Comparing The Hays Code And Tawdry: The Hay's Code

1986 Words8 Pages
The Vulgar, the Cheap, and the Tawdry: What was the Hays Code and how did Filmmakers get around it Film as an art form suffered what could have been a severe setback from the reign of the Motion Picture Production Code (more commonly referred to as the Hays Code.) Hollywood used the Hays Code from 1930 until 1968 as a way to sort of self police itself. The code protected the industry from government or other outside intervention but sacrificed the artists and their visions. Luckily for cinephiles these artists found numerous and ingenious ways around this. Filmmakers’ subverted the censorship of the hays code through story implications and film techniques. To better understand the filmmakers’ standpoint and the reasons they resorted to…show more content…
The source material contains several instances of subject matter that go against the code, such as promiscuity, profanity, alcoholism and homosexuality. The 1931 version remained very faithful to the source material and showed all such vices. It contained sexually suggestive scenes with the female lead, Bebe Daniels, in a nude bath scene and another where she is strip searched. The film also openly displayed the homosexuality of some of its main characters. The Hays Code forced the writer and director of the film, John Huston, to clean up the script and eliminate almost all sexual references. Huston tried to remain as faithful to the source material as possible in spite of this and eventually found ways to suggest what he could not show. Since he could not display Peter Lorre’s character’s homosexuality as the original film had done, Huston had to find ways around it. Huston did this by giving Lorre’s character, Joel Cairo, effeminate qualities that could make it past the censors and be comprehended by an intelligent audience. Cairo’s handkerchiefs are scented with gardenias and he is overly concerned with his clothing, even becoming hysterical when blood ruins his shirt. In one scene where Humphrey Bogart’s character, Sam Spade, is speaking with Cairo, the latter makes subtle fellating gestures with his cane. The Breen office even warned Huston about showing excessive drinking which the director fought stating “that Spade was a man who put away a half bottle of hard liquor a day and showing him completely abstaining from alcohol would mean seriously falsifying his character.” John Huston was an incredible filmmaker whose films’ constantly were at odds with the Hays Code and yet always managed to find a way around it to secure the integrity of his work. Ironically though, his first film was likely made because of the code.

More about Comparing The Hays Code And Tawdry: The Hay's Code

Open Document