The Censorship Papers: Movie Censorship Letters from the Hays Office, 1934 to 1968 PDF

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The Censorship Papers: Movie Censorship Letters from the Hays Office, 1934 to 1968 PDF

Censorship is a dark and dirty business.

Most people don't even like the word—even the censors. At the TV networks the censors call the censorship department "Standards and Practices." In Hollywood the censors called their censorship group the Production Code Administration, and their censorship rules, the Production Code. Censors have a flair for euphemism in their appellations and in the objects of their censorship.

Film censorship ended in 1968—not with a bang but a whimper—to be replaced by the more civilized and flexible film rating process. The parent body of The Hays Office opened the secret files to the examination of authors and historians.

There were over five thousand files, one for each produced film, and they were turned over to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which welcomed the gift with becoming gratitude. From this bountiful treasure trove, the Academy selected one thousand film files that were the most famous of the vast Hollywood output; from this thousand, I have excerpted letters and reconstructed events from threescore of the most memorable movies.

There is humor in these censorship letters, because nothing is quite as funny as yesterday's taboos. Doubtless the congressmen's wives who deplore the vulgarity of today's rock lyrics will someday laugh at their present outrage—if their husbands remain in Congress long enough.

Along with the humor and nostalgia—since these are the most beloved films of our time—there is a sense of outrage. Behind closed doors, a group of men had the power to lay their hands qn the creations of artists, to twist them this way and that, to satisfy the mandates and morals of a pious little group who feared for the souls of their fellow men. It was all done in the name of public morality and the greater good; but the film censors were always a step behind the public and were doomed to fight a rear-guard action against maturing tastes, until they were forced, kicking and screaming, into a long retreat.

Here then, for better or worse—usually the latter—are the secret censorship letters that were used to mold and manacle the most famous films of our century.
--From the author's note

Copyright 1987

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