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EVERY PART of movie production is circumscribed by a very specific Code of taboos. We know all societies, from primitive ones to modern Hollywood, have their "thou-shalt-nots." In the South Seas they are a way of dealing with the supernatural to avoid certain dangers and to insure success, particularly in those situations in which luck or chance play a part. In Hollywood they are also a technique to escape dangers which, although of this world, are so fearful as to appear almost supernatural; and here too they are part of a formula for trying to make success more certain.

Among Stone Age Melanesians in the Southwest Pacific there is a taboo on sex relations before a fishing expedition, to insure a good catch. In Hollywood there is a taboo on portraying in a movie any indication that a marriage has been consummated, and for the same reason: to prevent hostile forces from interfering with the catch-at the box office. The most important and universal taboo in all primitive culture is the prohibition of incest far beyond the limits of the immediate family; in some places half the females are forbidden to the males, and vice versa. If individuals are caught in an incestuous act, they either commit suicide or are killed by their relatives. The breaking of this taboo is thought to endanger the very life of the society in some terrible but indefinable way, and the death of the violators serves as a kind of appeasement. In the Hollywood production of movies, there is an equally important taboo prohibiting any reference to the biological nature of man or other animals. There can be no dialogue, serious or farcical, about the mating of men, elephants, horses, moths, or butterflies; even a wet baby in need of being diapered is absolutely forbidden. Violators of these taboos do not commit suicide

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nor are they killed by members of their clan. But they are refused its seal of approval, which is considered a form of business suicide.

Among primitive peoples there is an implicit and absolute belief not only in their taboos, but also in the way of thinking and living which they represent. No one takes them lightly or facetiously and there are rarely any heretics. A few taboos in our own society, such as incest in the immediate family, or any threat to private ownership of property, are likewise maintained with a high degree of conviction and belief in the seriousness of their violation. In the Deep South, the taboos on social relations of equality between white and colored people are also earnestly observed. Most of our taboos spring out of a desire to maintain the status quo and from some deep fear, similar to that of primitive men, that something terrible will happen if the prohibitions are broken. Values underlying these taboos are a strongly intrenched part of our customary thinking and behavior and men believe that life as they know it, whether in the South Pacific or in Mississippi, depends on obeying. So naturally all feel safer when the taboos are maintained.

The Hollywood taboos embodied in the self-imposed Production Code have the same psychological origin as do those of primitive man, fear. But they differ in that they do not represent the actual beliefs, values, or behavior of the people practicing them. Taboos in Hollywood apply not to the personal lives of the makers of movies, but to the content of the movies, and the fears are not of the supernatural, but of a quite specific threat in this world, censorship. This threat existed earlier, but became more serious after the First World War, in the early twenties, when opposing social trends were in conflict. On the one hand, there was then a general loosening of sex standards in behavior, conversation, books and plays, and some producers eagerly exploited the risqué and daring; on the other hand, there were strong reformist groups who believed they could cure social ills through legislation such as the prohibition amendment. Spurring on those groups who were already critical of movies and fearful of their influence was the well publicized notorious conduct of certain movie stars who flaunted traditional sex mores. The court case of "Fatty" Arbuckle, in

which he was charged with manslaughter occurring at a rioted party, increased the vigor of the reformers. Although Arbuckle was acquitted after several trials, public indignation was so intense that his film career was ended.

At this time there was considerable debate on the extension of censorship on state and community level. Various groups wished legislation to prevent whatever they considered immoral and unsuitable in films. The definition of immorality and unsuitability varied from one community to another, and if this kind of censorship were extended, the number of cuts and rejections would be so increased as to seriously threaten mass production. It would even be difficult for the industry to survive, if each one of the forty-eight states and a number of municipalities had their own separate censorship laws. The answer to the industry was a net trade association, headed by Mr. Will Hays and later, by Mr. Eric Johnston.1 It was natural for an industry which had developed from an early period of rivalry and competition between studios, and had then expanded and consolidated to the point of becoming a trust, to act as a unit when it was threatened by an extension of censorship. But its united action was not to fight this ominous danger, utilizing the strong American traditions of freedom from censorship which have always applied to newspapers, books an other forms of mass communication. Instead, the fear of the studio executives was so great that they seemed to endow their adversaries with a supernatural power, and the industry's answer was appeasement through a self-imposed set of taboos

Like primitive man, Hollywood prefers magic to either fighting or reasoning with menacing forces. The forces of censorship seem to most Hollywood people so powerful and so unreasoning as to take on the quality of a black magician aiming malevolent spells. A set of taboos, while it does not destroy this threatening power, seems to the industry to ward it off, just as primitive man thinks magic and taboos lessen the dangers of the supernatural and the evil intentions of other beings.

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The trust now took on a moral face, and Mr. Will Hays was in charge of the face-lifting. The beginning of this process was called a "formula", which consisted of a rather loose arrangement to prevent certain types of books and plays from being filmed. The next was a list of "Don'ts and Be Carefuls," which were superseded in 1930 by the Motion Picture Production Code; this with certain additions is in operation today. It is concerned with morality and taste. Among its specific taboos are those related to sex, crime, vulgarity, religion and the feelings of racial, national and religious groups.

The office of the Production Code Administration of the Motion Picture Association of America is empowered to give a certificate of approval when the prohibitions are obeyed. Formerly, there was a fine for any exhibition of pictures without such a certificate; but since 1942, the fine has applied only to production and distribution. This office regards itself as a service organization to studios and works with a producer from the time he considers buying a novel, play or story, or suggestion for a story, until the completion of a film. Staff members of the MPAA read each script presented and analyze it for two main points: the theme and the details. The solution of the problem in a story will frequently determine its acceptability or unacceptability. If sin or crime go unpunished, the theme is not acceptable. Once the theme is accepted, there is detailed criticism of dialogue and scenes in terms of the various taboos of the Code. The MPAA staff members confer with the studios, giving them a list of unacceptable points and often suggest changes which would make the film acceptable. The seal of approval is not given, however, until the finished film is seen.
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ut after all the changes have been made and the seal of approval granted, it is decidedly questionable whether the large majority of pictures are the "correct" entertainment defined in the preamble of the Code-one which "raises the standards of the whole nation'-or whether they meet the aim of the Code, "to recreate and rebuild human beings exhausted with the realities of living." Discounting the window-dressing of the noble-sounding preamble, it can be further questioned whether the Code succeeds in its specific restraints on sex, crime and violence. In primitive societies

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the taboo on incest is actually a restraining force, decidedly limiting incestuous relations. But although the MPAA Code of taboos is more or less obeyed, everyone inside and outside of Hollywood know that sexiness is a prime requisite for all actors and for most movies, and that crime and violence dominate a very large number of them. The anthropologist is skeptical as to whether the Code is really concerned with morality. Biological facts of life are not necessarily synonymous with morality, and are certainly not the whole of it. Truthfulness is usually considered an essential part of morality, but honesty is completely missing from most movies. Neither the office of the Production Code Administration nor most of the movie makers are concerned whether characters are presented as passive robots moved about by the exigencies of a plot, as human beings of dignity, whether solutions to problems are phony or honest. It is further questionable whether either morality or taste can be achieved through following a set of taboos imposed out of fear. Both have a way of seeping through rules and taboos.

The manner in which the Code is implemented helps explain why it is so unsuccessful. It is particularly concerned that no one be incited by movies to either sexual or criminal behavior and that the feelings of no group of people be hurt through their characterization in a film. The MPAA tries to achieve these ends by minute attention to details which insure the technical appearance virtue, the negation of all biological aspects of the human species as well as other animals, the punishment of all crime and sin, the omission of its details. It also tries to keep to a minimum unfavorable characterizations of members of any racial, religious, national or occupational group, and to offset them by favorable portrayals.

The nominal appearance of virtue is maintained in a number of ways. No prostitute can be shown in a movie. If a script calls for prostitutes they are changed to dancing girls, barmaids, or hostesses. In a movie set of the early days of a Western frontier town, filled with gun toters and whiskey drinkers, the town's rough spot, combined saloon and house of prostitution, was changed to a boardinghouse and the prostitutes to dancing girls. In a similar

movie the prostitutes' in a saloon, were called hostesses-a peculiar use of the word in that time and setting. It is probably now taken for granted by most movie-goers over the age of twelve that dancing girls and hostesses in saloons and cafes are prostitutes. (Those under twelve would probably not know what a prostitute was, even if she were plainly labeled.) But the MPAA has been successful in maintaining the appearance of virtue.

All suggestions of sexual intimacy in and out of marriage are taboo. Producers are regularly cautioned that a married man and woman should not be "overly eager to exercise their marital privileges." In one film, the MPAA asked for the deletion of dialogue which indicated that a husband wanted to sleep with his wife. In another, it recommended that the studio omit the "dissolve" which might imply that a man and his wife would consummate their marital relationship, and it was further recommended that the breakfast scene the next morning not play up the fact that they had enjoyed themselves. In one movie, there was disapproval of a sign DO NOT DISTURB being placed on the stateroom door of a young married couple and also of a reference to the "first night." In another picture a scene showing a soldier who has been away for several years as glad to see his wife and wanting to sleep with her is regarded as too "intimate." Even gestures of affection between a man and wife are taboo. The MPAA asked for omission of a scene in which a man was buttoning his wife's dress and kissed the back of her neck, and of another showing a husband giving an affectionate pinch to his wife's posterior.

The suggestion of frustration in marriage is just as taboo as that of the enjoyment of marital privileges. In one picture the MPAA disapproved of dialogue which suggested that a husband and wife could not satisfy their sexual desires because he worked at night; and in another, of a scene which indicated that the heroine was frustrated because her husband was excessively preoccupied with his business affairs.

Any suggestion of sexual intimacy or physical contact outside of marriage is completely taboo. The code insists that when the hero and heroine are not married, it must be clearly shown that the male does not stay overnight. In one romantic comedy, the hero

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was shown leaving the girl's apartment at night and sleeping some where else. When he returned in the morning, he had to be plainly, seen coming from his hotel. Equally great care was taken in a murder mystery without romance and in which the two leads had not as much as held hands. The hero was a private detective trying to find a murderer and doing his best to outwit the police. When he is leaving with two police officers, he says to the girl "Better not wait up for me." In the movie it was completely clear that nothing had happened between the girl and the detective, and that he used the phrase "wait up" to fool the police. But the Code office was interested only in the words, "Wait up," not in the meaning conveyed by the picture, and so asked for deletion of the word "up."

In another picture in which two of the characters are much attracted to each other and supposedly in love, the MPAA asked for, omission of the scene in which the couple's legs touched each other under the table in a restaurant. Great care must be taken with all kissing or embracing. No embrace can be made in a horizontal position, and love-making is never supposed to take place on a bed, even if the characters are both dressed and married. With monotonous insistence the correspondence between studio and MPAA on almost every picture includes the sentence, "There must be no open-mouthed or lustful kissing," and the closed mouth in kissing is one of the many technicalities rigidly insisted upon. The Code also says, "In general, passion should be so treated that these scenes do not stimulate the lower and baser elements." Any lines suggesting deep sexual desire, such as "You wanted me so much," are supposed to arouse these "baser" elements and are accordingly deleted.

Taboos on sex are extended to the sex organs of animals. In one picture the Code office ordered that a scene showing the sex organs of an elephant be omitted. Close-up of the milking of cows showing udders, or streams of milk from the udders used as comedy gags, are regarded as violating the vulgarity clause and are usually deleted by the Code office. It was even recommended for one picture that the action of an electric milking machine be suggested rather than shown.

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This emphasis on the negation of anything suggestive of sex is one part of the Code's general taboo on the biological nature of man. Childbirth is another aspect. Not only are scenes of childbirth in fact or in silhouette cut out, but there can never be any dialogue about the dangers of childbirth. A woman moaning in childbirth is always deleted. Labor pains cannot be indicated, and producers are cautioned even about scenes which show a husband's distress during childbirth.

Pregnancy can never be treated with any sense of reality; here the taboos are carried to considerable length. In one picture, the Code office asked that the phrase "in trouble" be changed to "into this." It was completely clear from the context of the picture that "this" referred to pregnancy, but the MPAA had won its technical point. The phrase "wet nurse" is always deleted. Dialogue about diapers and scenes showing them are usually cut by the MPAA and any scene of a wet baby is unacceptable. Even a doll-wetting scene had to be deleted. The Code office questioned a scene in which a hot water bottle leaked and a woman, for a few minutes, mistakenly thought her baby was responsible for the water. This taboo extends to dogs and the MPAA recommended the deletion of a scene in which a dog merely sniffed at a fire plug. In one picture the remark of a colored maid to a dog, "If you gotta go, you gotta go," was deleted. Occasionally such recommendations by the Code Office are not accepted by the studios and they remain in the films.

The showing of toilets is rigidly prohibited. They are always missing in any bathroom scene. Even the sound of an out-of-scene toilet being flushed is deleted. The reference to "toilets inside" and "outside stinkholes" had to be taken out of one picture, and in another, the reference to a character being a lavatory attendant was disapproved. In one film, the sign LADIES on the door of what was obviously a public ladies' room had to be changed to LADIES' LOUNGE..

Any reference to sexual perversions is completely ruled out, and words like "pansy" or gags which carry the connotation of perversion are always deleted. In one picture, the line "Because he's queer," was taken out.

Bigamy is, of course, considered a crime and must be punished. In a picture dealing with some Indians among whom bigamy was

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not considered a felony, the MPAA asked that dialogue which seemed to condone or accept bigamy among them be changed. In a film taken from an historical novel, there was a reference to an illegitimate birth which had happened six or seven generations before the events shown in the movie. For story purposes, it was necessary to keep this reference, which also happened to be a matter of record. The MPAA ruled that the only way they could keep it was to make a pointed reference to the mother's having died in childbirth. According to history, the mother did not die in childbirth.

The Code taboos on "vulgarity" are equally rigid. All burps and belching are considered vulgar and must be deleted. In one picture MPAA disapproved of the loud belch of an African chief, although this is not in the African concept of vulgarity. Sordidness is also considered vulgar, and so the Code office recommended that the locale of one film be changed from a dirty dive to a swanky night club and the same story was then told in a lush setting. Such commonly used words as "lousy," "punk," "nuts," "wolf," "damned" and "jerk" are considered vulgar and are deleted regardless of context, as are also interjections, such as "Oh God" and "Oh Lord." Over and over again, when a character is shown as drunk the point is made that he should not be "offensively" drunk, although just how "offensive" is defined is not clear.

All these and many more restrictions designed to maintain the technical appearance of virtue and to avoid the MPAA's concept of vulgarity are applied to all pictures, serious dramas, farces, Westerns, historical and contemporary movies. The same yardstick is used for two such different movies as Duel in the Sun, described by one columnist as "sex rampant" and as "lusty, lush, lascivious, and Best Years of Our Lives, a serious attempt to dramatize some of the problems of soldiers returning to their homes. Then, too, the Code office minutely censors dialogue for suggestions of sex, while studios continue to accent the sexiness of their stars.

Obviously, the Code has not been able to take sin, sexual or otherwise, out of the movies shown; but it insists that it be shown punished. The MPAA rejected a script in which a woman who had had illicit sex relationships in her past was redeemed by falling in

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love with a decent man, and in which after much struggling and suffering she was eventually successful in living a happy and conventionally moral life with a man she loved. The Code office insisted that the woman must fail in her struggle for a decent, happy life. The age-old story of man's struggle with sin can never end in victory. Once man has sinned, there is no hope for him.

The successful Broadway play, The Voice of the Turtle, could not be made into a movie without changing its basic theme. The play was a quite moral tale about two young people who had
"been around" and whose love life had been based on the principle of "love them and leave them." In the play, for the first time they find with each other a love that is lasting, and know happiness and life at its best. The moral of the play is that a permanent and monogamous love brings greater happiness than temporary, illicit affairs. In the movie, the whole point of the play and its moral theme is lost, and the picture has really no point beyond that of depicting a very immature and adolescent girl falling much in love with a returned soldier who is at first not attracted to her, but later falls for her and proposes marriage.
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he MPAA presents the contradiction of insisting upon punishment for sin even when it will not permit the sin to be named. The Bible mentions the word "adultery," but it cannot occur in movie dialogue. In one film, the original script was about a girl of loose sexual conduct who falls in love with a decent man, but cannot marry him because of her past. When a character representing the voice of morality indicated what had been wrong with her past life, the MPAA said this should be spoken of in terms of general dissipation and shallowness, without any distinct reference to illicit sex. At the same time, she must be punished for the unnamed sin.

The emphasis on punishment for sin practically amounts to a fetish. A film about a woman who loses her mind because of a philandering boy friend, and murders him, is acceptable, because the woman becomes insane. In this picture the MPAA indicated deletions on the following points: the slapping of a woman, references to venereal disease and an illicit sex affair, and an undue exposure of a woman's leg. These, from the Code point of view,

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were more immoral and dangerous to an audience than murder provided the murderer was punished by becoming insane.

Other taboos on crime are concerned primarily with preventing sympathy with it or inspiring imitation. The criminal must never be made heroic nor should his crime be justified, and the details of the crime must not be so explicit that anyone could learn frog them. The treatment of guns is in the same class as passionate kisses or a naked baby. The Code says that there should be to display of machine guns or other illegal weapons in the hands at gangsters or other criminals. There can also be no off-stage sounds of the repercussions of these guns, just as there can be no off-stage sound of the flushing of a toilet. Nor can there be any new, unique or trick methods for concealing guns; and dialogue on the part of the gangsters regarding guns should be cut to the minimum. Suicide is discouraged in the same way that divorce is, and is particularly prohibited when used by a criminal to outwit the proper legal punishments. Nor is there supposed to be excessive brutality, unnecessary killings, or the motive of revenge.

The MPAA and the code of taboos which it implements attempt not only to safeguard audiences from sin, crime, sex and vulgarity, but also to protect the feelings of members of different nationality, religious, racial and occupational groups. No one must be offended. One studio feared that a picture that was supposed open with several Mexicans embroiled in a street fight might be offensive to Mexicans. Since a fight was a necessary part of the plot they kept it, but changed the fighting characters from Mexicans to gypsies. The studio representative blandly remarked that the gypsies had no country or organization to register a protest. Out of deference to the feelings of Cubans, the setting of one picture dealing with the underworld was changed from Cuba to New Orleans. Several times the MPAA has suggested that the character of a Negro maid be changed to a white one, because of protests from Negro organizations over the movie stereotype of the Negro as a menial. In one picture, the MPAA requested that a remark about "rattling the tambourine" be changed, to avoid giving offense to the Salvation Army. At another time the office considered the

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characterization of a juvenile court investigator unfair, and the producer agreed to change it. On one occasion, it cautioned against a jocular reference to the "Confederacy Dames." Stuttering is deleted from scripts and pictures because of a large number of protests from Parent-Teachers' Associations. In the case of the Spanish Revolution' the MPAA watches scripts and pictures having that Revolution as a background to see that leading characters are not identified with either side in the conflict, and in one film questioned the wisdom of depicting the Franco regime in a bad light. If the villain of the movie is a newspaperman, politician, lawyer, schoolteacher, doctor or member of any other profession, care must be taken to have other characters from the same profession portrayed sympathetically.

There are other taboos in the Code, but the more important ones and their manner of implementation have been described. How does Hollywood feel about its taboos? The Code is one of the most frequent targets for abuse in the community. Although the industry's own creation, no one loves it. The attitude of the studios is that the Code must be endured in order to ward off the threat of further censorship, but it is to be outwitted whenever possible. The staff which administers the Code resent being labeled "censors" or "bluenoses"; they earn their living on a routine job, painstakingly reading every script and looking at each film, conscientiously noting and warning the studio each time a taboo is not obeyed or a formula not maintained. No one-front office, producer, writer, director or publicity man-believes in the Code or takes seriously the values underlying the taboos. The attitude towards their implementation varies, but for the majority the tendency is to try to get around the matter. The MPAA censored the cleavage in the anatomy of Marjorie Lockwood and Patricia Roc, starring in the English picture The Wicked Lady, and the producers were therefore obliged to shoot several retakes of the film before it could be O.K.'d for United States release.

Universal, which is releasing the film in the U. S., however, apparently found there's more than one way to skin a cleavage. Trailer at the Winter Garden, N. Y., where the pic is slated to

open . . . is compiled of shots from the original British footage, giving wolves in the audience plenty to gape at and thereby giving the film a hefty pre-opening boost. When the picture opens, of course, it will have such shots deleted or retaken.2

A successful writer uses the strategy of putting a number of things in the script to which he knows in advance the MPAA will object and which he does not consider important to the story. He then uses these as bargaining points to keep in others he regards as essential. Quite a number of able writers think the Code is silly, but they do not get excited about it. They regard it as a minor annoyance, but say a good writer is sufficiently adroit to achieve the desired meaning even if he does have to change a line or a scene. They add that sometimes the necessary subtlety improves the script.

Some producers say they have very very little difficulty with the MPAA. They discuss each picture in advance with the administrator of the Code and are in constant contact on the necessary changes as they go along. Out of the discussion of different points of view a satisfactory compromise is reached. Perhaps they can keep adultery, if they say divorce is bad.

Other producers and writers regard the Code as a serious limiting condition. One mentioned that it was impossible during the war to make a picture in which the hero killed a Nazi because the Code says all murder must be punished. One who is also a writer complains that he tends to think in terms of the Code, and that his imagination is restricted from going beyond its prohibitions. He knows in advance that certain themes will be forbidden. On the other hand, the MPAA may be used as an alibi by a producer who tells a writer that he would like to do a story, but that the MPAA will not O.K. it; actually the MPAA may not even have seen the story. An occasional writer will likewise use the Code as an excuse for his lack of success, saying he cannot write within its limitations. Still others make the Code a scapegoat for all the ills of Hollywood, and regard as the villain of the piece.

Whether the Code is outwitted, accepted philosophically as a necessary evil, railed against indignantly, or used as an alibi, no one connected with motion picture production believes in the system of morality it embodies. They do not think the words "nuts," "lousy" or "damn," vulgar or that the interjection "Oh, Lord" would corrupt Americans or any other people. Neither do they think a slight indication in a movie that a marriage has been consummated, or that a divorce occurs with no hell-fire and brimstone following, would contaminate even the teen-age members of the audience. Nor do they believe that the portrayal of a baby who needs diapering or the sign LADIES' ROOM would have an evil effect on anyone. Certainly, no one in Hollywood attempts to carry out the Code of taboos in his own life, or seriously believes them important for the audience. This is in sharp contrast to the way taboos are an integral part of the behavior and values of a primitive people.

On the other hand, much of the thinking of Hollywood people about taboos is quite similar to that of primitive peoples. The seal of approval given by the MPAA, when the taboos of the Code have been maintained, seems to have the quality of a magical spell designed to ward off the danger of hostile forces who would impose censorship. But in this case the would-be censors and critics are not always placated. A Variety headline proclaims Pressure Groups in Pix Tug of War, and the article says:

Every organized political pressure group is aiming to pocket the pix field and then make it play its own tune. The drive on films sees Protestants whacking Catholics; vets' groups battling each other; the government moving in; and the left, all along the line, swapping potshots with the right.... And whenever Hollywood treats with any subject that has a glimmering of serious content, the same groups are hammer-and-tongs to boycott or cherish the theatre's playing the particular opus.3

The president of the MPAA comes forth from time to time with the awful threats of real censorship just around the corner, as when Variety reported:

68 HOLLYWOOD, THE DREAM FACTORY

Unless Hollywood's individual film producers adhere to Production Code rules with more stringency, state censorship of motion pictures looms more than a likely possibility. State censorship bills are already before legislative bodies and can make Hollywood's problems tougher than ever, according to the message Eric Johnston will take around to individual producers.... Johnston will meet with producers on the various lots to give them a complete picture of the situation and the trouble looming ahead unless good taste and moral values are met more squarely.... The code, he believes, is still sound, but producers must be reminded of the seriousness of the situation.4

The National Legion of Decency, a militant Catholic organization, reviews all feature motion pictures and rates them as follows:

Class A: Approved
Section I Morally unobjectionable for general patronage.
Section 11 Morally unobjectionable for adults.
Class B: Morally objectionable, in part, for all.
Class C: Condemned.

In the thirteen years (1936 to 1949) in which the Legion of Decency has been reviewing pictures, the percentage of pictures to which they give their full approval, the A-I rating, has decreased from 61 per cent to 41.33 per cent. All other classifications have increased in the same period. A-II (morally unobjectionable for adults) increased from 30 per cent to 35.33 per cent. The B rating (morally objectionable, in part, for all) was 8 per cent in the first year of the Legion's operation and more than double, 20.56 per cent, in 1949. Class C (condemned) rose from 1 per cent in 1936 to 2.78 per cent in 1949.5

It appears that the Legion of Decency, one of the strongest organizations which Hollywood desires to placate, is not too well pleased.

However, the effectiveness of the Legion of Decency in keeping

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people away from movies through the publication of their ratings is questionable.

The more censorship trouble, the more b. o. [box office] for a picture, according to survey just completed by a California poll. Biggest group of filmgoers interviewed say picture's censorship difficulties has no effect on whether they will see the pie, but twice as many say they're likely to see a picture that has censor trouble as say they are less likely to see it.6

Forever Amber, Best Years of Our Lives and Jolson Sings Again received B ratings and at the same time drew large audiences and made profits for their studios. The publicity about censorship trouble often increases the audience for a movie as it does for a book.

While a B rating does not materially worry the industry, it is really frightened by a C (condemned) one, because then additional pressure is brought. The real reason behind Hollywood's taking on their moral "false face" is double-edged fear: of the political power of organized religious and civic groups to get restrictive legislation passed, and of their power in the community to boycott theaters showing condemned films. It never seems to occur to the industry that they could fight both. Take the case of the movie Forever Amber as an example, particularly as compared with the case of the book from which the movie was taken. The movie was originally given a C rating by the Legion of Decency. Cardinal Spellman then singled out the picture for special condemnation, and declared in a letter to all pastors in his diocese and read it at all masses, "I advise that Catholics may not see this production with a safe conscience." 7 However, the Catholic hierarchy went much further in their pressure. In Philadelphia, Cardinal Dougherty gave an ultimatum to the Fox theater to withdraw the picture in 48 hours, or he would throw a boycott at the house and any other in his diocese henceforth playing a product of the Twentieth Century
Fox studio. Similar situations existed in several cities. The

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studio capitulated from its original firm stand of no changes, and after many negotiations with the Legion officials, cut and revised the film. The studio president publicly made an apologetic state- ment. The picture's rating was then changed to B. Before this occurred, many bookings of the picture had been canceled because of the exhibitors' reluctance to incur the displeasure of the local church officials.8

The merit or demerit of the movie Forever Amber is not of interest in this context. What is significant is the contrast between Hollywood's attitude of appeasement and the fighting one of booksellers and publisher when the book, from which the movie was made, was censored in Boston. The publisher of Forever Amber, the Johnson Bookstore of Springfield and the Board of Trade of Boston Book Merchants all combined to take literary censors out of the hands of the police, who had banned the book on the basis of obscenity. The prosecution, working very much in the manner of the MPAA, favored the court with a statistical analysis of Forever Amber, listing seventy references to sexual intercourse, thirty-nine illegitimate pregnancies, seven abortions, thirty-three bedroom scenes "more or less sexual." The result of this feat of literary criticism was a murmur of laughter from the courtroom. The Court cleared the book with the words, "While conducive to sleep, it is not conducive to a desire to sleep with a member of the opposite sex."9

It is almost impossible even to imagine an analogous combined action by the studio which made Forever Amber and an exhibit or group of exhibitors when the showing of the movie was threatened.

The motion picture industry is an exception to the America pattern of resisting censorship through legal action. It does not even protest. Occasionally there is an anonymous murmur, such as that reported in Life10 from a round table held in Hollywood: "As to the Legion of Decency, the mundane situation is that it holds the

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whip-hand over Hollywood, and nothing can be done about it."

There are other critics besides the Legion of Decency. Complaints pile into the MPAA office from individuals and organizations. The Women's Christian Temperance Union complained bitterly in 1947 over the number of Oscars going to pictures or actors portraying alcoholics: Ray Milland, the alcoholic in Lost Weekend; Fredric March, a tipsy father in Best Years of Our Lives; Anne Baxter, a woman alcoholic in The Razor's Edge. The State Department, interested in carrying out a Good Neighbor policy with Mexico, asked that 152 feet of a film be reshot because it had shown some mass scenes with a number of Mexican children barefooted. That part of the film was reshot with the children wearing shoes. The burlesque of a United States senator in The Senator Was Indiscreet was taken seriously by many who protested to the studio making it.11

Negro organizations protest stereotyping. Jews protest the making of Oliver Twist. Protestants complain that Catholic portrayals are more favored than Protestant ones. Parent-Teachers' organizations protest violence. Members of various occupational groups, doctors, judges, lawyers, policemen and many others, remonstrate against the way they are portrayed. The only people who do not complain are rich tycoons, although they are almost uniformly portrayed as villains or heels without any redeeming qualities.

If the complaints from members of religious, professional, racial and national groups were all heeded, it would be impossible for Hollywood to make any picture with a villain in it. A much more fundamental criticism could be made of all the stereotypes which Hollywood offers as human beings. No one goes to bat for the human species; no one seems to care that mankind is presented falsely, and that the majority of movie portrayals are untrue. No worthy organization protests that human beings are shown as passive, unfeeling robots. Man, according to Hollywood, is either completely good, or bad. His personally is static, rarely showing any development either in growth or regression. The villain is a blackened sinner who can do no good and who cannot be saved; while the hero is a glamorous being, who can do no wrong of his own

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volition, and who is always rewarded. Missing is a realistic concept of the human personality, a complex being with potentialities for both kindliness and cruelty, who can love and hate, who has human frailties and virtues. The stereotyping of the Negro, the newspaper reporter, the politician, the rich businessman, the teacher, the Mexican, or anyone else is just a part of the larger stereotyping of mankind which prevails. If all movie characters were presented as part of the stream of humanity, good, bad and indifferent; if they were portrayed as thinking, feeling, human beings; if insight were given into their problems and their struggles, their victories and their defeats-then, whether a Mexican child was barefoot, or a Negro was a servant, or a politician corrupt, would not be important, and there would probably not be so many protests. I question if any individual salesman or organization of them objects to the popular Broadway play, The Death of a Salesman. This unheroic hero is a prototype for modern man's struggles, and the large audience responds to the play because it recognizes the truthfulness of the portrayal and gains understanding from it.

Only rarely does a movie-goer have the experience of seeing real human beings living in a complicated world. Instead, he is created to static characters not unlike the symbolic personifications of sin and virtue in medieval miracle plays. It is only the exceptional movie which portrays any human being, member of majority or minority group, with truthfulness or understanding. The reality of most movies usually consists only in the photography, the setting, the curve of a star's leg, the friendly or handsome looks of the hero and heroine, and other surface characteristics. Seldom is anyone concerned with the reality of emotions and with truthfulness of meaning.

Many members of the audience, conditioned by years of such movies, do not expect anything different. And minority groups, insecure and fearful in general, pass over the usual Hollywood stereotyping of all peoples, noting only when one of their own group appears untruthfully portrayed.

The movies are an easy target, because Hollywood never fights back. Instead, it tries to please everyone; by using its formula, the MPAA in answering a protest can always point to figures which

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show a preponderance of sympathetic portrayals. That the sympathetic and unsympathetic characterizations may be equally untrue ever occurs to anyone. The dazzling, beautiful young female psychoanalyst dressed in the most seductive manner who falls in love with her handsome patient and cures him in a hocus-pocus manner is just as false as the psychiatrist in another picture who misuses his profession to drive a patient insane and cover up his own crime. But Hollywood sticks to its formula.

Yet the Code of taboos not only fails to please the critics, but is also unsuccessful in its own terms. Although the staff of the Code office works conscientiously to enforce it, even the most casual movie-goer knows that movies are filled with sex, crime, cruelty, and violence. The word adultery is not mentioned, prostitutes are changed to dancing girls, and kisses are given with a closed rather than open mouth; but movies are openly sexy. The hero is a virile he-man, and the heroine has obvious sex appeal, enhanced by every device of make-up, by accenting of bosoms with "falsies," by provocative clothes. An immediate and obvious sexual attraction between hero and heroine is part of the theme of most movies. Whether the story be a murder mystery, farce, musical, or serious drama, the sensual nature of the leading characters is always accented. This is carried still further in boldface type in the advertisements, such as "Alluring, Seductive, Wicked!" One studio (Universal-International) wrote into its contracts with starlets a "cheesecake clause" to insure the showing off of their curves in publicity pictures.

"The clause requires that a suitably endowed feminine newcomer "shall for the first five years of the duration of her Contract display said charms in publicity pictures as well as on the screen." . . . "Many young actresses begin screen careers by displaying their figures and later refuse to permit this type of exploitation, which seems unfair to their public and to themselves," a studio spokesman explained.13

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Certainly the taboos of the Production Code have not succeeded in making sex less attractive. Hollywood continues to be its symbol, and the movie industry continues to make a big profit by exploiting it.

Movies are likewise still filled with violence, crime and murder. As noted, punishment of the criminals and the taboos on details of the method or the loot supposedly preclude any effect on the audience, particularly young people. It is doubtful if anyone young or old, who does not already have criminal tendencies, actually would be incited to crime, whether or not he saw loot or heard gangsters discussing their guns; it is also questionable whether the punishment of the criminal, pointing up the moral that "crime does not pay," prevents members of the audience from identifying themselves with him or her, particularly when the character is played by a glamorous star.

The MPAA gave its seal of approval to a picture in which the two leading characters committed adultery and then murder and, of course, were finally punished for all their sins. What the MPAA ignored were the implications of a sexy-looking, beautiful woman and a strong, handsome he-man, both popular stars, irresistibly drawn to each other, committing adultery, and finally murder. That they are punished at the end would not necessarily destroy the identification of the preceding sixty or eighty minutes.

In one small study of audience reaction, the results showed that a large number of the audience were able to identify with characters who transgressed conventional mores and of whose behavior they overtly disapproved. The identification was indicated by the informants saying that they could imagine themselves (or sometimes, friends) acting in the same way. That the exhibitors are well aware of this kind of identification is shown through advertisements - as, CAN YOU CONDEMN FREDRIC MARCH IN AN ACT OF MURDER?14 The question of whether this kind of identification is psychologically good or bad is difficult to answer, and probably depends on both the kind of movie and the kind of individual. It might serve as a catharsis for unconscious or semiconscious aggressive impulses It could also strengthen and give them a kind of permissiveness.

However, what seems definitely harmful is the continuous portrayal of violent, aggressive and criminal behavior by actors who register no emotion. Murder is committed by passive robots without the flicker of an eyebrow or a change of inflection in the voice. Feeling of any kind, whether anxiety, guilt, or exhilaration, is lacking. Most of today's stars, particularly the younger ones, carefully cultivate a passivity of face and voice, giving the impression of complete callousness. The constant portrayal by admired stars of people without feelings, unconcernedly murdering their fellow human beings, leaves an impression of cold disregard for human life which remains even if the murderers are punished. The fact, too, that the solution of the problem comes about so often through murder or the convenient natural death of one of the characters rather than through the individual's having to make a choice, may have a long-time corroding effect on the audience. Thus the distorted Hollywood picture of human nature and its unreal solutions to problems are probably more harmful than the showing of loot from a holdup or the dialogue of gangsters about their guns.

The Bribe may serve us as an example. It is an average feature picture, neither an Oscar winner nor a particularly poor movie. It stars Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner and Charles Laughton, and features Vincent Price and John Hodiak; it follows the Code's taboos, and has the MPAA seal of approval. It is advertised as a DANGER-FILLED PAYOFF, and is a story of crime, violence and murder with no particular point. It presents the following picture of human beings:

The hero, played by Robert Taylor, handsome and virile-looking, working for the United States Government as a detective, is sent to the Caribbean Islands to catch an unknown criminal who is illegally shipping airplane engines into the United States to avoid Custom duties. The assignment is described as a patriotic one, in the interests of taxpayers. The hero is attracted to a beautiful girl (played by Ava Gardner) who, he thinks, is involved in the illegal operations through her husband, and there is a conflict between love and duty. Never does this conflict come through emotionally and instead the hero moves passively and without expression through his part. Love at first wins out over duty, and he is about to pass

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up the opportunity of catching the criminal; but duty triumphs finally, not because of the hero's strength of character or of his having thought through the problem, but because he finds out that the heroine is working against him and for her husband.

The first view of the beautiful heroine by the hero and the audience is as a singer, seductively dressed, singing and moving in a tantalizing manner among the tables in a cafe. Later, she appears as a serious and simply dressed young woman unhappily married to a drunkard husband, played by John Hodiak. She is still beautiful and her very obvious, rounded and pointed bosom seems to be always strutting, whether she is in sorrow or happiness. She has fallen for the hero and has decided to leave her husband; he, however has a heart attack and becomes very ill and she decides to stick by him, even to the point of helping him evade the law and by giving sleeping potions to the hero whom she loves. Up to this point the heroine was innocent of even knowing about her husband's illegal' activities. She shows a little more emotion and feelings in her conflict than does the hero, but she never becomes real.

Her husband is merely the tool of the real villain, who is played by Vincent Price in his usual, suave, cold-blooded manner. He is the completely stereotyped bad man, without a single redeeming feature, killing automatically whoever comes in his way. He tries unsuccessfully to murder the hero, and succeeds in killing the sick husband.

The only really human character is the payoff man, played by Charles Laughton, who is in the pay of the villain and trying unsuccessfully to bribe the hero. Laughton is shown as degenerate looking and dirty, but he has feelings in his ugly face and squinting eyes, and while he plays one character off against another, he draws the line at murder. There is some human motivation for his being a payoff man-he is trying to get enough money for an operation on his continuously aching feet.

In the end, the hero, in self-defense, kills the villain, who as we have seen has first conveniently murdered the husband of the heroine This now leaves her free to fall into the hero's arms. No so-called vulgar words have been used. Crime has been punished. There have been no extramarital relations, although the hero and married heroine

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have been obviously much attracted to each other. But the question might be raised of whether any movie with such a weak automaton hero and villain, with the solution of the so-called love relationship through murder, and with its only human character a degenerate payoff man, "improves the race," according to one of the stated aims of the Code. Its models of human relations and of solutions to their problems in this and many similar pictures may well be cumulatively injurious to regular movie-goers.

The many-sided failure of the Code of taboos can be explained by the complete lack of understanding which the industry, the Would-be censors and pressure groups all appear to have of the problem. None of them seem to realize that good taste is never an arbitrary matter or subject to legislation. The taste, good or bad, of the men who make the movies will be inevitably stamped on them and will break through all rules and taboos.

"Vulgarity," as Henry Seidel Canby says, "is a quality of the mind. It is a baseness of the spirit."15 The MPAA attempts the impossible when it tries to legislate on qualities of mind and spirit, and is accordingly doomed to failure.

Nor do the censors, apparently, understand that it is impossible to impose attitudes and values which are not representative of society or any considerable section of it. The nonbiological nature of man which is implicit and explicit in the Code is not part of our current thinking.

There is a basic absence of logic in the Code, since moral concepts are not distinguished from physical facts. Biology has a stubborn, reality of its own which resists a political line about genetics and a moral one of a censor. The biological nature of man and other animals, whether it is expressed through a baby's need to have his diaper changed, a dog sniffing at a post, or a reference to the consummation of marriage, is rather widely recognized; and it is not necessarily vulgar or obscene. Most people take for granted that marriages are consummated, that toilets are in bathrooms, that cows have udders, that sexual perversions exist (even before the Kinsey report), and do not think that references to them are necessarily

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vulgar. They can be the subject of obscene jokes-part of the folklore of any society-but this is not their only use.

It is part of the routine of any urban apartment-dwelling family to walk the dog at required intervals to permit him to perform his natural functions. Diaper services in all our cities blatantly advertise their wares. That marriage is at least connected with sex is fairly generally recognized by fourteen-year-olds, and very few people would consider that a husband kissing the back of his wife's neck or giving an affectionate pinch to her posterior, necessarily arouses evil thoughts or passionate desire on the part of the young. That divorce is fairly widely condoned is proved by its present high rate. Words such as "lousy" and "nuts" are an accepted part of colloquial vocabulary, and even in the Bible Belt of the Deep South there are very few people who consider "damn" or the interjection "Oh, Lord!" either sinful or vulgar. The concept that the sinner cannot be saved is completely foreign to our society. All modern religions stress the theme of redemption through repentance and God's grace. Both the spirit and letter of the Code contradict the very core of Christianity, Christ dying to save erring mankind. The emphasis is modern penology and social work on redeeming the criminal, delinquent and others who break our fundamental mores, and on enabling them to become useful, normal members of society, is again foreign to the Code-which insists on its pound of flesh in punishment, and rules out the possibility of the sinner's ever coming back to society.
The Code simply does not belong to this world.

Neither morality nor taste is achieved through the mechanical following of taboos. They can be secured only through a positive set of values. In every society, from the most primitive to the most modern, these values form what the anthropologist Ralph Linton calls an inner core of culture radiating outward and influencing behavior.16 However, many modern societies, including our own, are characterized by a conflict between competing and contradictory values. This is in marked contrast to the more unified value systems in primitive societies, among whom attitudes towards divorce, sui-

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cide, and ownership of property tend to be quite uniform. In our society, there is a wide divergence of opinion on many subjects, ranging from consumption of alcoholic liquor to philosophical concepts of the nature of man. It is therefore exceedingly difficult for any one group, no matter how sincere, to be the spokesman for our values.

Equally important is the question as to whether the nature of a kiss, the use of the word "damn," or the automatic punishment of sin are the most significant aspects of contemporary morality. Truthfulness might be equally important. Truthfulness in the portrayal of characters, in the solution of problems and in the meaning conveyed by the movie as a whole might conceivably have something to do with morality. Helping man understand himself and his complicated world, and thereby reducing his confusion and fear, could also be considered a moral matter. The struggle between the concept of man as a reasoning, free human being, responsible for his behavior, and the totalitarian opposite concept of a robotlike creature, trained to do as he is told, is a moral as well as a political issue. But a system of morals which includes truthfulness, understanding and a concept of freedom cannot be achieved by men whose idea of morality is limited to a set of taboos imposed out of fear. Only men who are themselves interested in truth, who consider mankind worthy of respect, can understand morality. That this kind of morality can and does occur in movies-whether in serious drama, melodrama, comedy, farce, pursuit-chase, or slapstick-is demonstrated by the early Chaplin pictures, by Sullivan's Travels, by The Pride of the Marines, by To the Ends of the Earth, Gentleman's Agreement, The Farmer's Daughter, Best Years of Our Lives, Crossfire, Home of the Brave and an increasing number of others. These pictures were profitable and good entertainment. They are not necessarily great pictures, but they are all exceptional to the general run of movies because in each case someone, with power enough to leave his stamp on the film, really cared for and respected mankind- Someone who was truly moral. The presence or absence of the taboos was completely irrelevant. It is doubtful if through following taboos there is any more increase in morality in movies than there is in primitive man's catch of fish.

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Hollywood, like any other business, is basically unconcerned with morality. But it has had to take on a moral system from powers out side and foreign to it. Again there is an analogy with primitive societies which have come in contact with modern ones and been subjugated by them. The South Sea Islander looks with awe and, envy at the power of the white man, as demonstrated by his weapons, his tools, his boats and airplanes, his clothes and all his other wealth. Religion is a part of the white man's ways as much as his power and his material goods. Often they are interrelated in the mind of the primitive man: by his taking over the Christian God and following his rules, a heaven of material things in this life is expected to follow.

A Samoan chief has expressed it very well when he said: "Now I conclude that the god who has given his white worshipers these valuable things must be wiser than our gods, for they have not given the like to us. We want all these articles and my proposition is that the god who gave them should be our god."17

Hollywood has "got religion"-or more accurately, what it calls, "morality." The motivation is not too different from that of the Samoans.

Very often when a primitive people are first missionized, Christian beliefs and ritual are reinterpreted in terms of native beliefs, or art followed mechanically while the Christian and native religions exist side by side. Just so in Hollywood, producers interpret the new religion so that there is the least possible damage done to their people's indigenous beliefs as they mechanically follow the new faith. They continue with their aboriginal custom, making pictures as sexy and violent as possible, while the MPAA makes sure that certain practices, like closed-mouth kisses and the omission of details of crime are carried out. This fits in very well with the general studio atmosphere and behavior: one of meticulous attention to small details and very little emphasis on meaning. The research department or technical adviser will spend much time insuring that the uniform of a soldier or the hair-do of the star is correct for the historical period

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of the film, but no one bothers to make sure that the mood of the picture is true for that era. So MPAA will mechanically count the number of sympathetic and unsympathetic portrayals of policemen, be on the lookout for certain words and expressions labeled vulgar, note the degree of coverage of a woman's bosom, make sure that anyone committing a crime is punished, but not bother about the real meaning of the picture. The Code office fits very well into the larger system in which movies are made.

Many people in and out of Hollywood have made the Code, the Legion of Decency and other pressure groups into the stereotyped villains. Perhaps they are not so much villainous as unintelligent and ineffectual in dealing with the important problem of morality. Neither they nor Hollywood would appear aware that the biggest taboo in the making of movies is an unwritten one. It is a taboo against man.

1. For a detailed history of the "Hays" office, see R. A Inglis, Freedom of the Movies, A Report on Self-regulation from the Commission on Freedom of the Press. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

2. Variety, Dec. 4, 1946.

3. Ibid., Jan. 21, 1948.

4. Ibid, Jan 19, 1947

5. Feature Motion Pictures, Reviewed by the New York Office of the National Legion of Decency, November 1948-November 1949, New York, p. 37.

6. Variety, June 4, 1947

7. Ibid., Oct. 29, 1947.

8. Ibid., Dec. 10, 1947.

9. Reported in N. Y. Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review Section, March 30, 1947.

10. June 27, 1949.

11. Variety, Jan. 28, 1948.

12. Advertisement for The Bride of Vengeance.

13. UP release, Santa Fe New Mexican, July 6, 1949.

14. Sign on movie theater in small Kansas town, June 1949.

15. Footnotes fo 1949, Saturday Review of Literature, August 6, 1949.

16. Ralph Linton, The Study of Man, p. 358. New York: D. Appleton-Century.

17. Felix W. Keesing, The South Seas in the Modern World, p. 230. London: Allen & Unwin.

Link to Chapter 4