A Code Is Born

How Catholic crusaders and New Deal regulators created the most intrusive censorship regime in Hollywood history

Thomas Doherty from the January 2008 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

Actually, the end run around the Code was less kabuki show than bedroom farce: Even before Wanger’s appeal was decided by the producers jury, indeed even as Breen pleaded with Mayer to cut the picture, Queen Christina was playing a road show engagement at the Astor Theater in New York.

Despite his five-for-six average, Breen steamed over the film that had gotten away. “The task is really an impossible one, as we are now constituted,” he realized. “I can scold and argue and coax and threaten but I have no real authority to stop the dirty pictures.” However vigilant the SRC, the tight-knit producers closed ranks to block enforcement. “As matters now stand,” he concluded, “the appeal to a jury of producers simply [doesn’t] work out. The producers are [not] willing to condemn a picture made by a fellow producer—and the dirty pictures continue to be made.”

As Breen struggled behind enemy lines, his allies on the field launched an attack that, if not exactly instigated by Breen, went forward with his encouragement and worked to his advantage. Suddenly, Catholics seemed to be everywhere—except at the movies. In Chicago, George Cardinal Mundelein warned Catholics that patronizing “debasing pictures” constituted “a grave offense against the moral law.” In St. Louis, Bishop John J. Glennon urged membership in the Legion and called films “an education only in immorality, crime, and lawlessness.” In Breen’s hometown of Philadelphia, Denis Cardinal Dougherty ordered the faithful to boycott Hollywood films—not just the immoral films but all films—as “perhaps the greatest menace to faith and morals in America today.” In every parochial school, every parish, and every diocese, Catholics read the pastoral letters and recited the Legion pledge. Enough of the chorus stood by the words to further drain an already parched box office.

On June 21, 1934, a special conference of the Catholic Bishops Committee on Motion Pictures was scheduled to meet in Cincinnati to plan the next move in the hardball campaign. With box offices hemorrhaging in the Catholic strongholds in the big cities and with the New Dealers contemplating an alphabet agency especially for Hollywood, Hays and Breen tossed a lifeline to the moguls.

Prior to the bishops’ conference, on June 13, 1934, the MPPDA’s Board of Directors had met in New York and unanimously passed a resolution creating a new enforcement regime, the Production Code Administration (PCA), “to strengthen in every reasonable way the effectiveness” of the Code. Any member company of the MPPDA (which included all the major studios) and any producer using the distribution facilities of the majors (thus, any respectable independent) would be bound to process its product through the new system and acquire a stamped “Certificate of Approval.” A violation of the rules would incur a fine of $25,000 for “disrupt[ing] the stability of the industry and caus[ing] serious damage to all members of the Association.” The leaders of the boycott approved the change, establishing a censorship regime that ceded dominion of Hollywood cinema to Irish-Catholic theology for the next 20 years.

A decision by the Production Code Administration could be appealed only to the MPPDA Board of Directors back in New York—away from the domain of the Hollywood moguls and into the sphere of the Wall Street moneymen. Not only were defiant producers and member theaters to be held in a kind of corporate contempt and fined $25,000, but the loans, investments, and promissory notes from the East that funded motion picture production out West would be tied to compliance with the self-regulatory system. Without approval from the PCA, the Hollywood studios forfeited financing and bookings.

Breen’s regulatory authority would flow from New York, not Hollywood. No longer a factotum, he would sit at the table with the moguls as an equal partner—actually, more than equal. Without Breen, Hollywood could not do business.

The second key modification established a rigorous review process for film projects prior to production. “Certainly, if there is a censorship, it should be done at that time,” figured Billy Wilkerson, the influential editor and publisher of the Hollywood Reporter, speaking for the consensus. “Once time and money have been expended in production, it is fatal to have that production sliced to ribbons by censors’ shears, causing a destruction of thousands of dollars, money that could and would have been saved if the slicing had been done from the script.” Before the cameras ever rolled, the fix would be in.

Taken together, the two design renovations—the transfer of power from producers to regulators and the application of the Code during the script phase of production—created a smooth, conveyer-belt system for the censorship of studio films.

Scared straight by Legion boycotts and New Deal threats, the members of the MPPDA board sent instructions back to the moguls to do absolutely nothing to queer the deal. “If Joe Breen tells you to change a picture, you do what he tells you,” Harry Warner wired the studio he co-founded. “If any one fails to do this—and this goes for my brother—he’s fired.”

Breen now stood as supreme sentinel and inspector general of American cinema. Henceforth no Hollywood film received a visa for exhibition without meeting Code specifications as interpreted by Joseph I. Breen. It was he who vetted story lines, blue-penciled dialogue, and exercised the moral equivalent of final cut over hundreds of motion pictures per year—expensive “A” caliber feature films, low-budget B-unit ephemera, short subjects, previews of coming attractions, even cartoons. From 1934 to 1954, except for a brief eight-month stint as head of RKO studios in 1941, the Victorian Irishman held Hollywood to a strict catechism of thou-shalt-nots. When Breen died in 1965, Variety aptly summed up his legacy: “More than any single individual, he shaped the moral stature of the American motion picture.”

Thomas Doherty is a professor of American studies at Brandeis University. Adapted from Hollywood’s Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration, by Thomas Doherty. Copyright © 2007 Columbia University Press. Used by arrangement with Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

Comments

|12.4.07 @ 10:06AM|#

Not having seen any of the films from that four year golden era, I have to wonder exactly how risqué these films actually were, and whether there were any films that were both "dirty" and *good*.

ObLibertarian: Censorship bad! But Boycotts are a good and right way for consumers to tell businesses what to do. So confused!

|12.4.07 @ 10:14AM|#

I knew it: the Catholics run hollywood!

|12.4.07 @ 10:55AM|#

ObLibertarian: Censorship bad! But Boycotts are a good and right way for consumers to tell businesses what to do. So confused!

Nothing to be confused about. You said it succinctly from the get go.

|12.4.07 @ 11:01AM|#

I am somewhat surpised that the artilcle mananged to avoid mentioning the queen of the anti-prudes, Mae West. The woman aws constantly at war with the censors, bigots and homophobes of her day. I propose inducting her in the Libertarian Hall of Fame.

|12.4.07 @ 11:37AM|#

"Considering these evils, I hereby promise to remain away from all motion pictures except those which do not offend decency and Christian morality."

I don't have any problem with people exercising their Freedom to (not) Assemble but why do they forever have to tell me about it? Can't you just sterilize yourself to save the planet without running your yap? Can't you just drive the hybrid and leave off the "look at me I'm special" bumpersticker? It seems to me that if you know what you're doing is the right thing to do then you don't need affirmation from the masses. Or, do you only do the right thing if the right thing is the easy thing to do?

Decide how you should be living your life and leave me out of it. I can, and do, make my own decisions.

Jesse Walker|12.4.07 @ 11:47AM|#

I am somewhat surpised that the artilcle mananged to avoid mentioning the queen of the anti-prudes, Mae West.

She's in the book from which the article was excerpted.

|12.4.07 @ 11:55AM|#

I am somewhat surpised that the artilcle mananged to avoid mentioning the queen of the anti-prudes, Mae West. The woman aws constantly at war with the censors, bigots and homophobes of her day. I propose inducting her in the Libertarian Hall of Fame.

I second the motion. Mae West had it going on.

|12.4.07 @ 11:57AM|#

Not for nothing, but I wish Reason would hold back on putting the print articles online. I just got my copy yesterday.

|12.4.07 @ 11:59AM|#

I knew it: the Catholics run hollywood!

So does this mean Catholics are the new Jews?

|12.4.07 @ 12:00PM|#

She's in the book from which the article was excerpted.

Thanks, do I have to read it now? ;-)

Shannon Love|12.4.07 @ 12:37PM|#

I suppose its taboo to point out that changes that the moral conservatives in the article warned about did in fact take place, that the harms they warned against did actually manifest and that entertainment media in all forms appears to have been one of drivers of that change?

Only our advancing technology has blunted the ill effects of these cultural changes. In the 1930's, syphilis remained a major disease. A one night stand could lead to ones death while screaming insane a decade or more later. Birth control was ineffective by modern standards. It wasn't intellectually indefensible to argue that anything that fostered promiscuity presented a danger to the general society. Indeed, it is only by fluke that AIDS did not spread easily by heterosexual sex and thereby create a plague that could have killed millions. If that had happened, the old fogies who opposed the sexual revolution wouldn't look so stupid today.

I think that moralism represents a poorly studied behavior. We conventionally write it off as a mere power grab but I think it arises from an attempt to suppress behaviors that (1) cause no individual-->individual harm (2) don't cause harm if a small percentage of the population engages in them but (3) does cause significant harm if a critical mass of the population engages in it.

If my suspicion proves true then moralism represents a major stumbling block for the wide acceptance of libertarianism. People will revert to the use of state power to suppress behaviors they intuit will cause widespread harm if allowed to spread.

ed|12.4.07 @ 12:58PM|#

Not for nothing, but I wish Reason would hold back on putting the print articles online.
I just got my copy yesterday.

Does that make you feel like a sucker for subscribing, Warren? See today's post about making South Park and The Daily Show and others freely available online to all at no cost.

|12.4.07 @ 2:20PM|#

Does that make you feel like a sucker for subscribing, Warren?

Hey, I recently sprung for a subscription, knowing full well that every article in it would be posted online. Figured it was time to reward Reason for running this awesome website.

Plus, I get to enjoy the pained look on my non-libertarian wife's face when she sees the magazine each month.

|12.4.07 @ 2:21PM|#

Not to mention the cognitive dissonence from having subscriptions to both Reason and Ensign magazines ...

LarryA|12.4.07 @ 6:24PM|#

We conventionally write it off as a mere power grab but I think it arises from an attempt to suppress behaviors that (1) cause no individual-->individual harm (2) don't cause harm if a small percentage of the population engages in them but (3) does cause significant harm if a critical mass of the population engages in it.

Actually most moralists act because they find a behavior icky, however they define that, and want to prohibit for everyone what they won't do themselves.

People will revert to the use of state power to suppress behaviors they intuit will cause widespread harm if allowed to spread.

You've stumbled on the heart of the problem. "Intuit." Like gun ban advocates who think firearms are icky and ignore widespread evidence that bans don't work. Like drug warriors who find chemical mood enhancement icky despite obvious evidence that the WoD causes far more problems than it solves. Like the B.M.I. nazis who fail to notice that icky "overweight" people live longer than those of "normal" weight.

Personally, such folks belong in the middle of the "intelligent design" crowd. No reason required.

Mad Max|12.4.07 @ 9:12PM|#

"The NRA divisional administrator appointed to regulate the motion picture industry was a loyal New Dealer named Sol A. Rosenblatt, a man whose mogul-like name belied any sympathy with the studios."

What do you mean, "mogul-like name?" What are you suggesting?

". . . establishing a censorship regime that ceded dominion of Hollywood cinema to Irish-Catholic theology for the next 20 years."

I'm a sucker for happy endings!

"Only our advancing technology has blunted the ill effects of these cultural changes. In the 1930's, syphilis remained a major disease. A one night stand could lead to ones death while screaming insane a decade or more later."

Fortunately, nowadays you can no longer get deadly diseases from sexual activity.

"Birth control was ineffective by modern standards."

Yeah, the illegitimacy rate was incredibly high back then, in contrast to today. In our enlightened era, while illegitimate births occur, it's not the norm in any segment of society, and . . . wait a minute, I've got my eras reversed.

"It wasn't intellectually indefensible to argue that anything that fostered promiscuity presented a danger to the general society."

Today, we know that fostering promiscuity is perfectly safe.

|12.4.07 @ 10:16PM|#

The spirit of the Decency League is alive and well: the Catholic League, i.e. Bill Donohoe and his hard-core followers (all seven of them) have called for a boycott of the new film The Golden Compass due to perceived anti-Catholic themes in the source novels.

Now, I have never read The Golden Compass, nor had I intended to see the movie - until I heard about the attack by the League. I don't care if they're both complete crap; I'll buy the book for all my friends and enemies, see the movie, and when the DVD comes out, I fully intend to link it to my blog. Fuck you, Donohoe...

MJ|12.4.07 @ 10:58PM|#

The anti-Catholic themes are not merely "perceived", the author has said that he wrote the story as an attack on Catholicism and Christianity in general. If you don't like Donohoe and his group, that's one thing, but they are not wrong about this. Sometimes when someone ocmplains of bias in a work the claim us legitimate.

|12.5.07 @ 9:24PM|#

...the author has said that he wrote the story as an attack on Catholicism and Christianity in general.

Not all of us think that's a bad thing...

Fuck Donahoe anyway.