Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code HollywoodIn the spring of 1934, Hollywood faced what the Los Angeles Times called "the most serious crisis of its history." The film capital was under siege by censorship advocates who launched a boycott, demanding that the film industry enforce the Production Code it had adopted in 1930. For nearly five years, defiant producers had cited artistic freedom and flouted the Code, which forbade vulgarity, profanity, nudity, excessive, illegal drugs, adultery, "sex perversion," "white slavery," racial mingling, "lustful kissing," and suggestive dancing. In July 1934, the controversial films were outlawed. Today they are called "pre-Code." |
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AMPP audience Baby Face Black Call Her Savage caption Catholic censor boards censorship Clara Bow Clark Gable Convention City crime dance Daniel Lord DeMille director Divorcee Dracula entertainment evil film's Fox Film Corporation Geoffrey Shurlock girl Greta Garbo Hays Office Hollywood Hollywood Censored Hughes Ibid Irving Thalberg Jack Vizzard James Wingate Jason Joy Jean Harlow Joan Crawford Joe Breen John Josef von Sternberg Laemmle Lamar Trotti Legion of Decency letter to Hays look Lubitsch Lugosi Mae West Marlene Dietrich Martin Quigley memo moral Motion Picture MPPDA murder never Norma Shearer Paramount Photograph play portrait pre-Code pre-Code films Production Code Public Enemy Red-Headed Woman release Robert says Scarface scene Schulberg screen script sequence shot soft focus star Story of Temple Strangers May Kiss studio Tarzan Temple Drake thing tion told Wallis Warner Bros WB-USC WHH-USC William wrote York Zanuck