Pre-Code Hollywood

Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known as the "Hays Code", in mid-1934. Although the Code was adopted in 1930, oversight was poor, and it did not become rigorously enforced until July 1, 1934, with the establishment of the Production Code Administration (PCA). Before that date, film content was restricted more by local laws, negotiations between the Studio Relations Committee (SRC) and the major studios, and popular opinion, than by strict adherence to the Hays Code, which was often ignored by Hollywood filmmakers.

As a result, some films in the late 1920s and early 1930s depicted or implied sexual innuendo, romantic and sexual relationships between white and black people, mild profanity, illegal drug use, promiscuity, prostitution, infidelity, abortion, intense violence, and homosexuality. Nefarious characters were seen to profit from their deeds, in some cases without significant repercussions. For example, gangsters in films such as '' The Public Enemy'', '' Little Caesar'', and '' Scarface'' were seen by many as heroic rather than evil. Strong female characters were ubiquitous in such pre-Code films as ''Female'', ''Baby Face'', and ''Red-Headed Woman''. Along with featuring stronger female characters, movies examined female subject matters that would not be revisited until decades later in US films. Many of Hollywood's biggest stars such as Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, and Edward G. Robinson got their start in the era. Other stars who excelled during this period, however, like Ruth Chatterton (who decamped to England) and Warren William (the so-called "king of Pre-Code", who died in 1948), would wind up essentially forgotten by the general public within a generation.Turan, p. 371.

Beginning in late 1933 and escalating throughout the first half of 1934, American Roman Catholics launched a campaign against what they deemed the immorality of American cinema. This, plus a potential government takeover of film censorship and social research seeming to indicate that movies which were seen to be immoral could promote bad behavior, was enough pressure to force the studios to capitulate to greater oversight.

Origins of the Code (1915–1930)

Earliest attempts for the Code

In 1922, after some risqué films and a series of off-screen scandals involving Hollywood stars, the studios enlisted Presbyterian elder William H. "Will" Hays to rehabilitate Hollywood's image. Hays, later nicknamed the motion picture "Czar", was paid the then-lavish sum of $100,000 a year (equivalent to more than $1.7 million in 2022 dollars).Yagoda, Ben
HOLLYWOOD CLEANS UP ITS ACT: The curious career of the Hays Office
americanheritage.com; accessed October 11, 2012. Hays, Postmaster General under Warren G. Harding and former head of the Republican National Committee,Siegel & Siegel, p. 190. served for 25 years as president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), where he "defended the industry from attacks, recited soothing nostrums, and negotiated treaties to cease hostilities."Doherty, p. 6. Hollywood mimicked the decision Major League Baseball had made in hiring judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as League Commissioner the previous year to quell questions about the integrity of baseball in wake of the 1919 World Series gambling scandal; ''The New York Times'' called Hays the "screen Landis".

Hays introduced a set of recommendations dubbed "The Formula" in 1924, which the studios were advised to heed, and asked filmmakers to describe to his office the plots of films they were planning.Prince, p. 20. The Supreme Court had already decided unanimously in 1915 in ''Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio'' that free speech did not extend to motion pictures, and while there had been token attempts to clean up the movies before, such as when the studios formed the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry (NAMPI) in 1916, little had come of the efforts.

Creation of the Code and its contents

In 1929, Roman Catholic layman Martin Quigley, editor of the prominent trade paper ''Motion Picture Herald'', and Father Daniel A. Lord, a Jesuit priest, created a code of standards (of which Hays strongly approved)Smith, p. 38. and submitted it to the studios. Lord's concerns centered on the effects sound film had on children, whom he considered especially susceptible to the medium's allure. Several studio heads, including Irving Thalberg of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), met with Lord and Quigley in February 1930. After some revisions, they agreed to the stipulations of the Code. One of the main motivating factors in adopting the Code was to avoid direct government intervention. It was the responsibility of the Studio Relations Committee, headed by Colonel Jason S. Joy, to supervise film production and advise the studios when changes or cuts were required. LaSalle, Mick
"Pre-Code Hollywood"
, GreenCine.com; accessed October 4, 2010.Doherty, p. 8.

The Code was divided into two parts. The first was a set of "general principles" that mostly concerned morality. The second was a set of "particular applications", an exacting list of items that could not be depicted. Some restrictions, such as the ban on homosexuality or the use of specific curse words, were never directly mentioned but were assumed to be understood without clear demarcation. Miscegenation, the mixing of the races, was forbidden. The Code stated that the notion of an "adults-only policy" would be a dubious, ineffective strategy that would be difficult to enforce.Doherty, p. 7. However, it did allow that "maturer minds may easily understand and accept without harm subject matter in plots which does younger people positive harm." If children were supervised and the events implied elliptically, the code allowed what Brandeis University cultural historian Thomas Doherty called "the possibility of a cinematically inspired thought crime."

The Code sought not only to determine what could be portrayed on screen, but also to promote traditional values. Sexual relations outside of marriage could not be portrayed as attractive and beautiful, presented in a way that might arouse passion or be made to seem right and permissible. All criminal action had to be punished, and neither the crime nor the criminal could elicit sympathy from the audience. Authority figures had to be treated respectfully, and the clergy could not be portrayed as comic characters or villains. Under some circumstances, politicians, police officers and judges could be villains, as long as it was clear that they were the exception to the rule.

The entire document contained Catholic undertones and stated that art must be handled carefully because it could be "morally evil in its effects" and because its "deep moral significance" was unquestionable. The Catholic influence on the Code was initially kept secret, owing to the Anti-Catholic bias of the time. Black, p. 43. A recurring theme was "throughout, the audience feels sure that evil is wrong and good is right." The Code contained an addendum, commonly referred to as the Advertising Code, that regulated film advertising copy and imagery.

Enforcement

On February 19, 1930, ''Variety'' published the entire contents of the Code and predicted that state film censorship boards would soon become obsolete.Black, p. 44. However, the men obligated to enforce the code – Jason Joy, who was the head of the Committee until 1932, and his successor, Dr. James Wingate – were seen as generally ineffective.Black, p. 51. The very first film the office reviewed, ''The Blue Angel'', which was passed by Joy without revision, was considered indecent by a California censor. Although there were several instances where Joy negotiated cuts from films, and there were indeed definite, albeit loose, constraints, a significant amount of lurid material made it to the screen.

Joy had to review 500 films a year using a small staff and little power. The Hays office did not have the authority to order studios to remove material from a film in 1930, but instead worked by reasoning and sometimes pleading with them.Black, p. 52. Complicating matters, the appeals process ultimately put the responsibility for making the final decision in the hands of the studios themselves.

One factor in ignoring the Code was the fact that some found such censorship prudish. This was a period in which the Victorian era was sometimes ridiculed as being naïve and backward. When the Code was announced, ''The Nation'', a liberal periodical, attacked it. The publication stated that if crime were never presented in a sympathetic light, then, taken literally, "law" and "justice" would become the same. Therefore, events such as the Boston Tea Party could not be portrayed. And if clergy were always to be presented positively, then hypocrisy could not be examined either.Black, p. 45. The ''Outlook'' agreed, and, unlike ''Variety'', predicted from the beginning the Code would be difficult to enforce.

Additionally, the Great Depression of the 1930s motivated studios to produce films with racy and violent content, which boosted ticket sales. Soon, the flouting of the code became an open secret. In 1931, ''The Hollywood Reporter'' mocked the code, and ''Variety'' followed suit in 1933. In the same year as the ''Variety'' article, a noted screenwriter stated that "the Hays moral code is not even a joke any more; it's just a memory."

Early sound film era

Although the liberalization of sexuality in American film had increased during the 1920s,Benshoff & Griffin, p. 218. the pre-Code era is either dated to the start of the sound film era, or more generally to March 1930, when the Hays Code was first written. Over the protests of NAMPI, New York became the first state to take advantage of the Supreme Court's decision in ''Mutual Film vs. Ohio'' by instituting a censorship board in 1921. Virginia followed suit the next year, and eight individual states had a board by the advent of sound film.

Many of these boards were ineffectual. By the 1920s, the New York stage, a frequent source of subsequent screen material, had topless shows; performances were filled with profanity, mature subject matter, and sexually suggestive dialogue.Butters Jr, p. 187. Early during the sound system conversion process, it became apparent that what might be acceptable in New York would not be so in Kansas. In 1927, Hays suggested studio executives form a committee to discuss film censorship. Irving Thalberg of Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), Sol Wurtzel of Fox, and E. H. Allen of Paramount responded by collaborating on a list they called the " Don'ts and Be Carefuls", based on items that were challenged by local censor boards, and which consisted of eleven subjects best avoided, and twenty-six to be handled very carefully. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved the list, and Hays created the Studio Relations Committee (SRC) to oversee its implementation. However, there was still no way to enforce these tenets. The controversy surrounding film standards came to a head in 1929.Butters Jr, p. 189.

Director Cecil B. DeMille was responsible for the increasing discussion of sex in cinema in the 1920s. Starting with ''Male and Female'' (1919), he made a series of films that examined sex and were highly successful.Siegel & Siegel, p. 379. Films featuring Hollywood's original "It girl" Clara Bow such as '' The Saturday Night Kid'' (released four days before the October 29, 1929, market crash) highlighted Bow's sexual attractiveness. 1920s stars such as Bow, Gloria Swanson, and Norma Talmadge freely displayed their sexuality in a straightforward fashion.

Hollywood during the Great Depression

The Great Depression presented a unique time for film-making in the United States. The economic disaster brought on by the stock market crash of 1929 changed American values and beliefs in various ways. Themes of American exceptionalism

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