is not shy about being fairly explicit about what is going on. This is actually a good film, much better than “Woman.” (If you get the chance watch it, and keep an eye out for an extremely young John Wayne whose voice was apparently the same throughout his movie career)

Also in 1933 there was “When Ladies Meet.” This largely ignored but occasionally shown on TCM choice is one of my favorite films. It has a few of the technical glitches of most movies of the times and the 1941 remake is much smoother. But I think the original is a little deeper and overall better, though I strongly recommend both of them.

To perhaps oversimplify the plot–the main character is a young novelist(Myrna Loy)who is having trouble finishing her latest book and is in contact about it with her publisher(Frank Morgan, a few years before he succeeded in becoming a wizard)who is also her lover. Her gentleman suitor(Robert Montgomery) is jealous and urges her to behave differently but without success. His character is handled with some subtlety, not all outrage but some sophisticated restraint. He eventually arranges for her to meet her boss/lover’s wife(Ann Harding)without the wife’s knowing who she is and therefore unaware that she is her husband’s lover.

I leave to your imagination what follows, but this is a barebones description of the plot. This film contains some of the most civilized, serious and profound dialogue ever in movies when it comes to the questions of relations between the sexes, betrayal, friendship, love and loss, and other very adult and profound matters(I use the word “adult” advisedly here, this really is an adult film–what a pity that word now means “porn.”)

OK-so this was the sort of movie that sometimes appeared before the Code cracked down. What about after it did?

As previously noted, the Hays Code is too long and forbids too many things to do an item-by-item breakdown. It is easily accessible on the internet and if you want to check it out it may help a bit with understanding all this. But here is the important stuff–

The Code was very concerned about both propriety/morality AND lawbreaking, among other things. Although I am NOT one of those who completely despise the code and think no one there ever had a good idea or intention, I do believe it was foolish in many cases, both beating its head against a wall at some times(and therefore looking very foolish indeed) and even causing the opposite effect of what it wanted.

Regarding sexuality, the code forbade any extra-marital sex to be portrayed as good or beautiful. If a character committed adultery or engaged in single premarital sex then they had to be portrayed as bad or at least foolish and deluded. Siutations in which it would have been natural in the course of events for two people to have had sexual relations had to be skittered around. Often directors and writers would find a way to do this, that is to suggest sex was going on but without directly mentioning it and leaving the movie at least technically subject to both interpretations.

This led to some changes in scripts or causing the script to diverge considerably from the original play or novel. In my favorite movie, “The Maltese Falcon,” it should be quite clear that Sam Spade(Humphrey Bogart) and Brigette (Mary Astor)have developed a sexual relationship in the early part of the story. This is handled subtly enough and without a lot of mental /behavioral gymnastics. The idea that these two would NOT have a sexual relationship is less believable than that they did, so any change had to be–and was– done carefully so as to preserve both the code’s integrity and the believability of the plot. It worked by leaving an affair as a possibility, at the same time not being explicit enough to be violate the code. This kind of messing around with the story happened often over many years, sometimes to unfortunate effect but not always. As I said, it’s about my favorite movie, and certainly is one of the greats.

(By the way, it has been alleged that while the code guys insisted on toning down some of “Falcon’s” language which they thought too suggestive, Director John Huston put one over on them He used the term “gunsel” and got it through without a peep from the censors. They likely thought that it meant the Elisha Cook character carries a gun. Actually, it has a sexual meaning which I will not pursue here–you can find it easily enough on-line. The code guys would have blanched if they had known the truth.)

It has been suggested that in another of my favorite films, “Casablanca”(I do like Bogie movies)there were a couple of quarrels with the Hays Office and one of them may have led to an improvement in the movie. In the first instance, apparently the original script came close to out-and-out stating Rick and Ilsa had had an affair when they first met in Paris. The script was changed a bit to make this less explicit, though it is still an obvious likelihood considering the people involved and the times in which they were together.

The other quarrel was about the ending(SPOILER ALERT-IF YOU.VE NEVER SEEN THIS MOVIE SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH). Apparently the original had Ilsa going to bed with Rick to get the letters of transit. This would have made her an adulterer and therefore violated the code. So they changed it to make Rick even more heroic in giving up the girl and the letters of transit for nothing except honor and beating the Nazis. Actually, this was likely a better ending and played well into Bogie’s outwardly cynical but essentially heroic persona in the movie.

(A couple notes for “Casablanca ” fanatics–nearly everyone who loves this movie knows it was based on a play entitled “Everybody Comes to Rick’s,” by the now forgotten Murray Burnett and Joan Allison. They were quite a pair, more so than I want to take time and space on here–suggest you google “Joan Allison-writer” for the details. Also, that famous end line about a friendship, which we all love? That was created after filming had ended and they had to get Bogie to record it via telephone!)

Speaking of World War II films(which people of my age never tire of seeing)I think Fred Zinneman’s “From Here to Eternity,” which won the 1953 Best Picture Oscar is a great movie. I recently watched it again on TV for about the 45th time. But it is one of the few instances in which you may actually point to something more or less obvious and not debatable , that shows the code at its most fanatic and, in this case anyway, working against great art(this charge, often made, I’d say was seldom true, but here, in this case, it likely is)

For the uninitiated, this story has five main characters, one of whom is(in the James Jones novel)a prostitute. In the movie they changed her(Donna Reed, several years younger and about a thousand miles from her character on “The Donna Reed Show” where she realistically scrubbed the floor in a cocktail dress) to something like a dime-a-dance girl who works at the New Congress Club where soldiers go & where no alcohol is permitted and you mustn’t touch the girls except to dance a bit and maybe get a quick hug. (A bunch of tough soldiers on a weekend pass–right)

This is so obviously absurd as to be ridiculous and I imagine was seen as such as such, by much, perhaps most, of the audience.(Many of the viewers had to be WWII veterans) Suprisingly, in a way, Zinnemann still got a lot of the raw and gut wrenching emotion out of her relationship with a lonely and persecuted soldier. (Prew, played by the supremely talented Montgomery Clift) Maybe it’s even a little better in that the slight softening of the characters makes the emotions a little more accessible to the viewer. But I still think it would have been more powerful to have stuck with Jones’s original.

Another issue with the code was crime and immoral(and not limited to sexual)behavior and the people who did this in movies. Essentially, the code’s view was that out and out crime, and to some extent bad behavior, had to be punished. This was supposedly an example of the heavily religious, particularly Roman Catholic influence upon the code. I am not aware that Christianity actually teaches that good behavior on earth will be rewarded by wealth and happiness, nor that evil will necessarily be punished by the lack of them. That has never been my impression, but I yield to the fact that this idea may have influenced the code.

If you watch a movie from this era and you see a crime committed early on in it, you may assume that character is doomed– to at least some time in jail, maybe worse. You can actually see this developing BEFORE 1934, possibly the roots of what happened later. In a Code Era movie, anyone who commits a criminal act has to be killed or in jail or at least arrested and facing jail by the movie’s end, as noted above. A couple of obvious examples(SPOILER ALERT THIS PARAGRAPH) come from a couple of terrific films that, for whatever, reason, seemed to anticipate 1934. In 1931 two of the great gangster films, “Public Enemy” and “Little Caesar” were released. “Enemy” is best know to film fans as the movie in which James Cagney shoves a grapefruit into his girlfriend’s(Mae Clark)face, but this piece of domestic violence did not create noticeable controversy. Cagney’s character, Tom,. rises to the top by his ruthlessness and is eventually killed by rival gangsters. This is hardly a surprise, but serves as an example. Just as obvious, but I think worthy of mention, is “Little Caesar.” another sort of small time criminal to riches story starring the ever magnificent Edward G Robinson. As he is killed by rivals at the end he says “Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?” HIs killing, had it been in a later movie, would have satisfied the code’s requirements and the line became one of the best known in film history. I have heard it alleged that, code or not, they made the line “Mother of Mercy” rather than “Mother of God” which seemingly was considered blasphemous.

So, these two films were from the pre-1934 era, but in some, by no means all ways, anticipated it. They did NOT anticipate it in that the gangsters they offered were in some ways dashing and attractive characters. Pre-1934 the gangster was often portrayed as a sort of off-the-wall hero. To some degree this may have actually reflected much American public opinion in the early ’30’s. This was the worst part of the depression and the nation’s leaders were held in contempt by a larger than usual number of citizens. The gangsters, many thought, were guys who thumbed their noses at the people who had gotten the country into this mess.(“I’ve been all around this country, I’ve seen lots of funny men–some rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen”–from, I think, “The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd”–anyway, Joan Baez had it on one of her earlier albums).

Hollywood did a quick change on gangster films, somewhat due to members of the public who complained that gangsters were too glorified in the earlier films. Mostly however, I think pressure from the code caused this. In 1935 in “G-Men” Cagney made another gangster movie. But there was a change now–this time he was on the side of the law and the gangsters were despicable, not heroic. Cagney was still tough-talking and somewhat glamorous (I won’t say he was suave)but this time on the side of the law. This was a huge change.

Gangsters were portrayed as being pretty terrible in almost all films after 1934. In 1937 Bette Davis and Bogart starred in “Marked Woman.” Like Cagney in 1935, Bogie now was bringing his singular character to the side of the law as a good-guy District Attorney(it is said that his character was based loosely on Tom Dewey’s rise to fame and Presidential ambitions by prosecuting hoods–see my earlier article on Primaries and the Presidency). So Bogie is the lawman/hero and the gangsters are truly evil–after murdering one sister who irritates or threatens a crime boss, they beat the other(Davis)and then carve a cross in her face as a warning to those who would testify against the top man.

To take 2 or 3 other examples, not quite so obvious, I mention “Strange Cargo(1940) mostly because it is a strange movie and one of my sort of hidden favorites(I guess “When Ladies Meet” would be too). It is, to give a very short sketch of the story, set on Devil’s Island, the French Prison camp off the coast of South America. It has to do with some prisoners including Clark Gable, and a nightclub singer(Joan Crawford) who is also a prostitute(her prostitution naturally just hinted at) who get involved in a mass escape and make their way through the jungle. They eventually find a small boat on which they hope to get to the mainland. Among the prisoners is a very unusual man named Cambreau(Ian Hunter) who apparently has some subtle and possibly supernatural powers, though this is kept mostly implicit. Not wanting to create a big spoiler alert at this point I will not go further except to say that basically good is rewarded and evil punished, though not as obviously as in some cases. This is really an interesting movie and I strongly recommend it. It only minimally qualifies as being in the category for our subject matter here, but see it anyway if you get the chance. I really like it!!

By the way, the producers had a lot of trouble getting this movie through with the code’s approval. The code folks demanded a number of changes and I have read that some complained–or at least some members of the public did– that Cambreau’s character was blasphemous. Huh? Because he practiced mercy and showed wisdom? Did I miss something? I guess it was because he was portrayed as being Christ-like and they felt it might imply he actually was Christ–I guess that would be unacceptable to the church but it’s an around-the-barn way of condemning a beautiful character in a very good film. Well, maybe I did miss something.

OK, one more SPOILER ALERT. In 1944 came “Double Indemnity.” which I would select as one of the great films. If I ever drew up a best 10 of all time list DE would be on it, or at least on the list of the next 10 as also-rans. It is about 2 clearly sinful people, a beautiful and seductive bored wife of a Dull Rich Guy(Barbara Stanwick) and an insurance salesman(Fred MacMurray.) At the beginning, MacMurray is pretty much an ordinary guy who sells insurance–Stanwick, on the other hand, in the words of an early Agatha Christie novel, has already “given herself over to evil.” She seduces Mac and he quickly goes from ordinary insurance salesman to killer as they plot to get rid of her husband. They do so, then more or less fall out dealing with the aftermath. They are thwarted because of the efforts of Edward G Robinson, this time playing one of his good-guy roles as an insurance investigator. In the end they wind up killing each other,(the code would not countenance their survival, naturally) though each is given a moment of grace in which they both express love or something like it. Remade today, the plot would likely not be changed much, but it is worth including as an example of adherence to the code, though adherence was likely not too difficult on this occasion.

Jumping to the 1950’s, the playwright, Maxwell Anderson, had taken a rather obscure novel entitled “The Bad Seed” and written what turned out to be a fairly successful Broadway play from it. It was a disturbing story about a little girl who was obviously a budding serial killer and had already begun her career. For the details of this, see an excellent on-line article by Audrey E Lorber, “The Bad Seed and the Hays Code.” I will not reveal much of what she says here nor much about the movie, But I will point out that if anyone tells you the code was only interested in sex, this is a good one to mention. Truly, the code seemed obsessed with sex at times,(see above and below) but it also addressed other issues and this is one of them. “The Bad Seed” was duly released but not without a lot of discussion and negotiation. It also demonstrates the Code’s use of what came to be known as “adaptational karma.” This meant that if the original play or story or whatever the source was had something in it that seemed to allow evil to go unpunished–well, there was a way around that. The screen writers would bring in some unforeseen (and not necessarily too believable) event that punishes the evil doer. This is more or less what happens in “The Bad Seed,” and one thing to be said for it is that in this case it worked. It worked, that is, in meeting the code’s requirements without seriously violating the original work and/or idea. If you like them grim and tense this is a good move. See the above mentioned article for great detail.

One of the biggest(and most understandable)jokes about the code was its apparent twin beds rule. Early on it seems to have been decided that the actual taking place of sexual relations could not be even very strongly implied and this restriction applied, ridiculously, to married couples as well as others. So from the mid- ’30’s on for 2 or 3 decades you will not find a married couple in the same bed in almost any American-made movie. They nearly all had twin beds and while I guess twin beds were popular then–and still may be sometimes–it is doubtful if everybody had them.

This particular restriction managed also to become an obsession of TV, although the code had nothing to do with television productions. But note all those “I Love Lucy” segments with Lucy, Dezi and their twin beds. Also, when Lucy was pregnant it was decided that they could not use the word “pregnant” in the show–“expecting” was as far as they could go. This represented another influence of the code where it had no real power at all.

Of course, sex is important enough in human life that there’s a limit to the number of reasonable stories you can tell without at least hinting at it. And, as I’ve already said, it was hinted at a lot, with sly looks, convoluted language and maybe more convoluted plots. Movies eventually dealt with rape, teenage pregnancy and other such matters and got a lot of them through the censors. But they had to be careful.

The code also had an odd blindness to some kinds of misbehavior which didn’t seem to concern it. The most obvious here is alcohol abuse. After the repeal of Prohibition in late 1933(the 18th Amendment’s repeal has to be one of the fastest actions in US Constitutional history–FDR took office in March and it was booted in December)you could portray people drinking without making them lawbreakers. Apparently you could also make them lushes without bothering the Code enforcers..

The very next year saw the release of “The Thin Man,” the first of the myriad Thin Man movies which went on for more than a decade. (Trivia note–The “Thin Man” in the original story and movie is NOT Nick Charles, but the guy he’s looking for. But the name stuck to Nick in the movies). Anyway, Nick comes off as a heavy drinker and remains one throughout the film and, to the best of my recollection, the series.

I’ve seen a number of these lately and actually they are rather mediocre. Nick’s pursuit of the bottle is overemphasized, sometimes to the point of embarrassment, and the mysteries are only adequately mysterious. The attempts at sophisticated comedy work sometimes–sometimes.

It was, I believe, fairly common to treat over-indulgence in alcohol as a matter of humor and/or little importance. In Eugene O’Neil’s “Ah, Wilderness,” the Uncle of this extended family is a heavy drinker. My wife once pointed out that this play is actually O’Neil’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” perhaps America’s greatest play, done as a comedy. I would say this is right, at least for the movie version. Uncle Sid just drinks too much and this is not ignored but does not become a serious part of the story. That is OK, of course, and the author’s choice, but it would also be in keeping with the times and the code’s indifference, from what I have seen of films of the era.

I also remember a film I saw as a child, with my mother , no doubt in downtown Akron at the Colonial or Lowe’s or one of the other Big Theatres, a film which certainly treated drunkenness as funny. If it had kept it within a house and had people just making fools of themselves that would have been one thing. But extending it to making a big joke of drunken driving was quite another. Unfortunately I have no idea what film it was.

One more place where the code allowed things which would not pass muster today, was in treatment of women, particularly violence toward women. I will mention one instance of the latter. In “The Philadelphia Story,” early in the film there is a scene in which Cary Grant goes to the door of his ex, Katherine Hepburn and, after a frustrating conversation, puts his hand in her face and gives her a shove. It is not really bad violence compared to beating, for example, but it would not be allowed today, (for good reason)by everyone’s mutual agreement. Please note that I think “Story” is a great comedy, in fact a great movie, with many wise comments in it, especially regarding men and women. This irony is worth noting and perhaps reflecting on. But it is beyond doubt to any fan of old films that a lot of behavior which would be considered sexual harassment today was assumed to be normal and women were presumed to accept it.

This is the end of Part I. I hope to be back with Part II shortly and to deal with the later years of the code, particularly its decline and fall when it came down, rather like the Roman Empire, one metaphorical brick at a time. I want to go into reasons for this and examples of its decline, and then reflect briefly on movies before the code ended and movies since then. Were films better in one era than the other? We’ll see-maybe.