Sex and Politics: Mixed Reviews

Pre-code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934
by Thomas Doherty, Columbia University Press, NY

Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood
by Mark A. Vieira, Harry Abrams, NY     

SEX AND VIOLENCE have always been top audience draws in Hollywood, and they have always drawn the attention of self-imposed guardians of public morality. Today, Sharon Stone uncrossing her legs in Basic Instinct or Woody Harrelson and Juliet Lewis blowing up the countryside in Natural Born Killers have the sociologists and the Bible thumpers bewailing the breakdown of civilization. Mae West singing "I Love a Man That Takes His Time" or Paul Muni going down in a hail of gunfire had the moral authorities of our grandparents' era wringing their hands. The substance is basically the same, its just the matter of degree to what the film industry gets away with.

Outside pressure has been behind the implementation of all production guide­lines established in Hollywood. From the beginning, the industry thought that it could out-maneuver censorship boards and special interest groups by putting a self-imposed damper on suggestive material. In 1930, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America accepted a Production Code designed to provide a moral and ethical framework for films, which they assumed would solve their problems with state and city censor boards as well as religious groups. It comes as no surprise that the film industry policing itself was like having the fox guard the chicken coop and that their plan was bound to fail, which it did. In July, 1934, under pressure from many sides, the MPPDA acquiesced to outside enforcement measures. However, the four-year period between the implementation and actual enforcement, known as the "Pre-Code era," has given us some of the most exciting, delightful and surprising films ever to come out of Hollywood.

Two new books covering the personalities and territory of the "Pre-Code era" are out this fall: Pre-Code Hollywood Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection, in American Cinema, 1930-1934 by Thomas Doherty and Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood by Mark A. Vieira. Even if you think the history of this period in Hollywood doesn't partic­ularly interest you, the plots, dialogue and characters of the films featured in these books, as well as the behind-the-scenes moral posturing, will certainly entertain you. They all demonstrate that when it comes to Hollywood and the fight for the moral upper hand, times really don't change very much.

IN THE BEGINNING

As far back as 1916, a National Association of the Motion Picture Industry was estab­lished by the industry to fight censorship and monitor the - moral content of films. Five years later, after rumblings from some of the offended, NAMPI codified 13 items as unsuitable for screen treatment. This policy, as well as a 1924 mandate requir­ing all films and scripts to be sub­mitted to the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America for approval, was virtually ignored. These window dressing mandates didn't keep the nudity out of Cecil B. DeMille's Biblical epics or prevent Eric Von Stroheim from sniffing Gloria Swanson's panties in Queen Kelly.

In an industry dominated by immigrant Jewish businessman, it is ironic that the Production Code implemented in 1930 was written by two Catholics, Father Daniel Lord, a Jesuit priest, and Martin Quigley, a prominent layman and publisher of the Motion Picture Herald, and administered by another, Joseph Breen (also a notorious anti-Semite). Although it is com­monly referred to as "the Hays Office" (after former postmaster Will Hays, who was its presi­dent), it could more accurately be called "the Breen Office,"  since Breen was in charge of administering the policies of the Code. When they read the Catholics" code of conduct for filmmakers, the MPPDA fig­ured that it was just what they needed to keep critics quiet and censor boards pacified, so they ratified it immediately.

HOW SIN GOT IN         

Mark A. Vieira's Sin in Soft Focus, as the title of his book suggests, takes a softer, less strictly sociological approach to the Pre-Code era than Doherty's Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American, Cinema, 1930-1934.Viera is more concerned with describing the ways in which, by inference, allu­sion and innuendo, studios got around strictures of the Code. Coming from Abrams, as you can expect, Sin in Soft Focus is a beauti­fully designed coffee table book filled with luminous black and white photographs. The book is orga­nized chronologically and ' provides plenty of back­ground (and photos) of the different genres, actors and topics that caught the attention of Breen and the censors, like gangster and horror films, Mae West, nudity, prostitution and off­ color language. Means of getting around censor boards could include anything from  adapting a notorious book for the screen and simply changing the title (like A Woman of Affairs to The Green Hat) to changing the character of a prostitute to that of a "dance­hall hostess." As Viera confirms, audiences were pretty shrewd about decoding the veiled references, whether it was through costume, atmosphere or dialogue. Of course, the more flagrantly the film thumbed its nose at the Production Code, the more pop­ular it turned out to be.

Pre-Code Hollywood fixes the Pre-Code era firmly within the social and political context of the United States. Doherty cre­ates a parallel narrative between the subject matter and ideological concerns of films of the time and current events. For example, the chapter on crime films describes the mutually reflective obses­sion the Depression era public had with gangster heroes like John Dillinger and Hollywood's response with films like Scarface. Doherty's rendering of adventure films like Tarzan and horror films tying in with the public's preoccu­pation and standing social beliefs in the white man's burden and social codes are especially engaging. While many of his topics overlap with Vieira's, Doherty is more con­cerned with issues like class, newsreels and race than the bare breasts, sex and other sensu­al no-no's. It makes Doherty's book more serious, but not as fun.

THE END OF SIN

The almost-anything-goes period of sex and sin came to an end in 1934 when the MPPDA was finally forced to follow its own code of conduct by the increasing threat of boycotts by a number of groups, particularly the Catholic Legion of Decency."A Code to Govern the Making of Motion and Talking Pictures, the Reasons Supporting It and the Resolution for Uniform Interpretation" including a "compensating moral values" mantra was put into place. To ensure this code would actually be followed, the RAMP jury, which had been making decisions, would be replaced by an independent panel in New York. The "teeth" inserted for compliance stated that a script could not be filmed if Joseph Breen, as Production Code Administrator, didn't first approve it; if Breen didn't like it, it couldn't get a seal of approval; if a film didn't get a seal, no MPPDA theater could show it. If a film somehow ran the gauntlet of the system and escaped without a seal, the producer would be fined $25,000. So tight was this seal that many Pre-Code films could not be re-released after 1934 without substantial edit­ing.

While the Pre-Code films are very tame compared what's on the screens today, they do have a naughtiness and cleverness that's enter­taining. What you realize when watching these films is that you don't have to show everything to get your point across. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman going at it au natural in Eyes Wide Shut isn't nearly as sexy as the chaste skinny dipping in Tarzan and His Mate. On the other hand, both films had their producers running to protect them from censors and defending them against charges of Puritanism. In that sense, Code or no Code, things haven't changed at all in Hollywood. MM