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Film censorship in the United States

Film censorship in the United States was a frequent
feature of the industry since almost the beginning of the motion
picture industry until the end of strong self-regulation in 1966.
Court rulings in the 1950s and 1960s severely constrained
government censorship, though statewide regulation lasted until
at least the 1980s.

Contents
State and local censorship, from pre-code to post-code
Production Code
The Pawnbroker and the end of the Code
This scene from The Branding Iron
List of banned films
(1920) was cut by the Pennsylvania film
Film censors censorship board, which then banned the
See also film for its topic of infidelity.[1]

Notes
References

State and local censorship, from pre-code to post-code

The censorship dates to an 1897 statute of Maine that prohibited the exhibition of prizefight films.[2]
Maine enacted the statute to prevent the exhibition of the 1897 heavyweight championship between
James J. Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons. Some other states followed the example of Maine.

Chicago enacted the first censorship ordinance in the United States in 1907, authorizing its police chief
to screen all films to determine whether they should be permitted on screens. Detroit followed the same
year. When upheld in a court challenge in 1909, other cities followed and Pennsylvania became the first
to enact state-wide censorship of movies in 1911 (though it did not fund the effort until 1914). It was soon
followed by Ohio (1914), Kansas (1915), Maryland (1916), New York (1921) and, finally, Virginia (1922).
Eventually, at least one hundred cities across the nation empowered local censorship boards.[3]

In 1915, the US Supreme Court decided the case Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of
Ohio in which the court determined that motion pictures were purely commerce and not an art and so
not covered by the First Amendment. This decision was not overturned until the Supreme Court case,
Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson in 1952. Popularly referred to as the "Miracle Decision", the ruling
involved the short film "The Miracle", part of Roberto Rossellini's anthology film L'Amore (1948).

Between the Mutual Film and the Joseph Burstyn decisions, local, state, and city censorship boards had
the power to edit or ban films. City and state censorship ordinances are nearly as old as the movies
themselves, and such ordinances banning the public exhibition of "immoral" films proliferated.

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Seven states[4] formed film censorship boards, which both pre-dated and outlasted the Hays Code:

Chicago Board of Censors 1907

Pennsylvania State Board of Censors (1914-1956; 1959-1961)
Ohio Board of Censors (1914-1955)[5][6]
Maryland State Board of Censors (1916-1981, the last to be abolished)[7]
Kansas State Board of Review (1915-1966)[8]
New York State Censorship Board (1921-1965)
Virginia State Board of Censors (1922-1968)

Production Code
Public outcry over perceived immorality in Hollywood and the
movies, as well as the growing number of city and state censorship
boards, led the movie studios to fear that federal regulations were
not far off; so they created, in 1922, the Motion Pictures Producers
and Distributors Association (which became the Motion Picture
Association of America in 1945), an industry trade and lobby
organization. The association was headed by Will H. Hays, a well-
connected Republican lawyer who had previously been United States
Postmaster General; and he derailed attempts to institute federal
censorship over the movies.

In 1927, Hays compiled a list of subjects, culled from his experience

with the various US censorship boards, which he felt Hollywood
studios would be wise to avoid. He called this list "the formula" but
it was popularly known as the "don'ts and be carefuls" list. In 1930,
Hays created the Studio Relations Committee (SRC) to implement
his censorship code, but the SRC lacked any real enforcement
capability. An anti-film censorship cartoon
published in The Film Mercury
The advent of talking pictures in 1927 led to a perceived need for magazine circa 1926.
further enforcement. Martin Quigley, the publisher of a Chicago-
based motion picture trade newspaper, began lobbying for a more
extensive code that not only listed material that was inappropriate for the movies, but also contained a
moral system that the movies could help to promote - specifically a system based on Catholic theology.
He recruited Father Daniel Lord, a Jesuit priest and instructor at the Catholic St. Louis University, to
write such a code and on March 31, 1930 the board of directors of the Motion Picture Producers and
Distributors Association adopted it formally. This original version especially was once popularly known
as the Hays Code, but it and its later revisions are now commonly called the Production Code.

However, Depression economics and changing social mores resulted in the studios producing racier fare
that the Code, lacking an aggressive enforcement body, was unable to redress. This era is known as Pre-
Code Hollywood.

An amendment to the Code, adopted on June 13, 1934, established the Production Code Administration
(PCA), and required all films released on or after July 1, 1934 to obtain a certificate of approval before
being released. For more than thirty years following, virtually all motion pictures produced in the United
States and released by major studios adhered to the code. The Production Code was not created or

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enforced by federal, state, or city government. In fact, the Hollywood studios adopted the code in large
part in the hopes of avoiding government censorship, preferring self-regulation to government
regulation.

The enforcement of the Production Code led to the dissolution of many local censorship boards.
Meanwhile, the US Customs Department prohibited the importation of the Czech film Ecstasy (1933),
starring an actress soon to be known as Hedy Lamarr, an action which was upheld on appeal.

In 1934, Joseph I. Breen (1888–1965) was appointed head of the new Production Code Administration
(PCA). Under Breen's leadership of the PCA, which lasted until his retirement in 1954, enforcement of
the Production Code became rigid and notorious. Breen's power to change scripts and scenes angered
many writers, directors, and Hollywood moguls. The PCA had two offices, one in Hollywood, and the
other in New York City. Films approved by the New York PCA office were issued certificate numbers that
began with a zero.

The first major instance of censorship under the Production Code involved the 1934 film Tarzan and His
Mate, in which brief nude scenes involving a body double for actress Maureen O'Sullivan were edited out
of the master negative of the film. Another famous case of enforcement involved the 1943 western The
Outlaw, produced by Howard Hughes. The Outlaw was denied a certificate of approval and kept out of
theaters for years because the film's advertising focused particular attention on Jane Russell's breasts.
Hughes eventually persuaded Breen that the breasts did not violate the code and the film could be
shown.

Some films produced outside the mainstream studio system during this time did flout the conventions of
the code, such as Child Bride (1938), which featured a nude scene involving 12-year-old actress Shirley
Mills. Even cartoon sex symbol Betty Boop had to change from being a flapper, and began to wear an
old-fashioned housewife skirt.

In 1936, Arthur Mayer and Joseph Burstyn attempted to distribute Whirlpool of Desire, a French film
originally titled Remous and directed by Edmond T. Greville. The legal battle lasted until November
1939, when the film was released in the U.S.

In 1952, in the case of Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overruled its
1915 decision and held that motion pictures were entitled to First Amendment protection, so that the
New York State Board of Regents could not ban "The Miracle", a short film that was one half of L'Amore
(1948), an anthology film directed by Roberto Rossellini. Film distributor Joseph Burstyn released the
film in the U.S. in 1950, and the case became known as the "Miracle Decision" due to its connection to
Rossellini's film. That in turn reduced the threat of government regulation that justified the Production
Code, and the PCA's powers over the Hollywood industry were greatly reduced.[9]

At the forefront of challenges to the code was director Otto Preminger, whose films violated the code
repeatedly in the 1950s. His 1953 film The Moon is Blue, about a young woman who tries to play two
suitors off against each other by claiming that she plans to keep her virginity until marriage, was the first
film since the pre-code Hollywood days to use the words "virgin", "seduce" and "mistress", and it was
released without a certificate of approval. He later made The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), which
portrayed the prohibited subject of drug abuse, and Anatomy of a Murder (1959) which dealt with rape.
Preminger's films were direct assaults on the authority of the Production Code and, since they were
successful, hastened its abandonment.

In 1954, Joseph Breen retired and Geoffrey Shurlock was appointed as his successor. Variety noted "a
decided tendency towards a broader, more casual approach" in the enforcement of the code.

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Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959) and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) were also released without a
certificate of approval due to their themes and became box office hits, and as a result further weakened
the authority of the code.

The Pawnbroker and the end of the Code

In the early 1960s, British films such as Victim (1961), A Taste of Honey (1961), and The Leather Boys
(1963) offered a daring social commentary about gender roles and homophobia that violated the
Hollywood Production Code, yet the films were still released in America. The American women's rights,
gay rights, civil rights, and youth movements prompted a reevaluation of the depiction of themes of race,
class, gender, and sexuality that had been restricted by the Code. In addition, the growing popularity of
international films with more explicit content helped to discredit the Code.

In 1964 The Pawnbroker, directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Rod Steiger, was initially rejected
because of two scenes in which the actresses Linda Geiser and Thelma Oliver fully expose their breasts;
and a sex scene between Oliver and Jaime Sánchez, which it described as "unacceptably sex suggestive
and lustful." Despite the rejection, the film's producers arranged for Allied Artists to release the film
without the Production Code seal and the New York censors licensed The Pawnbroker without the cuts
demanded by Code administrators. The producers also appealed the rejection to the Motion Picture
Association of America.[10]

On a 6-3 vote, the MPAA granted the film an "exception" conditional on "reduction in the length of the
scenes which the Production Code Administration found unapprovable." The exception to the Code was
granted as a "special and unique case," and was described by The New York Times as "an unprecedented
move that will not, however, set a precedent."[11] The requested reductions of nudity were minimal, and
the outcome was viewed in the media as a victory for the film's producers.[10] The Pawnbroker was the
first film since pre-code era featuring bare breasts to receive Production Code approval. In his 2008
study of films during that era, Pictures at a Revolution, author Mark Harris wrote that the MPAA's
action was "the first of a series of injuries to the Production Code that would prove fatal within three
years."[11]

When Jack Valenti became President of the MPAA in 1966, he was immediately faced with a problem
regarding language in the film version of Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).
Valenti negotiated a compromise: The word "screw" was removed, but other language, including the
phrase "hump the hostess," remained. The film received Production Code approval despite having
language that was clearly prohibited. The British-produced, but American financed film Blowup (1966)
presented a different problem. After the film was denied Production Code approval, MGM released it
anyway, the first instance of an MPAA member company distributing a film that did not have an
approval certificate. The MPAA could do little about it.

Enforcement had become impossible, and the Production Code was abandoned.

List of banned films

Film censors
Joseph Breen

See also
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Censorship in the United States

List of banned films
John Hundley, screened certain performers for sobriety and verify that necklines of women's dresses
conformed to CBS standards
Pare Lorentz, an American filmmaker who spoke out against censorship in the film industry

Notes
1. Smith, Frederick James (Oct 1922). "Foolish Censors" (https://archive.org/details/photoplayvolume2
22chic). Photoplay. New York. 22 (5): 40 (https://archive.org/details/photoplayvolume222chic/page/4
0). Retrieved Dec 3, 2013.
2. Orbach, Barak. "Prizefighting and the Birth of Movie Censorship". SSRN 1351542 (https://ssrn.com/a
bstract=1351542).
3. Wittern-Keller, Laura. Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, University
Press of Kentucky, 2008. See also Randall, Richard S. Censorship of the Movies: The Social and
Political Control of a Mass Medium. University of Wisconsin Press, 1968.
4. Wittern-Keller, Laura (January 2008). Freedom of the Screen : Legal Challenges to State Film
Censorship, 1915-1981 (https://archive.org/details/freedomscreenleg00witt). University Press of
Kentucky. p. 31 (https://archive.org/details/freedomscreenleg00witt/page/n43).
5. Ivan Brychta, “The Ohio Film Censorship Law (https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/67710/1/OS
LJ_V13N3_0350.pdf)”, Ohio State Law Journal 13, no. 3 (1952): 350–411.
6. Laura Wittern-Keller, “All the Power of the Law: Governmental Film Censorship in the United States”,
in Silencing Cinema: Film Censorship around the World, eds. Daniel Biltereyst & Roel Vande Winkel
(NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013), ch.1, note 44: The Ohio board was shut down when an Ohio court
found its enabling statute unconstitutional in RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. v. Board of Education, 130
N.E. 2d 845 (1955).
7. Ben A. Franklin (29 June 1981). "LAST STATE BOARD OF CENSORS FADES AWAY AFTER 65
YEARS" (https://www.nytimes.com/1981/06/29/us/last-state-board-of-censors-fades-away-after-65-y
ears-state-board-of-censors.html). The New York Times.
8. Movie Censors - Kansapedia - Kansas Historical Society (https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/movie-ce
nsors/12153)
9. Sperling, Millner, and Warner (1998), Hollywood Be Thy Name, Prima Publishing, ISN:559858346 p.
325.
10. Leff, Leonard J. (1996). "Hollywood and the Holocaust: Remembering The Pawnbroker" (https://web.
archive.org/web/20110708165859/http://www.cmcdannell.com/HollywoodHolocaustReading.pdf)
(PDF). American Jewish History. 84 (4): 353–376. doi:10.1353/ajh.1996.0045 (https://doi.org/10.135
3%2Fajh.1996.0045). Archived from the original (http://www.cmcdannell.com/HollywoodHolocaustRe
ading.pdf) (PDF) on 2011-07-08. Retrieved 2009-03-09.
11. Harris, Mark (2008). Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=_T9tCvzIFrcC&pg=PA174&dq=The+Pawnbroker+steiger). Penguin
Group. pp. 173–176. ISBN 978-1-59420-152-3.

References
Daniel Biltereyst & Roel Vande Winkel. Silencing Cinema: Film Censorship around the World. NY:
Palgrave MacMillan, 2013.
Gregory D. Black. Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies. NY: Cambridge
University Press, 1994.

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Gerald R. Butters, Jr. Banned in Kansas: Motion Picture Censorship, 1915-1966. Columbia, Mo.:
University of Missouri Press, 2007.
Ira Carmen. Movies, Censorship, and the Law. University of Michigan Press, 2016.
Jeremy Geltzer. Dirty Words and Filthy Pictures: Film and the First Amendment. Austin, Tex.:
University of Texas Press, 2015.
Laura Wittern-Keller. Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to State Film Censorship, 1915-
1981. Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 2008.

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