SEXUAL or EROTIC FILMS

Exploitative Sex Hygiene -- Sex Education Films:

Even in the late 20s and early 30s, before censorship officially took hold, independent film producers such as S.S. "Steamship" Millard defied the Code by producing tawdry films and anti-sex diatribes about the scourges of venereal disease, white slavery and unwanted pregnancy -- such as Pitfalls of Passion (1927) (advertised as "Sexsational" with the lobby card tagline: "Is Sex Knowledge a Sin? See the Birth of Life Unfolded") and Is Your Daughter Safe? (1927) - a "educational" melodrama that Variety said was "possibly the strongest and most daring of so-called hygiene and sex warning pictures ever made." Edgar Ulmer also directed Damaged Lives (1933), a social drama about the horrors of venereal disease for a married couple.

Once the Hays Code was fully enforced, exhibitors attempted to continue to cash in on the underground and road show film audiences' prurient interest in sex hygiene films, by producing films such as:

Mae West's Racy Influence:

She Done Him Wrong - 1933All of the sultry comedies of bawdy, liberated and buxom Broadway star Mae West were an affront to the Code, after Paramount brought her out West from New York. West flaunted her sexuality and full-figured body, and irreverently made sex into a comedy, first in Night After Night (1932) in a small cameo role, and then in two of her most controversial films: She Done Him Wrong (1933) (a film version of West's popular Broadway play Diamond Lil) and I'm No Angel (1933).

Her sexual wiles and wisdom were obviously on display in one film after another. The Production Code Administration also had severe problems with the racy Belle of the Nineties (1934) (originally titled: It Ain't No Sin), with West as notorious vaudeville star Ruby Carter. Some of her most famous lines of dialogue (from scripts often toned down and replaced with double entendres) from the above-mentioned films include the following:

After July of 1934, films that were considered tawdry, cheap, and offensive to the code were not allowed. In part, Mae West's popularity, with her trademark sexual innuendos, declined precipitously as a result.

The Imposition of the Hays Code:

The film industry, represented by the MPPDA (Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association) that was formed in 1922 and headed by former US postmaster Will Hays until the mid-1940s, created a series of self-regulating agencies that led to the Production Code Administration in 1934. The Production Code was administrated by Joseph Breen. It required producer-members of the MPPDA to submit script material and final film prints for Production Code approval.

Three factors forced Hays and the studios to become more restrictive:

In 1934, the American Catholic church announced the creation of the Legion of Decency, which encouraged the production of moral films and promptly condemned any film with an immoral message. The threat of movie boycotts by the Catholic Legion of Decency led the industry's trade association in mid-1934 to establish a stronger Production Code Administration (PCA) Office, headed by appointee Joseph Breen, to regulate films.

When the new, morally-strict Motion Picture Production Code was imposed (actually strictly enforced) on the mainstream film industry from 1934 on, certain words, gestures, and actions were forbidden, as well as explicit violence and sexual innuendo. Films would be submitted for a "seal of approval" - and if a film was denied a seal, it was not to be exhibited in theaters. If a film was deliberately offensive and failed to meet the code's requirements, it could face severe penalties or risk losing distribution rights. Many films were either suppressed, or severely mutilated or censored to fit the seal's requirements. A film that abided by the rules received a "Purity Seal" - otherwise, a film was denied distribution or screening, and the public was denied that viewing choice. A $25,000 fine was imposed on anyone showing a film without the group's seal of approval.

The Code forbade the following, particularly anything related to sex and crime (two of the biggest box-office draws): crimes against the law, explicit treatments of adultery, excessive lust or scenes of passion or rape, vulgarity, obscenity, profanity, complete nudity, indecent exposure, white slavery, miscegenation, suggestive dance, disrespect of religion (or clergy), homosexuality, childbirth, and various repellent subjects (hanging, gruesome brutality, branding, cruelty to children or animals, etc.).

Reaction to the Hays Code: Subliminal Sexuality

As a result, the Hays Code pushed earthy sexuality and eroticism (depictions of infidelity, homosexuality, etc.) deeper into new levels of suggestiveness, deviation, and displacement, and in some cases improved films by appealing to the audience's imaginations. Writers often presented subjects by metaphorical implication rather than literally, for example:

Compensating Moral Value and Censorship:

Two-Faced Woman - 1941In certain cases when "compensating moral value" tempered the immorality, sin, and evil within a film, various prohibited actions would be allowed. For example, in the romantic classic Camille (1936), the affair between the dashing Robert Taylor and courtesan Greta Garbo could exist as long as their dalliance would ultimately be prohibited by Taylor's father Lionel Barrymore. In director George Cukor's Two-Faced Woman (1941), Garbo's last film, the star played the part of her twin to seductively lure philandering husband Melvyn Douglas away from his ex-mistress Constance Bennett. The film's suggestive and immoral sexuality and Garbo's low-cut gowns were condemned by the Legion of Decency.

The Moon and SixpenceThe Production Code always ensured that criminals or 'bad' girls would get their come-uppance in the end. In Billy Wilder's film noir Double Indemnity (1944), the amoral, shrewd and sexy Barbara Stanwyck and her male lover-accomplice Fred MacMurray end up shooting each other (and dying) after committing a sexually-charged perfect murder. And in the adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel The Moon and Sixpence (1943), a disillusioned, rakish, sexually-adventurous, Paul Gauguin-like painter (George Sanders) abandoned family and moved to Tahiti to engage in a hedonistic life - where he was duly condemned by the film's narrator (provided by Herbert Marshall).

Producer David O. Selznick's Gone With The Wind (1939) faced tough treatment by the Hollywood Code, with the attractive but immoral character of prostitute Belle Watling, Melanie's difficult labor and childbirth scene, the conjugal rape scene of Clark Gable carrying his wife Vivien Leigh up the stairs (that ends with a fade out), and Gable's scandalous parting words: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" that broke the Production Code's language provisions; and it is still widely-believed that the bold line of dialogue cost Selznick a $5,000 fine.

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Created in 1996-2008 © by Tim Dirks. All rights reserved.