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In 1892, Thomas Edison, William Dickson, and William Heise invented the kinetoscope, an early precursor to the modern film camera (“History”). Only a few decades later, the American film industry, based in Hollywood, California, grew into a significant national commercial force. However, in the early twentieth century, films as both a medium and as an industry came under fire, being “damned from the pulpit, condemned by editorialists, and denounced by politicians” for their perceived lack of morality (Bowman). Pressured by these influential groups, the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) established a content-regulating code that, until the mid twentieth century, all major studios agreed to follow. This code, the Production Code of 1930, set a precedent in the film industry for compromising with opposing forces by self-censorship and regulation, a precedent that continues today.
The film industry’s move toward censorship began in court. The Industrial Commission of Ohio required all films to be submitted for censorship before they could be sold presented in the state of Ohio (Mutual). The Mutual Film Corporation argued that this requirement not only impeded business but also violated the right to speech and publication guaranteed in the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution (Mutual). The case reached the Supreme Court, which ruled in 1915 that motion pictures were purely forms of business and entertainment, not to be equated with speech and publication (Mutual). Films would not be protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments (Mutual). The ruling reflected the way the nation viewed films at the time and set a precedent for the status of films that would create conflict against the industry in the 1930’s. Indeed, the Court foreshadowed this conflict when it warned, “We cannot regard film censorship as beyond the power of government” (Mutual).
For the next six years the film industry continued to produce films without significant threat from moviegoers, theaters, or the government. Unfortunately for the industry, a series of sex scandals poured from Hollywood during this time, peaking with the 1921 rape and murder trail of Fatty Arbuckle (“When Hollywood…”). The Fatty Arbuckle trial represented a serious loss of Hollywood’s moral credibility in the public eye; already several states had formed movie-review board to censor or ban “offensive” films (Gardner). The film industry took notice, and soon it sought a strong figure representing moral hardiness to head the newly formed MPPDA (Gardner). It found such a figure in William Hays, a Presbyterian elder and major figure in the Warren Harding presidential campaign (“When Hollywood…”). Hays also represented the religious and political pressures that would fall on the industry, yet he would ultimately protect films from both pressures.
Hays took his office to mixed opinion. Hollywood’s creative group derided his righteousness as stifling to “freedom, taste and mature thought” while theater owners applauded his efforts for the relief he gave to their customers (Gardner). Hays, however, was only concerned with the studio owners, who needed film showings to generate profit (Gardner). Therefore, while he maintained the appearance that he was fight indecency in the industry, he worked to keep film-review boards from banning films outright (Gardner). With these goals in mind, Hays created in 1927 a list of “Don’ts and Be Carefuls” which all studio members of the MPPDA agreed to follow (The Movies 213). The list forbid presenting, among other things, profanity, nudity, and ridicule of the clergy and cautioned about the presentation of crime and intimate situations (The Movies 213). But while through the list Hollywood appeared to be cleaning its content, Hays gave in the document neither himself nor any group the ability to enforce the list, making compliance almost voluntary (The Movies 213). Even when studios followed the letter of the list, they could often work around it by adding a scene or two that condemned any offence (Gardner). The document is important, however, because it set the precedent that regulation and censorship would be set within the film industry. Later, the industry would have to fight to keep this precedence.
Hayes followed his list of “Don’t and Be Carefuls” with the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (“The Motion”). This second, more formal self-regulating document expanded many of the offenses of the original list, particularly concerning crime, sexual content, and profanity, and added new offenses such as obscenity, ill treatment of religion, and use of repellent subjects (“The Motion”). “No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it” was the hardy first principle of the Code, but sentiments once again rang hollow (Doherty). Again, all studio members agreed to the terms of the document, and again, the document held no power to be enforced (Doherty). Studios continued to make films essentially as they wished to, and they would continue to do so unharmed for another three years.
Finally, in late 1933, a prominent religious group and the federal government responded to the film industry’s lack of moral action (Doherty). The National Legion of Decency, composed mostly of Catholics but with some Protestants and Jews and led by Archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, threatened to boycott films and movie theaters until the industry enforced its Production Code (Doherty). The Legion made good on its word, and the height of the boycott, the group had millions of supporters (Doherty). Coming in the middle of the Great Depression, this continued blow to the box office placed the film industry in a vulnerable position. What threatened the industry more than this economic hit, though, was the threat of legislation (Doherty).
In his New Deal programs in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt had placed all industries, including ones of entertainment, under the regulation of the National Industrial Recovery Act, or NIRA (Doherty). The film industry feared that this act could lead to federal censorship, which, by limiting content, could drive away uncompromising filmmakers and even moviegoers (Doherty). Indeed, Congress was already considering film censorship legislation at the time, and to rising tensions, the Motion Picture Research Council added a twelve-volume study that claimed films were destroying traditional morality in children (Doherty). This study, along with the Legion of Decency’s boycott and the 1915 Supreme Court case denying First Amendment protection to films, left the industry in little position to argue for continued self-regulation.
At the end of 1933, to a fearful industry, the NIRA enacted its own Motion Picture Code, and shortly afterwards, several MPPDA and studio leaders began talks with the federal government to lighten the code (Doherty). These talks had little effect on the NIRA’s actions, but fortunately for the industry, the man appointed to regulate films, Sol A. Rosenblatt, held more concern for economic recovery than for moral reform (Doherty). Although Rosenblatt would later turn his attention back to morality, his initial stance gave the industry time to find a way to keep film regulation on industry terms (Doherty). It found one in Joseph I. Breen (Doherty).
Breen, a Catholic publicist for the MPPDA since 1930, met Rosenblatt early in 1934 (Doherty). At that meeting, Breen argued to keep film regulation within the industry, and Rosenblatt not only agreed but also named Breen the most capable person to do so (Doherty). Now, with sympathies toward the industry as well as the Legion of Decency, and with the support of a government official, Breen seemed both to embody and to be able to reconcile the three main factions on film regulation (Doherty). Breen’s position did not escape the MPPDA, and on February 5, 1934, it named Breen the head of the Studio Relations Committee, the organization in charge of approving films for release (Doherty). Still, the industry would not follow completely into this new order, and studios again found ways to circumvent the system. Two months in to reviewing, Breen had already rejected six films, but one decision on a film he found objectionable was appealed to and overruled by a jury of producers (Doherty). At this frustration of Breen and the Committee’s decision, the Legion of Decency once again boycott Hollywood films, this time avoiding all films regardless of their particular morality (Doherty). The second boycott was not only a great economic hit to the industry but also a message that the forces that pushed the Production Code to enforcement were still watching. Breen encouraged the boycott after he heard about it, and with the favor of Rosenblatt, he could have likely called government officials to help bring order to the industry (Doherty).
The MPPDA relented. On June 13,1934, it created the Production Code Administration (PCA), which would enforce the standards of the Code (Doherty). All members of the MPPDA, which included all major studios of the time, were required to follow the PCA’s rulings, and each film needed a certificate of approval before it could be distributed (Doherty). Any appeals to the MPPDA Board of Directors had to be made in New York, far from Hollywood, and breaking of the Code was fined up to $25000 (Doherty). In this way, the PCA made its decisions on films impractical to overturn and granted more power to its censors. In addition, the PCA changed the approval system from reviewing films in a finished stage to reviewing films in the scripting stage (Doherty). Regulating films this way not only made censorship easier for producers, who no longer had to cut scenes that were already filmed and paid-for, but also let the PCA judge film quicker and more thoroughly. The formation and early actions of the PCA helped the organization uphold the moral standards of the Production Code while keeping regulation within the realm of the industry. This regulatory system of the PCA remained in existence until 1968, but not before two pivotal events led to its decline (Gardner).
The first event was a Supreme Court case. In this case, the New York movie-review board banned the Italian film “The Miracle” from being show in public theaters for its “sacrilegious” content (Joseph). Joseph Burstyn Incorporated, the film’s distributor, argued that banning the film on such ground violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments (Joseph). The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the film distributor, and in doing so, he overturned the 1915 Court ruling and granted films equal protection under the Constitution with other forms of speech (Joseph). With the threat of federal regulation gone, the film industry no longer needed a self-censoring body. However, not until “The Man with the Golden Arm” was released did the Production Code lose value in Hollywood (Gardner). This 1955 film about a recovering drug addict who falls back into addiction would have been censored under the Code for its depictions of drug use, violence, and suicide (Gardner). However, producers released the film without the PCA’s seal of approval (Gardner). Critics praised the film as addressing a vital issue in the society of the day, and even the Legion of Decency approved of the picture (Gardner). Although the Code was rewritten the next year to allow for treatment in good taste of previously-forbidden subjects, the Code no longer held the same regard as it had in previous decades (Gardner). New competition with television sets placed still greater pressure on the Code, which declined.
In 1968, The Production Code was finally replaced by the Motion Pictures Rating System (Motion Pictures). This system used many of the same standards as the Production Code, such as harshness on crime, violence, and sexual content, but it gave each film an age-based rating that allowed parents to monitor what films their children watched while letting mature content reach mature audiences (Motion Pictures). The industry lost much of its constraints on subject matter, and Hollywood filmmaking opened up.
Today, the Motion Pictures Rating System remains in place, if slightly altered since its inception, and film historians are left to question the influence of the Production Code and all the industry’s self-regulation beforehand. William Hays and Joseph Breen undoubtedly limited the scope of filmmaking and the film industry with the creation and enforcement of the Production Code, but they also protected the industry from the pressures of the Legion of Decency and the threat of federal legislation. James Bowman has even suggested that the regulations inspired filmmakers to create more clever film that overcame the restraints. Regardless, the two men and the Code they wrought set a precedent in the film industry for self-censorship and regulation that remains to this day.
Annotated Bibliography
Primary Sources:
Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson. No. 343-495. Supreme Ct. 26 May 1952. FindLaw. 2007. Thomson. 29 Dec. 2007 http://laws. Supreme Court case showed me the change in legal status of films and part of the reason for the decline of the Production Code.
"Motion Picture Rating System (1968)." Digital History. Ed. S. Mintz. 29 Dec. 2007. 29 Dec. 2007 . copy of the original Motion Picture Rating System shows the influence of the Production Code on industry regulation after the Code’s abandonment.
Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Commission of Ohio. No. 236-230. Supreme Ct. 23 Feb. 1915. FindLaw. 2007. Thomsom. 28 Dec. 2007 http://laws. Supreme Court case presented the circumstances that would decide the legal status of films until 1952. The decision given also foreshadowed the threat of government interference during Franklin Roosevelt’s Presidency.
“The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930.” 12 April 2006. 28 December 2007. Production Code contains the influences of the main Catholic group that protested and boycott films of the era and held power over the content in filmmaking until 1968.
The Movies in Our Midst: Documents in the Cultural History of Film in America. Ed. Gerald Mast. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1982. 213-214.
The list on “Don’ts and Be Carefuls” on these pages strongly influenced the Production Code, and the tone of the list’s title reflects the relative lack of respect for the list the industry had at the time.
Secondary Sources:
Bowman, James. "Breaking the Code." Editorial. The American Spectator June-July 2003: 70. ProQuest. 2007. ProQuest LLC. 29 Dec. 2007 http://http://proquest. editorial gave some of the positive effects of the Production Code on films produced during the enforcement of the Code.
Doherty, Thomas. "A Code Is Born." Reason 39.8 (Jan. 2008): 54-60. EBSCO Host Research Databases. 2007. EBSCO Industries, Inc. 29 Dec. 2007 http://search. article gave critical information on the event leading up to and during the early years of the enforcement of the Production Code.
Gardner, Eric. "The Czar of Hollywood." Indianapolis Monthly Feb. 2005: 90-96. EBSCO Host Research Databases. 2007. EBSCO Industries, Inc. 29 Dec. 2007 http://search. gave significant information on William Hay’s work in film regulation and on part of why the Production Code was finally abandoned.
"History of Edison Motion Pictures." Inventing Entertainment: The Early Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies. 13 Jan. 1999. Lib. Of Congress. 31 Dec. 2007 . .
The document told when and by whom a predecessor of the motion picture camera was invented.
"When Hollywood Wooed the Censors." Wilson Quarterly 17.2 (Spring 1993): 145. EBSCO Host Research Databases. 2007. EBSCO Industries, Inc. 29 Dec. 2007 http://search. article gave me information on the origin of self-censorship in the American film industry and on William Hays’s early work in the industry.
