Film censorship in the United States was a frequent feature of the industry almost from the beginning of the U.S. 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.
Complaints from government authorities about film content date back at least as far as what was probably the first appearance of a woman in a motion picture in the United States, resulting in local self-censorship of the 1894 silent film Carmencita . [2]
Laws authorizing censorship of film in the United States began with an 1897 Maine statute prohibiting the exhibition of prizefight films; [3] the state enacted the statute to prevent the exhibition of the 1897 heavyweight championship between James J. Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons. Other states followed Maine's example.
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 with its own ordinance the same year. When upheld in a court challenge in 1909, other cities followed and Pennsylvania became the first to enact statewide 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. [4]
In 1915, the US Supreme Court determined in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio that motion pictures were purely commerce and not an art and so not covered by the First Amendment. This left local, state, and city censorship boards no constitutional impediment to editing or banning films.
This decision was not overturned by the Supreme Court until it heard Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson in 1952. Its ruling was popularly referred to as the "Miracle Decision" because it involved the short film "The Miracle", part of Roberto Rossellini's L'Amore anthology film (1948). The Supreme Court's ruling still allowed censorship of "obscene" films, allowing censorship boards to continue under narrower authority until the 1965 decision Freedman v. Maryland ruled that prior restraint of film exhibition without a court order was unconstitutional. The public exhibition of obscene films may still incur legal difficulties after the fact, under the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court Miller v. California decision.
Seven states [5] formed film censorship boards that exercised prior restraint on film exhibition, which both pre-dated and outlasted the Hays Code:
Hundreds of cities also regulated motion pictures, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, and Memphis. [5]
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; 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.
The advent of talking pictures in 1927 led to a perceived need for further enforcement. Martin Quigley, publisher of a Chicago-based motion picture trade newspaper, began lobbying for a more extensive code that not only listed material inappropriate for movies, but also contained a moral system that the movies could help promote - specifically a system based on Catholic theology. He recruited Father Daniel Lord, a Jesuit priest and instructor at Catholic Saint Louis University, to write such a code. On March 31, 1930 the board of directors of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association formally adopted it. This original version in particular was once popularly known as the Hays Code, but it and later revisions are now commonly called the Production Code.
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 that all films released on or after July 1, 1934 obtain a certificate of approval before being released. For the three-plus decades that followed, 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 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, a prohibition upheld on appeal.
In 1934, Joseph I. Breen (1888–1965) was appointed head of the new Production Code Administration (PCA). Under Breen's leadership, 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, the other in New York City. Films approved by the New York PCA office were issued certificate numbers beginning with 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 enforcement case 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, the U.S. Supreme Court in Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson 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. [11]
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 was released without a certificate of approval. Preminger 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.
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, further weakening the code's authority.
In the early 1960s, British films such as Victim (1961), A Taste of Honey (1961) and The Leather Boys (1963) offered daring social commentary about gender roles and homophobia that violated the Hollywood Production Code, yet the films were released in the U.S. 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 discredit the Code.
In 1964, The Pawnbroker , directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Rod Steiger, was initially rejected because of two scenes in which 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. [12]
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." [13] The requested reductions of nudity were minimal, and the outcome was viewed in the media as a victory for the film's producers. [12] 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." [13]
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. The voluntary Motion Picture Association film rating system was adopted in 1968, and is used by participating studios and theaters to prevent children of various ages from seeing certain films.
The 1982 documentary film If You Love This Planet was officially designated as "foreign political propaganda" by the United States Department of Justice and temporarily banned. [14] [15] It featured excerpts from a lecture by Dr Helen Caldicott about the effects of nuclear weapons interspersed with shots of the effects of the atomic bombs and scenes from Jap Zero , a military educational film from 1943 featuring Ronald Reagan. The subsequent uproar over that action gave the film a publicity boost, and it later won the 1982 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). [16]
As of 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense works with approximately 130 movies, television shows, video games, and documentaries per year. It offers producers access to military bases and loans of military equipment, but in return gets the right to demand script changes and in some cases add talking points. It removes or minimizes references to sexism, racism, war crimes, PTSD, and veteran suicide, and generally wants the military portrayed in a positive light. Some movies choose to forgo cooperation and obtain military hardware or backdrops internally or on the private market. The production of some films is made contingent on military approval by the studio for cost reasons. Changes have included altering the Tony Stark character in Iron Man from being opposed to weaponizing his technology into an arms dealer who sells it to the U.S. military, and deleting a reference to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from Godzilla . The Central Intelligence Agency has similar arrangements with some filmmakers. [17] [18]
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The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) from 1922 to 1945. Under Hays's leadership, the MPPDA, later the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA), adopted the Production Code in 1930 and began rigidly enforcing it in 1934. The Production Code spelled out acceptable and unacceptable content for motion pictures produced for a public audience in the United States.
The Moon Is Blue is a 1953 American romantic comedy film produced and directed by Otto Preminger and starring William Holden, David Niven, and Maggie McNamara. Written by F. Hugh Herbert and based on his 1951 play of the same title, the film is about a young woman who meets an architect on the observation deck of the Empire State Building and quickly turns his life upside down. Herbert's play had also been a huge success in Germany, and Preminger decided to simultaneously film in English and German, using the same sets but different casts. The German-language film version is Die Jungfrau auf dem Dach.
William Harrison Hays Sr. was an American politician, and member of the Republican Party. As chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1918 to 1921, Hays managed the successful 1920 presidential campaign of Warren G. Harding. Harding then appointed Hays to his cabinet as his first Postmaster General. He resigned from the cabinet in 1922 to become the first chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. As chairman, Hays oversaw the promulgation of the Motion Picture Production Code, which spelled out a set of moral guidelines for the self-censorship of content in American cinema.
The National Legion of Decency, also known as the Catholic Legion of Decency, was a Catholic group founded in 1934 by Archbishop of Cincinnati, John T. McNicholas, as an organization dedicated to identifying objectionable content in motion pictures on behalf of Catholic audiences. Members were asked to pledge to patronize only those motion pictures which did not "offend decency and Christian morality". The concept soon gained support from other churches.
The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures is a non-profit organization of New York City area film enthusiasts. Its awards, which are announced in early December, are considered an early harbinger of the film awards season that culminates in the Academy Awards.
Pre-Code Hollywood (1927–1934) was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929 and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known as the Hays Code, in mid-1934. Although the Code was adopted in 1930, oversight was poor, and it did not become rigorously enforced until July 1, 1934, with the establishment of the Production Code Administration (PCA). Before that date, film content was restricted more by local laws, negotiations between the Studio Relations Committee (SRC) and the major studios, and popular opinion, than by strict adherence to the Hays Code, which was often ignored by Hollywood filmmakers.
Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495 (1952), also referred to as the Miracle Decision, was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court that largely marked the decline of motion picture censorship in the United States. It determined that provisions of the New York Education Law that had allowed a censor to forbid the commercial showing of a motion picture film that the censor deemed "sacrilegious" were a "restraint on freedom of speech" and thereby a violation of the First Amendment.
Film censorship is carried out by various countries to differing degrees, sometimes as a result of powerful or relentless lobbying by organizations or individuals. Films that are banned in a particular country change over time.
Convention City is a 1933 American pre-Code sex comedy film directed by Archie Mayo, and starring Joan Blondell, Guy Kibbee, Dick Powell, Mary Astor and Adolphe Menjou. The film was produced by Henry Blanke and First National Pictures and distributed by Warner Bros.
Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, 236 U.S. 230 (1915), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling by a 9–0 vote that the free speech protection of the Ohio Constitution, which was substantially similar to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, did not extend to motion pictures.
In the United States, censorship involves the suppression of speech or public communication and raises issues of freedom of speech, which is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Interpretation of this fundamental freedom has varied since its enshrinement. Traditionally, the First Amendment was regarded as applying only to the Federal government, leaving the states and local communities free to censor or not. As the applicability of states rights in lawmaking vis-a-vis citizens' national rights began to wane in the wake of the Civil War, censorship by any level of government eventually came under scrutiny, but not without resistance. For example, in recent decades, censorial restraints increased during the 1950s period of widespread anti-communist sentiment, as exemplified by the hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In Miller v. California (1973), the U.S. Supreme Court found that the First Amendment's freedom of speech does not apply to obscenity, which can, therefore, be censored. While certain forms of hate speech are legal so long as they do not turn to action or incite others to commit illegal acts, more severe forms have led to people or groups being denied marching permits or the Westboro Baptist Church being sued, although the initial adverse ruling against the latter was later overturned on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court case Snyder v. Phelps.
Joseph Ignatius Breen was an American film censor with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America who applied the Hays Code to film production.
This Day and Age is a 1933 American pre-Code film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Charles Bickford and Richard Cromwell. It is one of his rarest films and has been released on home video through the Universal Pictures Vault Series DVD collection.
The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is an American trade association representing the five major film studios of the United States, as well as the video streaming service Netflix. Founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) and known as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) from 1945 until September 2019, its original goal was to ensure the viability of the American film industry. In addition, the MPA established guidelines for film content which resulted in the creation of the Motion Picture Production Code in 1930. This code, also known as the Hays Code, was replaced by a voluntary film rating system in 1968, which is managed by the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA).
Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U.S. 51 (1965), was a United States Supreme Court case that ended government-operated rating boards with a decision that a rating board could only approve a film and had no power to ban a film. The ruling also concluded that a rating board must either approve a film within a reasonable time, or go to court to stop a film from being shown in theatres. Other court cases determined that television stations are federally licensed, so local rating boards have no jurisdiction over films shown on television. When the movie industry set up its own rating system—the Motion Picture Association of America—most state and local boards ceased operating.
The National Association of the Motion Picture Industry (NAMPI) was an American film industry self-regulatory body created by the Hollywood studios in 1916 to answer demands for film censorship by states and municipalities.
The Milwaukee Motion Picture Commission (MMPC) was the official film censor board of the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Board operated from 1914 to 1970 and kept dozens of films from playing in the city and struck hundreds of "objectionable" scenes from other films. It was unique among the large roster of city and state film censor boards in that it was never endowed with any legal powers, but enforced its rulings through the threat of theatre license revocation.
The Virginia State Board of Censors was a government agency formed on August 1, 1922 for the purpose of reviewing and licensing films for approval to be screened in the state of Virginia. During the agency's existence its members examined over 52,000 films, over 2,000 of which required edits before approval was given; and another 157 films were rejected entirely, of which only 38 won subsequent approval. The board disbanded in 1968 following a series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings which overturned censorship statutes across the country.
Holmby Productions, Inc. v. Vaughn, 177 Kan. 728 (1955), 282 P.2d 412, is a Kansas Supreme Court case in which the Kansas State Board of Review, the state censorship board, and the attorney defendants appealed the decision of the District Court of Wyandotte County. It was found that the law that allowed the board to deny a request for a permit allowing United Artists to show the motion picture The Moon is Blue in Kansas theaters was unconstitutional, and an injunction was issued prohibiting the defendants from stopping the exhibition of the film in Kansas.
Geoffrey Manwaring Shurlock was an Anglo-American motion picture industry executive who served as Hollywood's chief censor as the Director of the Motion Picture Association of America's Production Code Administration from 1954 to 1969, an era when movie producers demanded more freedom from censorship. During the latter years of Shurlock's rein, the Production Code and its seal of approval that was required by most film exhibitors for a movie to be shown was replaced by the ratings system.