The Romantisaiton of Societal Issues in American Cinematography of 1940s

Many historians are convinced that the 1920s is the most scandalous decade in Hollywood history. In that time, many Hollywood stars were involved in criminal cases and sex scandals (Langford, 2010). One of the most infamous cases is the murder of William Desmond Taylor, which involves many well-known film stars like Mabel Normand, Mary Mile Minter and Marshall Neilan. Moreover, as Bordwell and Thompson (1994) indicate, the excessive depiction of sex and violence in the 1920s Hollywood cinema provoked the anger from the conservative political and religious organisations who believed the depiction of sex and violence in cinema would bring society indecent values and cause social disorder. As a result, these organisations protested to give the film industry pressure for censorship. In response to their criticism, the studios founded the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) and hired Will H. Hays as the first chairman of the association to rebuild the image of Hollywood. During his term of office, the Production Code, also known as the Code, was firstly introduced in 1930. The Code is the predecessor of modern day’s the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) film rating system which categorises films based on its subject matters and depictions. Every film produced by a studio that is a member of the MPAA must get a seal of approval. Otherwise, they were not prohibited to exhibit in any affiliated theatre. Although the Hollywood cinema had changed a lot after the Second World War, the Code still played an important role in the industry. The Code had shaped the Hollywood for 38 years until its abolition in 1968. This essay will discuss the changes of the role and the impact of the Code in Hollywood cinema from 1945 to 1968 with three films from three different periods.

As Gerber (1994: 545) argues, by the end of the Second World War, Americans had contradictory feelings for veterans. On one hand, they appreciated the contribution and sacrifices that veterans had made during the war. On the other hand, they feared that veterans would pose a potential threat to society as many veterans found adjusting to civilian life difficult. Some of them experienced difficulties in relationships with their family and sexual partner; some of them could not fit in society because of their disabilities; some of them could not recover from war-induced psychological trauma. In Hollywood, many filmmakers were convinced that war films were no longer relevant to audience as they were living in a peaceful time and these filmmakers believed that they should make films that based on social problems that they faced in that time (Langford, 2011:51-52). The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler, 1946) is one of these social problem films that investigate the challenges and difficulties that veterans might face. This film is about the journey of three veterans, namely Fred Derry (played by Dana Andrews), Homer Parrish (played by Harold Russell), and Al Stephenson (played by Fredric March), overcoming their difficulties of adjusting to normal life. The issue of marriage and divorce was serious in that time. According to Reed (1947:17), ‘one out of every three war time marriages entered into by American servicemen have already ended in divorce’ in 1945. As Gilbert (1986: 57) indicates, the divorce rate in America reached its reach its highest point in 1946. According to 100 Years of Marriage and Divorce Statistics United States, 1867-1967, an official government report published by U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare in 1973, there were more than 600,000 Americans divorced in 1946. The filmmaker of The Best Years of Our Lives also addresses the seriousness of the issue of marriage and divorce among veterans in that time. In The Best Years of Our Lives, Fred’s wife, Marie (played by Virginia Mayo), is unfaithful to him. When Fred returns home, he realises Marie does not live there anymore. She is now a nightclub waitress who lives nearby her workplace. This implicates that she is not a loyal wife. In that time, people usually associated nightclub with sex as they thought wealthy men usually chose their sexual partners at nightclubs. Then, Fred goes to a bar and meets Homer, Al and his family. Fred and Peggy (played by Teresa Wright), Al’s only daughter, find each other attractive at first sight. Peggy wants more in the relationship between her and Fred.

Peggy wants Fred to divorce his wife Marie, so they can be together. However, this could breach the principle of the Code. According to the Code, it is forbidden to present the extra-marital affair with positive attitude in films. Therefore, the plot does not allow Fred and Peggy to develop an intimate relationship unless the marriage of Fred and Marie ends first. As a result, Peggy’s father Al steps in and forces Fred to end their affairs. Then, Fred tries to save his marriage. He compels Marie to leave her job at the nightclub and to act like what they used to be; however, all his efforts were in vain. One day, when Fred comes home early, he sees Marie is with another man. Fred feels betrayal and askes the man to leave but Marie confronts him and insists the man is ‘an old friend’ of hers. Marie adds that she knows ‘a lot of people’ when Fred is serving overseas. This implies that Marie might have extra-marital affairs with numerous men. Because of the Code, the film cannot explicitly show Marie picking up other men outside her marriage. Instead, the film can only show another man staying at her home while Fred is not there. When a wife inviting a man to her home without the presence of her husband, people usually associate it with extra-marital affairs. After Fred expressing his dissatisfaction to Marie, she complains that she has sacrificed too much in their marriage and demands to divorce. The filmmaker sets this arrangement to set Fred free from his marriage. Now, Fred and Marie are no longer husband and wife and they can date anyone. All Fred needs is an opportunity to meet Peggy, so the filmmaker lets Fred and Peggy meet again at Homer’s wedding by the end of the film. While Homer and his wife making their wedding vows, Fred stares at Peggy and realises she still loves him. He walks towards her and kisses her. The obstacle between Fred and Peggy in this film is the marriage of Fred and Marie. The filmmaker does not allow Fred and Peggy to be together at the beginning, it would otherwise violate the sanctity of Fred’s marriage. However, at the end, they are allowed to be a couple since Fred’s marriage is no longer valid. Because of the Code, the film must evade the possibilities of the existence of the extra-marital relationship of Fred and Peggy.

By the early 1950s, the American public did not think veterans were harmful to society any more, but teenagers were. From the early 1940s to the early 1960s, many babies were born in the US mainland. The demographers describe these baby as ‘baby boomers’. The mass reproduction of babies made the American population unbalanced: the population of children is significantly larger than other population group. According to Clark’s (1994: 69) research, the American teenage population nearly doubles its size from 5.6 million in 1946 to 11.8 million in 1960. When the first generation of baby boomers entered their puberty in the 1950s, like other teenagers from different periods, they became rebellious and bring troubles to society. Some of them even involved in crimes. According to MacIver’s (1966: 4) studies, the number of juvenile delinquency cases tripled between 1950 and 1959 in New York City. In response to juvenile crimes, the Children Bureau set up a Juvenile Delinquency Branch (Barnosky, 2006; 331).

The issue of juvenile delinquency was so serious that caught filmmakers’ attention. In the 1950s, many films that are about rebellious teenagers were produced. Rebel without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) is a remarkable example. The film depicts the life of three rebellious middle-classed teenagers, namely Jim Stark (played by James Dean), Judy (played by Natalie Wood) and John Plato Crawford (played by Sal Mineo). Violence is one of the attractions of this film. One of the most exciting fighting scenes is the knife fighting between Jim and Buzz Gundersone (played by Corey Allen). The film shows the whole fighting in a very detailed way. The blood from Jim and Buzz can be seen explicitly. Another violent scene from the film is Plato killing one of the Buzz’s friend. After being shot, he falls down the stairs. This partly violates the 1930’s Production Code. According to the Code, the use of weapon should not be presented in detail. Besides, the film does not show the consequences of breaking the law. Some characters do not receive punishment for their crimes. For Instance, Jim, Judy and Plato are not arrested for breaking into a house. Another example is that Buzz’s gang does not get caught for stealing two cars for preparing the ‘chickie run’. According to the Code, films should not present that criminals can get rids of their responsibilities for their crimes. Some film critics suggest that Rebel without a Cause not only discusses the issues of juvenile delinquency, but also the issues of sexuality. As Noriega (1990: 22) indicates, in the 1930s and 1940s, filmmakers generally changed the sexuality of homosexual film characters that based on homosexual-central plays or novels to heterosexual to evade the discussion of homosexual issues; however, in the 1950s, filmmakers dared to discuss or identify homosexuality in their films. In Rebel without a Cause, although Plato does not tell audiences about his sexuality, there are many hints suggesting he is homosexual in the film. When Plato appears for the first time, he is portrayed as a weak, shy and non-masculine boy. This is contradictory with the stereotypes of men what society believed they should be in the 1950s. In that time, people expected men to be strong and dominant. When Plato opens his locker door and combs his hair, a picture of Alan Ladd, a famous film actor, is shown. Most convincing is the sequence of Jim persuading Plato to leave the observatory at the end. The filmmaker portrays Plato as if he is Jim’s abandoned lover. Plato is mad at Jim for leaving him alone at the mansion.

When Jim is convincing Plato to get out, he gives him his jacket and Plato wants to keep it. For Plato, he might think that Jim’s jacket is a token of his love. In the conservative 1950s, some people might find this film homoerotic. However, the original version is more homoerotic than anyone could expect. According to Frascella and Weisel (2014: 172), there were kisses between Plato and Jim in the scenes of ‘chickie run’ and mansions, but it irritated the Production Code Administration. As a result, the filmmaker was forced to replace kiss by other less intimate actions like stroking Plato’s head. Although the Code prevent Plato and Jim developing same-sex romance, the film has sympathy for homosexuals. Hollywood films in the 1950s usually portray homosexuals as abhorrent psychos or perverts but Rebel without a Cause does not. In the film, Plato is portrayed as a loyal and caring person. He is willing to sacrifice himself to save Jim. As has been shown, it can be deduced that the Production Code started to loosen its restrictions on controversial depictions and subject matters in films in the 1950s. This changing trend of the Code can be explained by an important event. In 1952, the supreme court ruled the famous case, Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson (aka the Miracle decision), that overturned the judgement of Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio (Langford, 2011:63). The Court ruled that films were under the freedom of speech project and local censors did not have the right to prohibit any films to exhibit. This judgement means the Production Code is only an agreement between the Studios to self-censor their own films and it has no legal effect.

As a result, filmmakers started to challenge the Code. They began to discuss taboo topics like homosexuality and openly defied the Code. The 1960s is the decade when liberalism began to prevail in America. People started to speak up for their own rights and challenge the conservative values and norms. Different social groups were fighting for equality. For instance, African-Americans protested against racial segregation and discrimination; feminists demanded for gender equality; homosexuals fought for gay rights. The ideology of liberalism advocates the idea of individual freedom. This political trend accelerated the collapse of the Production Code. As has been discussed, the Miracle judgement had weakened the role of the Code and encouraged filmmakers to create their films freely. There were more filmmakers ignored the warnings and guidelines from the Production Code Administration and released their films without the seal of approval in the 1950s and 1960s. Surprisingly, some of them proved to be hits. For instance, to challenge the Code, Otto Preminger made The Moon Is Blue (Otto Preminger, 1953), a film which is mainly about seduction and sex, and released the film without a seal of approval. The film turned out to be a successful film that earned 3.5 million US dollars in box office (Fujiwara, 2015:146-147). The success of these films which rejected the Code proved that audiences and society had changed their taste and they started to accept taboo issues. Besides, under the threat of television that has stricter censorship, the Production Code Administration had to lower the restrictions of the Production Code to allow filmmakers to make films more daring (Bordwell and Thompson, 1994: 386). Consequently, the Production Code Administration decided not to issue the seal of approval to films anymore in 1966 (Bordwell and Thompson, 1994: 386).

Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967) can reflect the ending of the Code. This film is based on the real life of two notorious criminal Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow in the 1930s. The excessive sexual appealing images and depiction of violence were the attractions of the film. There are many seductive images in the film. The film begins with Bonnie wondering her home naked. This suggests that she is sexually permissive. One of the most sexual suggestive shot is when Bonnie drinking coke with Clyde. She rubs her mouth around a phallic object, her coke bottle rim. After Bonnie asking Clyde about his armed robbery history and waiting him to reply, she puts the bottle in her month and drink it. This suggest that Bonnie is sexually attracted to Clyde’s misbehaviour. Then, Clyde gives her a dissatisfactory answer. Bonnie immediately puts down her bottle and tells Clyde that she does not believe he committed the crime. As a result, Clyde takes his gun (another phallic object) from his pocket and shows it to Bonnie surreptitiously. When she sees his gun, her hand slowly and tenderly approaches to it. Bonnie’s admiration for his gun can be understood that Clyde’s masculinity (committing crimes) arouses her sexual desire. To prove his masculinity, Clyde goes to rob a store randomly. While they are on their run after robbing the store, Bonnie is fondling and kissing Clyde.

As has been mentioned, violence is another remarkable feature of the film. There are many violent scenes in Bonnie and Clyde. For instance, the camera shows the face of the bank manager being shot by Clyde. The scene of Clyde, his older brother Buck (played by Gene Hackman), Buck’s wife Blanche (played by Estelle Parsons) and Bonnie getting attack by the police is also violent. The police and Clyde’s gang continuously are firing at each other. After failing the first surprise attack, the second one is more savage and both side suffer heavy casualties. Buck and his wife got wounded while many policemen were killed. However, the most violent scene of the film is the death of Bonnie and Clyde. In order to catch them, the police make a deal with the father of one of the member of Clyde’s gang, who wants to refrain his son from punishment, to set a trap. The father parked his truck by the side of the road. When he sees Bonnie and Clyde, he asks them to stop their car to help him to change his tire. Suddenly, some policemen shoots Bonnie and Clyde with machine guns. The death of the couple is so horrible that even the policemen who killed them are shocked. The American public’s acceptance of violence for this film can be explained by the emergence of television. In the 1960s, America suffered heavy casualties in the Vietnam War and the pubic can received the violent images or information of the war easily from television. In that time, television allows moving images transmitting from battlefields to American home quickly.

The filmmaker romanticises the brutal acts of the criminals. In the film, the filmmaker portrays Bonnie and Clyde not as brutal as the actual criminals were. After Clyde heard the story of a family whose house was taken by a bank, he gives the ex-house owner and his servant who used to live there a gun to shoot the house to express their anger. This scene suggests Clyde has sympathy for poor people who were oppressed by the rich. In the scene of Clyde robbing a shop, even when a crew member is attacking him with a knife, Clyde hits his head with his gun handle. Clyde latter claims he does not want to hurt the man. It shows Clyde’s humanity side. Beside, after Clyde has killed the bank manager after the bank robbery, he wants Bonnie to leave as he does not want to bring her any trouble. However, Bonnie insists to stay with him. The emphasises the love story between Bonnie and Clyde. However, the most romantic is when Bonnie reads the poems that she wrote for her and Clyde. The filmmaker portrays the love story as romantic as Romeo and Juliet’s. Bonnie and Clyde could not live without either one of them. The filmmaker also portrays Bonnie and Clyde as if they are playful teenagers. The first example is when Clyde’s gang captures a police officer, Bonnie suggests not to shoot him but to takes a photo with him and the gang. Another example is when the car owner, whose car is stolen by Clyde’s gang, decides not to chase them, Clyde’s gang turns around and invites the car owner and his lover to ride with them. The reason for these scenes is that the filmmaker wants audiences to love the characters. If the characters are so brutal, the audiences would find the them disgusting. However, if the characters are impish, the audiences would find them attractive.

Up to this point, this essay has discussed how Bonnie and Clyde reflect the way that filmmakers producing their films without the restrictions from the Code in the mid-1960s. When the public no longer supported the Code and Hollywood filmmakers abandoned it, the MPAA had to find a substitute for the Code. In 1968, the MPAA introduced a new film rating system that categorise film according to age appropriateness (Langford, 2011: 113-114). According to the system, there are four ratings, namely G (General Audiences), M (Mature Audiences), R (Restricted; under sixteens must be accompanied by an adult) and X (Over sixteen only) (Langford, 2011: 113-114). So far, this essay has illustrated the changes of the role of the Production Code. By the mid-1940s, the Code still had an important impact in Hollywood cinema. To get the seal of approval, filmmakers in that time needed to carefully handle daring subject matters in their films. However, after the Miracle judgement in 1952, Hollywood filmmakers realised that their films were under the protection of freedom of speech and freedom of press. They started to challenge the Code but society in the 1950s was not liberal enough to allow to abandon the Code. Along with the rise of liberalism in the 1960s, the public demanded for more individual freedom. The raging trend changed the audiences’ attitude for censorship and forced the MPAA to replace the Code with the new film rating system in 1968.