The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code

Notes

Notes Archival materials, personal interviews, contemporary newspapers, and other secondary works formed the research base for The Dame in the Kimono. The following notes provide sources for almost all quotations in the text; where only author and page number are listed below , the reader should consult the Selected Bibliography. The authors have not cited-except when unattributed within the text-quotations from their personal (P) or telephone (T) interviews : Pandro Berman (T), 19 January 1986; Niven Busch (T), 8 December 1985; J.J. Cohn (P), Los Angeles, 23 May 1985; William Dozier (T), 11 May 1986; Philip Dunne (T), 3 November 1987; Rudi Fehr (T), 22 June 1979; James B. Harris (T), 16 September 1988; John Michael Hayes (P), Los Angeles, 14 May 1985; Stanley Kramer (T), 2 November 1987; Ely Landau (T), 19 May 1980;Arthur Laurents (T), 8 June 1986; Ernest Lehman (P), Los Angeles, 30 July 1981; Luigi Luraschi (P), London, 18 July 1985; Frank McCarthy (P), Los Angeles, 21 May 1985; Patrick J. Sullivan, SJ. (T), 16 November 1988; Daniel Taradash (P), Stillwater, Oklahoma, 4 April 1985; Jack Valenti (T), 18 November 1988; Al Van Schmus (P), Laguna Niguel, California, 18 May 1985, and (T), 2 July 1988; Jack Vizzard (P), Los Angeles, 14 August 1987; Robert M.W. Vogel (P), Los Angeles, 20 May 1985; Robert Watkins (P), Los Angeles, 12 August 1987. The authors have generally not cited paraphrased facts and opinions ; quotations from contemporary reviews or advertisements of motion pictures; quotations from novels or plays (for example, Gone With the Wind or Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) on which films were based; or, unless otherwise indicated, quotations from the Production Code or from treatments, screenplays, or motion picture sound tracks. 302 Notes to Pages xiii-a Preface xiii "BREASTS PARTIALLY EXPOSED": R.E. Plummer to Jason Joy, 29 May 1931, The Maltese Falcon Production Code Administration (PCA) file, Motion Picture Association ofAmerica (MPAA) Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California. The Falcon was released in 1931; it was rereleased for television under the title Dangerous Female. xiv "I AM SO ENTHUSIASTIC": Joseph Breen to Will Hays, 9 November 1930, Will Hays Papers, PartII, ed. Douglas Gomery, University Publications ofAmerica. Hays was president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors ofAmerica, Inc. (MPPDA), which later was called the Motion PictureAssociation ofAmerica (MPAA); throughout, we refer to the organization as "the Association." xiv "SOME HELP IN CLEANING UP": Joy to Hays, 15 April 1931, The Maltese Falcon PeA file. xiv "THE PEST HOLE": The National Catholic Welfare Conference, cited in "The Legion of Decency," Commonweal, 18 May 1934: 58. xv "ADROIT INDIRECTION": Philip Dunne, "Blast It All," Harvard Magazine , September-October 1987: 8. xvi "WE LIKE TO THINK": Breen to Arthur H. DeBra, 20 April 1944, copy provided to the authors by AI Van Schmus. xvi ELEVEN "TOUGH CASES": She Done Him Wrong, I'm No Angel, and Belle of the Nineties are curtain-raisers for the story of the Production Code Administration. Because they involved important Motion Picture Association board challenges, Gone With the Wind, The Outlaw, The Bicycle Thief, and The Moon Is Blue seemed indispensable as four ofthe eleven case studies. The other seven films-remarkable for their content, their artistry, or their exposure ofthe Hollywood system-show how the Production Code Administration responded to pressure and changed over time. The authors recognize that many other films, from Scarface and Scarlet Street to Duel in the Sun, Double Indemnity, and Baby Doll stirred the dust around Breen and Shurlock. For The Dame in the Kimono, however, no picture was as important as the issues it raised or the insights it provided into Code operations. THE PRODUCTION CODE, 1922-1934 1. Welcome Will Hays! 4 "AN EAR-REDUCTION LENS": New York TImes, 7 March 1937. 5 "PUBLIC DEMANDSAND MORAL STANDARDS": Howard T. Lewis, The Motion Picture Industry (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1933), 372. 5 "EXERCISE EVERY POSSIBLE": Moley, 58. 5 "DECORATED WITH BUNTING": Hays, 342. 5 "THE ARTIST AGREES": John Gilbert contract, Metro Pictures Corporation , 2 May 1924, Museum of the Moving Image, London. Notes to Pages 5-11 303 5 "WE ARE AGAINST': Quoted in A.A. Hopkins, "Charlie Chaplin, et a1. / COMMUNIST ACTIVITIES," FBI Report, 15 August 1922. 6 "STUDIES IN DIMINISHING": William De Mille, cited in de Grazia and Newman, 29. 6 ''ALL OF HER LEGS": Variety, 23 June...