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Lecture
Seven:
Pre-Code Films
Definition: Pre-Code films refers to a body of films made between March 1930 and July 1934 that are surprisingly frank in their treatment of violence, sex, and social problems. These films’ subject matter typically includeillicit sex, miscegenation, adultery, exposes of economic injustice and corruption, drug addiction, and homosexuality. Often, and in direct contrast to most Classical Hollywood Cinema, vice goes unpunished and virtue unrewarded.
In March, 1930, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) formally pledged to abide by a document called the Production Code. The Code was designed to appease those religious and civic groups who were outraged by what they saw as the immorality of movies.
The Code was divided into two parts. The first was an overall description of “general principles” (the moral vision for film) and “particular applications” (a precise listing of forbidden material).
Most producers and directors, however, simply ignored the code because they knew that box-office potential depended on precisely those elements the censors looked on suspiciously: sex and violence.
Thus, compliance with the code was only a verbal agreement. But by early 1934, the Catholic Church and an organization called the Legion of Decency were strongly protesting that the code wasn’t being enforced, and in July of that year, the Production Code Administration (popularly known as the Hays Office and headed by Joseph Breen) started carefully regulating the content of Hollywood motion pictures.
The film genres most flagrantly defiant of the code tended to be gangster films, backstage musicals, the woman’s film, and racial adventure films.
The stars most closely associated with flagrantly defying the code were, among others, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Marlene Dietrich, Clara Bow, Mae West, and Norma Shearer.
The Production Code regulated the content of motion pictures until 1968, when it was replaced by the ratings system.
Films viewed in lecture:
- Scarface (Howard Hawks, 1932)
- 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933)
- Grand Hotel (Edmund Goulding, 1932)
- She Done Him Wrong (Lowell Sherman, 1933)
- King Kong (Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933)
- The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)