Forbidden Hollywood: The Pre-Code Era (1930-1934): When Sin Ruled the Movies

by Mark A. Vieira

Welford Beaton threw down the gauntlet in the Hollywood Spectator: “I was watching The Easiest Way, when there came the exact moment when I had had enough sex. The makers of screen entertainment may continue to earn dividends by selling the immorality of women, but no longer can they sell it to me. Every sex picture I review from now on is going to be estimated for what it is—a filthy thing manufactured by businessmen.” Many censor boards felt the same way.

I wonder why the censors and critics felt compelled to continuously return to theaters to view the movies they claimed offended them so...

In the late summer of 1932, Hays sent a letter to the studio heads. “I am not unmindful,” he wrote, “of your constant stresses and pressures, to a point where it has been almost crushing. With these things in mind, I nonetheless urge a more strict compliance with the Production Code. There have been pictures that grossly violate the spirit and actually violate the letter of the Code. The great majority of folk in America refuse to be spattered with the spittle of decadent imaginations. Liberty of expression is not imperiled when protest is made against playwrights who glean their plots from scribblings on latrine walls.”

“spattered with the spittle of decadent imaginations...” As close to the book’s theme as you could get.

When the smoke cleared and the anger subsided, no one stopped to consider the significance of what had just occurred. A Catholic minority had wrested control of a Protestant market from a Jewish-controlled industry.