A post approved for all audiences: Remembering the Production Code

It seems that every year, independent studio The Weinstein Company (TWC) embarks on a crusade to question the relevance of the Motion Picture Association of America rating system. In late 2010, TWC successfully campaigned to turn a NC-17 rating into an R rating for the romantic drama Blue Valentine by Derek Cianfrance. This year, however, it failed to convince the MPAA to change its rating of the documentary Bully by Lee Hirsch, whose R-rating was not modified for a PG-13 one. [NB: as I am publishing this post, the news just broke that the MPAA Ratings and Classification Administration finally agreed to changing Bully‘s rating from R to PG-13, thereby authorizing children under 17 to attend a screening of the documentary about school bullying without their parent or legal guardian present. It is not violence or cruelty that initially made the MPAA object to a PG-13 but the repeated use of foul language by teenagers. TWC agreed to edit out three of the six curse words that occur in the movie.]

MPAA ratings matter to parents and above all exhibitors, which means than impact the commercial success of a movie

Distributors care greatly about ratings because they can a strong impact on the box office numbers of a movie. Ratings might impact moviegoers’ decision to see or not see a movie but most importantly, exhibitors have policies regarding programming movies depending on their ratings. A NC-17 rating greatly limits a movie’s commercial distribution as the major theaters chains refuse to program movies that received this rating. Theatre chains also have a policy not to program a movie that is released as unrated. The decision by TWC to release Bully without a rating, in a sign of protest, meant the movie could be shunned by chains such as Regal Entertainment (17% of all movies screens in the US), AMC (13%) or Cinemark (9.5%), the leading chains in the US. TWC essentially forced theater chains to take a stance: Regal Entertainment decided to show the movie and treat it according to its initial R rating (meaning children under 17 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian), AMC opted for a more flexible approach, letting underage kids view the movies as long as they could provide written authorization from a parent or guardian, and Cinemark held a long standing tradition of not showing unrated movies.

The MPAA classification system

The MPAA rating system is not a law (which is why distributors always have the option to release a movie as unrated). Its purpose is to provide guidelines to parents and exhibitors who want to protect youngsters from being exposed to sensitive material. Content creators that are not happy with a MPAA rating have several options: they can appeal the rating and argue their case to have the MPAA overturn its initial decision (this is what TWC successfully did with Blue Valentine), they can make a compromise, cut or edit their movie to get a different rating and submit it again (it can happen that a studio commits to delivering a movie with a specific rating as a guarantee to external investors, this was the case for Warner Bros. with Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, which decided to CGI cloaked figures in an orgy scene to tone down the scene), and they can choose to release two versions of the movie with two different ratings (that’s the option TWC chose in 2010 for Tom Hooper‘s The King’s Speech which had gotten an R rating for profanity, the distributor released a different version with muted cursing: the R rated version grossed $135M compared with $3M for the PG one).

While the notion of creators having to compromise their artistic vision to comply with subjective criteria can seem very damaging, especially to the believers of the auteur theory, it should be noted that MPAA ratings only apply to the theatrical window. The home video market provides an opportunity for creators to restore their initial vision by releasing director’s cut or uncut versions of the movies.

To decide ratings, the MPAA Classification and Ratings Administration looks in particular at the use of foul language, drug use, violence and sexual content. Rating a movie is often a matter of interpretation and is always somehow subjective. As a result, comparing ratings from one movie to the next will necessarily raise questions: is the system too lenient in its rating of violent scenes? Conversely, isn’t its approach to curse words too prudish? Is the system misogynistic or homophobic in the way it rates sex scenes? A recent article by Indiewire lists 10 MPAA rating decisions that highlight the controversial nature of the administration’s work.

The purpose of this post is not to debate the validity of some specific decisions by the MPAA Classification and Ratings Administration or the overall legitimacy of the rating system, but to look at the origins of this system.

The MPAA ratings system is the legacy of a much more leonine system: the Hollywood Production Code, also known as the Hays Code.

The cover of the Production Code

Like the MPAA rating system, the Production Code was a voluntary self-censorship effort by the studios. Its purpose was to hold movies to certain moral standards. Put together by William H. Hays, the Production Code, often called Hays Code, was adopted by the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA, the ancestor of the MPAA) in 1930 and was widely enforced between 1934 and the mid 1950s before being formally abandoned in 1968. It featured a list of 11 “Don’ts” and 25 “Be Carefuls” to which the MPPDA members agreed to conform. After 4 years of more than loose adherence to the Code, the MPPDA amended the Code in 1934 to create the Production Code Administration, whose prerogative it was to enforce the Code. Headed by Joseph Breen, the Administration was commonly referred to as the Breen Office.

Similar to the MPAA system, the “Don’ts” focus on the use of profane language, drug trafficking, sex / showing of sexual organs and violence. It also forbade blasphemy and open criticism of a nation/government. Finally, the now antiquated notion of miscegenation (sex relations between people of different “races”) was a clear “Don’t”. The “Be Carefuls” involved subjects which were not off-limits in and of themselves but which had to be handled with care. These topics like adultery, criminal behavior, prostitution could be part of a plot but they had to be depicted in such a way that they are not made attractive or desirable. Their outcomes had to be destructive. In addition to that and in direct line with the US’s political stance not to intervene in foreign countries’ domestic affairs, the Production Code forbad movies from presenting foreign countries or nations in a disparaging light (this de facto meant that, in the wake of World War II, no openly anti-Nazi films could be released).

Contrary to the MPAA rating system, however, the ambition of the Production Code was to promote traditional values and “good taste.” As a result, it meddled with the very content and message of a movie, forcing screenwriters to take the Code into account when writing the story. Evil could not go unpunished, villains had to pay for their crimes and sanctity of marriage had to be respected. The screenwriters also had limited options in terms of characters: clergymen could not be villains or comical figures for that matter and public authorities (politicians or police officers) could be villains only if it was made clear that the were black sheep.

While the MPAA Classification and Ratings Administration is asked to comment on finished works and to give an indicative rating that parents and exhibitors are free to deal with as they see fit, the Breen Office was involved as early as the pre-production phases of filmmaking and had the power of forcing cuts, as movies by the MPPDA members had to be approved to be released.

The Production Code was 11 Don’ts and 25 Be Carefuls

Resolved, that those things which are included in the following list shall not appear in pictures produced by the members of this Association, irrespective of the manner in which they are treated:

Pointed profanity-by either title or lip-this includes the words “God,” “Lord,” “Jesus,” “Christ” (unless they be used reverently in connection with proper religious ceremonies), “hell,” ” damn,” “Gawd,” and every other profane and vulgar expression however it may be spelled;
Any licentious or suggestive nudity-in fact or in silhouette; and any lecherous or licentious notice thereof by other characters in the picture;
The illegal traffic in drugs;
Any inference of sex perversion;
White slavery;
Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races);
Sex hygiene and venereal diseases;
Scenes of actual childbirth-in fact or in silhouette;
Children’s sex organs;
Ridicule of the clergy;
Willful offense to any nation, race or creed;

And be it further resolved, That special care be exercised in the manner in which the following subjects are treated, to the end that vulgarity and suggestiveness may be eliminated and that good taste may be emphasized:

The use of the flag;
International relations (avoiding picturizing in an unfavorable light another country’s religion, history, institutions, prominent people, and citizenry);
Arson;
The use of firearms;
Theft, robbery, safe-cracking, and dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, etc. (having in mind the effect which a too-detailed description of these may have upon the moron);
Brutality and possible gruesomeness;
Technique of committing murder by whatever method;
Methods of smuggling;
Third-degree methods;
Actual hangings or electrocutions as legal punishment for crime;
Sympathy for criminals;
Attitude toward public characters and institutions;
Sedition;
Apparent cruelty to children and animals;
Branding of people or animals;
The sale of women, or of a woman selling her virtue;
Rape or attempted rape;
First-night scenes;
Man and woman in bed together;
Deliberate seduction of girls;
The institution of marriage;
Surgical operations;
The use of drugs;
Titles or scenes having to do with law enforcement or law-enforcing officers;
Excessive or lustful kissing, particularly when one character or the other is a “heavy.”

The willingness to institute a Code was driven by an important Supreme Court decision of 1915: the free speech protection does not extend to movie pictures

The Production Code was a voluntary effort of the MPPDA to adhere to a certain set of rules and to enforce a certain idea of morality. The key question then is why? Why would an industry of creative talents agree to limit the extent of its freedom of expression to obey morale rules that are subjective by nature and bound to be antiquated in the near future? And the reason is, because these creative talents could not claim a right to free speech.

Associate Justice Joseph McKenna penned the Supreme Court decision that movie pictures were not an art form to which the notion of free speech applied

In 1915, the Supreme Court of the United States decided unanimously that motion pictures were not covered by the free speech protection of the Ohio Constitution (substantially similar to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution).

This decision originated after an attempt by the Mutual Film Corporation, a movie distributor, to counter the powers of the Industrial Commission of Ohio, a board of censors formed in 1913 at the initiative of the state government of Ohio to review, approve or censor films exhibited in the state of Ohio. The commission had the power of arresting exhibitors programming unapproved pictures in their theatres.

The Supreme Court declared that the commercial nature of the movie business made it fundamentally different from that of the press or others organs of public opinion. Adding that movies “could be used for evil”, the Supreme Court ruled that it couldn’t “regard [the censorship of movies] as beyond the power of government.”

The decision created a precedent that could be used to recognize censorships powers to the governments of each of the states. In 1921, legislators in 37 states introduced almost 100 movie censorship bills. In 1921, the state of New York instituted a censorship board, followed in 1922 by the state of Virginia. By 1927, there were eight individual states with such a board dedicated to the censorship of filmed entertainment.

Submitting itself to censorship from a multitude of boards had a crucial impact on the commercial potential of a movie: either movies would be prohibited from showing in certain territories, mechanically reducing their box office receipts, or the studios would have to release different versions of the same movie for different territories to comply with different censor standards.

The movie industry faced a dilemma: should it run the risk of being censored in certain territories and not others (accounting for the fact that moral standards vary from one state to the next and that what might be considered acceptable in New York might not be so mainstream in the Midwest) or should it be proactive?

Studios picked the lesser of two evils and decided that if America was going to censor their works anyways, they might as well do some internal whitewashing and present works that would be comply with the strictest standards to have the greater reach. For both political and commercial reasons, studios decided that self-censorship was a better option than having to deal with a multitude of censor boards.

The Code was written in 1927 as a preemptive strike against government control over the movie industry but was only enforced starting 1934

In 1922, the MPPDA asked the services of Presbyterian William H. Hays to rehabilitate its reputation and bury its image of a corrupt and decadent industry.

William H. Hays as the savior of the movie industry (Editorial cartoon by Cy Hungerford, published in 1922.)

William Hays helped studios pen the Production Code as early as 1927 but it was only in 1934 that Joseph Breen started enforcing it

At the impulse of William Hays, Irving G. Thalberg, Sol Wurtzel, and E. H. Allen, respectively the heads of MGM, Fox and Paramount, sat at the same table to discuss a list of subjects that were off limits or were to be handled carefully, based on local censor boards’ bones of contention. Out came the Don’ts and Be Carefuls. The list was approved by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and a regulatory committee, the SRC, was set up to implement the Code.

But like any self regulatory effort, the list was only as good as the studios’ commitment to enforcing it. Which was very weak until 1934. The first heads of the Hays office, Jason Joy from 1930 to 1932 and Dr James Wingate from 1932 and 1934, showed little passion in strictly enforcing the standards. In fact, the SRC had no power to censor movies, it had to negotiate with the studios to find a compromise. Articles started taking shots at the ineffective office and in 1933, the Code was considered by some insiders as “not even a joke any more; just a memory.”

Realizing that a superficial adherence to the Code would not be enough to shield them from political pressure, studios amended it to create the Production Code Administration (PCA) with a mission to give a certificate of approval mandatory for the movie to be release. In 1934, Joseph Breen was appointed head of the PCA, whose informal name became the Breen Office. He helmed the Office for 20 years, before retiring in 1954.

Howard Hughes' "lewd" picture The Outlaw

Mr. Breen’s approach to the enforcement of the Code was very strict and negotiations between studios and the Office sometimes took comical proportions: in 1943, the release of the movie The Outlaw directed and produced by Howard Hughes involved a marketing campaign that prominently featured the anatomy of the film’s female lead, Jane Russell. After the Breen Office denied a certificate of approval, producer Howard Hughes decided to appeal the decision by bringing scientific evidence that the square footage of Ms. Russell’s exposed skin was not greater than that of other previously approved campaign material. That didn’t stop him from subsequently playing the provocative card as a marketing tactic: he added the line “The film that couldn’t be stopped” to promotional material and orchestrated a viral “buzz” by having his managers calling ministers and housewives to rally them against the upcoming “lewd” picture (the outcry only generated more coverage and demand for the movie.)

Evolution in America’s morals over the years on topics such as miscegenation resulted in the Breen Office loosening its standards on some items of the list but overall strict enforcement was the rule until 1954. Mr. Breen’s retirement marked a departure from strict enforcement to a more casual understanding of the Don’ts and Be Carefuls.

A number of factors contributed to replacing the Code with the MPAA rating system but the true nail in the Code’s coffin was a new Supreme Court decision

Italian short film "Il Miracolo" marked the beginning of the end of the Production Code

In 1948, Italian directors Roberto Rossellini and Federico Fellini worked together on a short film titled Il Miracolo (The Miracle), the first part of L’Amore. Il Miracolo tells the story of how Saint Joseph impregnates a simple minded peasant girl who believes she is the Virgin Mary. The film was controversial everywhere, including in devout Italy. But its most important legacy would prove to be on the other side of Atlantic.

Distributor Joseph Burstyn acquired the American rights for the movie which was released in New York in 1950. The film was voted best foreign language film award by the New York Film Critics Circle. But not every one was a fan and it wasn’t long before the New York State Board of Regents received complains regarding The Miracle. In 1951, the license to exhibit the picture was rescinded by the Commissioner of Education.

Things could have stopped her if it hadn’t been for Joseph Burstyn who was determined to go all the way to the Supreme Court to challenge the ruling that the film was “sacrilegious.” He argued that the term sacrilegious was vague and indefinite and that censoring the movie on such ground was a violation of the fundamental principle of separation of church and state. He also argued that it violated the First Amendment by hindering freedom of speech. The New York State Board refused to change its ruling and was backed by the New York Court as well as the Court of Appeals. The only recourse left at that point was the Supreme Court.

After Mutual Film Corp vs. Industrial Commission of Ohio in 1915, the Supreme Court of the United States reversed its position to grant free speech protection to motion pictures in 1952

In 1952, the nine Justices, none of which was serving the Supreme Court in 1915, examined the case. Six of them agreed that films were an artistic medium entitled to protection by the First Amendment. Tackling head on the precedent of Mutual Film Corp vs the Industrial Commission of Ohio, the majority agreed that:

(a) It cannot be doubted that motion pictures are a significant medium for the communication of ideas. Their importance as an organ of public opinion is not lessened by the fact that they are designed to entertain as well as to inform.

(b) That the production, distribution and exhibition of motion pictures is a large-scale business conducted for private profit does not prevent motion pictures from being a form of expression whose liberty is safeguarded by the First Amendment.

(c) Even if it be assumed that motion pictures possess a greater capacity for evil, particularly among the youth of a community, than other modes of expression, it does not follow that they are not entitled to the protection of the First Amendment or may be subjected to substantially unbridled censorship.

This landmark decision, aptly referred to as the Miracle decision, combined with the shift in the movie industry (end of the studio era, emergence of home entertainment via adoption of TV sets, globalization of the movie industry which brought foreign films produced with a different understanding of the mission of cinema to American screens) signed the beginning of the progressive death of the Production Code.

The Production Code died a slow death, and was replaced by the classification system in 1968

An increasing number of risqué films made it to the screen beginning in the mid 1950s to the mid 1960s. In 1959, Joseph Mankiewicz’s Suddenly Last Summer deals with homosexuality, underage prostitution, cannibalism as well as extreme psychological cruelty (the character played by Elizabeth Taylor is successively used as sexual bait by her cousin and locked up in an asylum by her aunt who plans on having her lobotomized.) In 1964, the PCA reversed its decision not to give its approval to Sidney Lumet‘s The Pawnbroker on the condition that certain scenes be reduced. After minimal changes were made, The Pawnbroker became the first movies featuring bare breasts to be endorsed by the PCA.

In 1966, MGM became the first member of the MPAA to refuse to obey a decision by the PCA. Despite not having gotten the approval from the PCA, the company released Michelangelo Antonioni‘s Blow-Up.

The Production Code was rewritten in 1966. The Don’ts and Be Carefuls were replaced with the notion that movies had to stay within the boundaries of current moral standards and good taste. The label “Suggested for Mature Audiences” (SMA) was also introduced , the first attempt at classifying movies in place of a binary approval/denial approach.

In 1968, the Production Code was formally abandoned and the MPAA rating system was introduced with four rating categories: General Audiences (G), Mature Audiences – Parental discretion advised (M), Restricted – People under 16 not admitted unless accompanying parent or adult guardian (R) and Adults Only (X).

Did the Production Code influence some movies for the best?

Advocating censorship is becoming an increasingly antiquated value and I am certainly not one calling for it. But if one is to admit that greater constraints can bring out the most creativity, one has to ask: is it possible that some movies ended up being better than what they would have been without the Production Code?

I would argue that, in addition to the delighting pleasure that modern audiences can find in analyzing the subtext of 1930s-1940s-1950s movies, the involvement of the PCA in the pre-production phases might have given some of the best most melodramatic endings of film history.

To the first point, screenwriters and directors must have had a great time finding ways to work around the constraints of the Code to deliver various levels of understanding.

In Charles Vidor's Gilda, the cane is not really a cane...

In early 2012, as he introduced the screening of Gilda as part of the SF Film Noir Festival, Eddie Muller praised director Charles Vidor’s talent for symbolism. While watching the movie with Mr. Vidor’s then wife, he questioned her about Mr. Vidor’s use of symbols. The former Mrs. Vidor exclaimed “Let me tell you, the cane is not really a cane and the sword is not really a sword.”

Film noir, which by nature deals with corrupted politicians and law enforcement officers, criminals, crooks and women of easy virtue, emerged in the 1940s-1950s colliding head on with the Production Code. One of the most iconic movies of the genre, Howard Hawks‘ The Big Sleep, provides us with a flawless demonstration of double entendre. If you have seen the movie, I’m pretty sure you already know which scene I am referring to: Humphrey Bogart’s Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall’s Vivian Rutledge in a nightclub, engaged in a certain conversation about horseracing.

And to the second point, I only need to say one word: Casablanca. The fact that the movie is a timeless classic speaks of the universality of the topics it addresses: freedom against oppression, but most of all the conflict between love and duty, self interest vs ideals. Taking a first stab at a romantic lead role, Humphrey Bogart became nothing short of a sex symbol. Mr. Bogart is Rick Blaine, a disillusioned man whose philosophy in life (“I stick my neck out for *nobody*!”), the result of a heartbreak, is challenged when he is reunited with his true love, Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa, asking him the favor to help her and her husband, a hero of the French Resistance, to flee Casablanca. The movie is a story of a man who finds his way back to feeling something and being ready to sacrifice his self interest in order to stand for a cause greater than him.

The fact that the star crossed lovers do not end up together makes Casablanca (Michael Curtiz – 1942) a great melodrama, instead of a classic love story with a happy ending. The very reason Rick and Isla do not end up together can be found in the Production Code: Isla is married to Victor Laszlo, whom she thought dead when she first embarked on a relationship with Rick; the news that he is in fact alive is what prompted her not to meet Rick at the train station when they were supposed to leave Paris; having Rick and Ilsa elope together would have meant condoning adultery. We can credit the Production Code for giving us one of the most powerful scenes of the movie, Rick’s selfless renunciation: “I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that.”

Casablanca won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay at the 16th Academy Awards and is on eight of the American Film Institute (AFI) 100 Best lists. It ranks as the second best American movie ever, an as the first American passion movie.

Retrospectively, it is fascinating to see how much directors and producers actually got away with. The Breen Office was adamant on not showing clearly that Rick and Ilsa had been intimate in Paris or that Captain Renault asked for sexual favors from distressed ladies in need of a service. One would have to be very naive not to deduce all of this. The same goes for Rick and Ilsa’s reunion: we don’t need to see them making love to know what happened. As Rick tells Ilsa “We’ll always have Paris. We didn’t have, we, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.”

It is also interesting to reflect on how European directors expatriated in the US reacted to a system that was so foreign to their way of working. They not only had to adapt to the studio system, which granted a lot of power to the producer, as opposed to the director but also had to adhere to the moral standards and good taste as defined by the Breen Office.

British expatriate Alfred Hitchcock had to comply with the requests of the Breen Office

British director Alfred Hitchcock, for one, had a hard time relinquishing some of the control he used to have in Britain to third parties (his first American producer, David O. Selznick, or the Breen Office). As a young director, Alfred Hitchcock had to agree to requests from his producers (in terms of casting or endings for example), but the privilege that comes naturally not with age but with success is the freedom and control to do your film the way you intended. In 1939, when the 40 year old director moved to the US, he was bound by a 7 year contract with DOS and from then on. Put off by American producers’ culture to interfere heavily in the filmmaking process, Alfred Hitchcock patiently awaited the expiration of his contract to become his own producer. In the meantime, he limited Mr. Selznick’s potential of interference with his movies by refusing to provide “coverage” (the term refers to the practice of shooting the same scene from varying angles to give many options to the producer in terms of editing). Mr. Hitchcock’s contract featured clauses that he could be loaned to other studios and he actually produced his first film in 1941 (Suspicion). He went on to produce all of his films after his contract with DOS expired in 1947.

Mr. Hitchcock’s most famous workaround the Production Code can be found in Notorious (1946). The Code limited the length of on screen kisses to 3 seconds. Mr. Hitchcock managed the tour de force of complying with this rule while offering the audience a 150 second kissing scene. He had his lead actors, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, unlock lips every 3 seconds to whisper at each other’s ear. Which raises an interesting question regarding the point 25 in the Be Carefuls list: what exactly wasn’t lustful in this scene?