Chanson Noir

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Early Hollywood was mindful of the damage that could be done a story or performance and the consequent lower box-office receipts. From the 1920s, the major Hollywood studios had financed an industry watchdog organization to keep from production certain stories that would not be permitted by local and state censor boards, attempting through internal restraint to communicate to the distant governments that the governments needn’t bother to discern unwholesome content within new movies because Hollywood would do that for the nation. This self-policing did not prevent renegade producers from producing unapproved scenarios nor did it have the authority to rein in member studios when some found that sin paid off at the box office. The denouncers of the gradual erosion of this early self-policing found sympathetic ears not in the industry’s Studio Relations Committee but rather in nationally-known religious leaders who mounted boycotts and threatened Hollywood with the loss of millions of patrons were the studios not to accede to their demands. The religious leaders were not willing to settle for some films being deemed “adults only.” They sought that all studios offer full slates of movies devoid of the types of sexual morality and violence that had brought on the boycotts. In 1934, they got their wish. Intransigent religionists were installed as leaders of the Production Code Administration, which operated as part of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. Although the MPPDA had long existed, its dictates would now have “teeth.”