The Hays Code

The Hays Code

Film Art

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The Hays Code

 

Before 1934, U.S. cinema had no code that determined whether something could be shown or not. Before 1934, directors were completely free.

After 1934, when a very restrictive code, the Hays Code, came into effect, directors were no longer free, but then they became decidedly creative in telling what they needed to tell.

Filmmaking stops showing overtly to start suggesting.

Incredibly, a code of self-censorship ended up enriching the language of cinema rather than ruining it.

Film producers and distributors, associated in the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), claiming concern for the deterioration of morals and respect for the laws of society in general, sought to self-regulate with the Hays Code, thus instituting a new way of producing films that reflected a puritanism and a moral order quite remote from reality.

It was a time when morality and good behavior were at the center of the debate. The code was written in 1930 —although it came into force in 1934— and the Prohibition (of alcohol) was still in force, which also had a very different outcome than expected.

Hays, who drafted the code, was a member of that association and one of the leaders of the Republican Party. And this need for the cinema to become “a moral guide for the nation” was undoubtedly due to the fact that the social order had collapsed shockingly along with the stock market. The so-called “stock market crash of 1929” generated a deep economic and social crisis that lasted for years.

 

All the rules included in the Code, even some really ridiculous ones, were based on these three general principles:

• No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrong-doing, evil or sin.
• Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
• Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

 

The institutions of marriage, home, and religion are untouchable. Neither coarse nor unpleasant subjects are allowed. Anything morally questionable, from the scene of a crime to the consumption of alcohol, must be unexposed and unexplicit. No profanity (an insult involving God or sacred things) may be shown. Adultery, sexual scenes, not even very passionate ones, nudity, and kisses that last more than an instant are not permitted.

And so directors invented marvelous resources to suggest everything that was censored by the code. An emblematic case is that of Hitchcock in the film Notorious (1946). It was forbidden for a kiss to last more than three seconds, but Hitchcock turned the kiss of Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant into the promoted “longest kiss in the world.” What did he do? The actors started kissing passionately, and they kept interrupting that kiss the whole time to make comments about dinner and to talk on the phone and say romantic things to each other, and they kissed again for another couple of seconds every time.

The Code, which in addition to regulating U.S. film production, prevented the entry of foreign films that offended the purported puritanism of the American way of life, remained in effect until 1967. And in that year, it was replaced by a movie rating system according to the viewer’s age.

 

Image: The kiss of Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant in Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)

 

Recommended links:

Pre-code Hollywood.

The Golden Age of Hollywood (Classic Hollywood Cinema).

The Best American Movies in History according to the American Film Institute.

The Actors Studio.

Film d’auteur (Auteur cinema).

La Nouvelle Vague.

Film Noir.

Italian Neorealism.

Surrealist Cinema.

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