Film History 101: How did the Production Code change films?

How did the Production Code change how films presented controversial content, like sex and violence? 

The Production Code had a dramatic effect on how American cinema presented controversial content like sex and violence on screen. Unlike today’s rating system, the 1934 Production Code covered all motion pictures and set definitive limits on what could be shown on the screen for any audience.

The Motion Picture Production Code was pioneered by Will H. Hays and administered by Joseph Breen. While the code was around since the 1920s, it remained largely unenforced until complaints from audiences upset by suggestive films came rolling in. The complaints were in relation to several films including Grand Slam (1933), Baby Face (1933), The Story of Temple Drake (1933), and Murder at the Vanities (1934).

Prior to the enforcement, stories were bolder, staring characters that wanted to exploit others to build wealth and gain power and were successful in doing so. Baby Face is a good example of this. The film follows an attractive young woman who uses sex to advance her social and financial status. The film gives the young woman a lot of agency over her future through her ability to attract men into sleeping with her and helping her progress up the career ladder. The ending was also controversial because the main character doesn’t lose her wealth or status due to the discovery of her sexual vices.

After the ban went into effect, movies appeared to have more of a moral undertone, where the main characters receive retribution for their acts at the end of the story. Double Indemnity exemplifies this. In the movie, an insurance agent helps a woman murder her husband and the rest of the movie is spent hiding from discovery over the murder. In the end, neither the wife nor the insurance agent has a happy ending.

The two films also contrast in their explicit display of content on screen. Baby Face is much bolder and displays issues of sexual harassment and the use of sex for career advancement on screen, whereas Double Indemnity, while pretty explicit in it’s topic, had to reduce the display of violence in order to be permissible by the Production code administrators. There were key scenes removed or altered from the movie to make it acceptable.