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

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Former Postmaster General Will H. Hays (1926). Will Hays and the founders ofthe Motion Picture Producers and Distributors ofAmerica (from left): E.W. Hammons, J.D. Williams, Winfield Sheehan, Cortland Smith, Carl Laemmle, Rufus Cole, William E.Atkinson, Hays, Robert H. Cochrane, Samuel Goldwyn, Marcus Loew, Adolph Zukor, William Fox, Lewis Seiznick, Myron Selznick. Before Production Code enforcement, pictures such as Red Dust (1932) posed enormous problems. The prostitute Vantine (Jean Harlow) wore kimonos that showed more than they covered, and told the plantation boys (Tully Marshall, Donald Crisp, Clark Gable) she was "not used to sleeping nights." "Lust Trapped Me"; "Desire Ruined Me"; "I'm a Shame-Drenched Sinner"-screarned the ads for The Story a/Temple Drake, one of a number of films made in 1933 that led to Production Code enforcement. From left: Florence Eldridge, Miriam Hopkins, and Jack La Rue. Cary Grant and Mae West in She Done Him Wrong. CUMMINGS: Haven't you ever met a man that could make you happy? LADY LOU: Sure. Lots 0' times. Russell Hopton and Mae West in I'm No Angel. The Barker introduces Tira the Incomparable, "the girl who discovered you don't have to have feet to be a dancer." (Above left) When he read the Dead End treatment and noted the East River swim scenes, Production Code director Joe Breen ordered Samuel Goldwyn to dress the kids in pants and to underplay the "garbage floating in the river, into which the boys jump for a swim." Goldwyn fought for swimsuits but volunteered to launder the trash. According to the New York Times, to "associate garbage, even of an aristocratic nature, with a Goldwyn epic was unthinkable." (Above right) Director William Wyler (seated) with Humphrey Bogart, Claire Trevor, and Allen Jenkins on the set of Dead End. Although censors in Finland, Czechoslovakia, and Greece rejected the picture, Breen used contacts abroad to help Goldwyn ease Dead End past major European censor boards. According to the Production Code, so-called impure love "must not be presented as attractive and beautiful." Producer David Selznick fought hard for the prostitute (Ona Munson) in Gone With the Wind, however, and on this picture and others Joe Breen proved willing to negotiate. The premiere of The Outlaw. San Francisco, February 1943. This billboard and others like it throughout the city prompted local police to prepare warrants for the arrest of both Howard Hughes and publicity chief Russell Birdwell. Hughes ordered the billboards removed. "How would you like to tussle with Russell?" "It is not unlikely that we will have considerable difficulty with Metro if and when they put [The Postman Always Rings Twice] into production," Breen wrote Hays in 1934, "and we may need your help in the battle which is sure to ensue." MGM made the picture eleven years later, starring John Garfield and Lana Turner, in the more liberal postwar era. Joe Breen had one face for the camera, another for the moguls, "a cowardly lot" who needed someone to "raise hell with them," In 1950 Breen still wore a vest with chain and keys suspended from the pocket. Less oldfashioned , especially about movie mores, was Breen's successor, the urbane Geoff Shurlock (left), The gates of the bordello, where Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani, left center) confronts the pathetic bicycle thief. Detective McLeod (Kirk Douglas) learns the truth about his wife's (Eleanor Parker) premarital affair and abortion. The murder/suicide in Detective Story prompted Breen to press for the Code amendment that erased a twelve-year ban of cop-killing on screen. From left: William Bendix, Kirk Douglas, Joseph Wiseman. "Ravishment of the tender." Marlon Branda as predator, Vivien Leigh as victim in A Streetcar Named Desire. "Will you try to seduce me?" Maggie McNamara asks William Holden in The Moon Is Blue, as Gregory Ratoff drives imperturbably on. Maggie McNamara and Otto Preminger on the set of The Moon Is Blue. Jane Russell "Looking for Trouble" in The French Line. The costumes and certain "indecent movements" in the dance numbers earned this Howard Hughes picture a Production Code office ban. J.R. You've 3D! HOWARO HUOHIS _...