Lamh Foistenach Abu!
Posted on 05/02/2010 7:12:19 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
One of the best films ever made is Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. The 1934 comedy features an heiress on the run from her father, and the reporter who joins forces with her. The two fall in love and, alone in hotel rooms, to guard against temptation, they hang a blanket between their beds. They call it “the walls of Jericho.” When the couple finally ties the knot, the “wall” comes tumbling down.
In the 1930s, a plotline that precluded premarital sex was a wise idea. Movie-makers who flouted the Motion Picture Production Code risked a backlash against their films.
As Peter Dans writes in his new book, Christians in the Movies: A Century of Saints and Sinners, the Code’s purpose was to protect filmgoers from films that “will lower the standards of [viewers.]”
In recent years, much fun has been poked at the Code, which went belly up in 1968. But as Dans points out, enforcement of the Code brought about the “Golden Age of Film.” Requiring moviemakers to exercise restraint “was, on balance, beneficial to the creative process,” he says.
Joseph Bottom explains why in the foreword. “Naked breasts are eye-catching, and well-sculpted nudes don’t need much dialogue,” he notes. “So what happens when you can’t show them? Turns out, you have to tell a story instead.”
For example, imagine the plotline of It Happened One Night if no Code had been in force. Nothing would have prevented Gable and Colbert from sleeping together the minute they fell in love-or prevented Capra from filming a steamy bedroom scene. But then, much of the film’s tension and humor would have been lost. After all, the couple constantly bickered because they were so attracted to one another-but couldn’t act on their attraction.
Maybe that’s why film expert Thomas Doherty, author of Pre-Code Hollywood, claimed that the “most vivid and compelling motion pictures” ever made were created “under the most severe and narrow-minded censorship.”
I think he’s right. After all we certainly don’t call the era of films made after 1968-the year the Code was banished-the Golden Age of Film. Or go and visit the website of the American Movie Classics, and take a look at its list of the 100 greatest films ever made. You’ll find only 20 of them from 1968 on.
If modern films are largely inferior, maybe it’s because filmmakers have lost the art of storytelling-along with their grounding in a view of life that fits with the structure of reality. Instead, they offer false claims of salvation-along with graphic sex and violence to titillate instead of challenging the imaginations of their viewers. That’s why Patty and I generally old classics from Netflix.
There’s no bringing back the Motion Picture Production Code for films. But there are plenty of organizations that review movies in ways to help you protect your family from sex-laden films-and point you to excellent films. Films that make us think, make us laugh, make us cry. And films that tell a great story.
Am I THAT old?
BTW .. I remember it being a very entertaining and enjoyable flick.
Watch “the notebook”, Fried Green Tomatoes” or, my latest favorite, “The Time Traveler’s Wife”.
There are still great stories out there.
This is coming from a 56 year old that watched the original Star Wars 26 times in the theater. For me it is all about the story now. It is why I simply could not stomach the last three SW movies.
What would a modern remake look like ? What would a 21st century Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert do if they found themselves alone in a hotel room ?
And Big Fish. And Grand Torino. And Forest Gump.
Etc.
That said, The Godfather rocks, and it does not fit his mold.
Well, based on when the movie was made, it would make you at least 86, probably older unless you were very precocious. Unless you saw it on AMC, in which case you could be 10 for all we know.
Lamh Foistenach Abu!
Mostly because just as McCarthy warned: Hollywood was taken over by near-communists. For the most part.
Now it’s just propaganda.
It’s all special effects now.
The Code didn’t bring a golden age to movies. It brought a stupid age to movies. Just look at the lame ending they forced on Scarface.
Oh and It Happened One Night was filmed BEFORE the Hays Code was enforced, one of the last movies filmed before enforcement.
I thought “The Sixth Sense” was a great movie. Very clean, and just a good story.
This to me is one of the best “modern” movies.
Also “the Sting” is very good, a bit older and one of hubby’s faves.
Also “Tombstone” is very good and Val Kilmer is THE BEST in it. His final scene is one of the best of all time.
I’d hardly call the 40’s and 50’s in film a ‘stupid age’. Wow, there were so many great films made then.
But I love the pre-code dvd’s they’ve got out too. Barbara Stanwyck in Sadie McKee having sex with the railroad guard to be able to stay in the boxcar and get outta town. BUT, there was no sex scene. It was clearly implied.
Red-Headed Woman. Three On A Match, etc.
Netflix has the pre-code series.
i think one of the sexiest scenes ever filmed was in In Harms Way when Patricia Neal slipped of her shoes when she and the Duke decided she was going to spend the night...
***In recent years, much fun has been poked at the Code, which went belly up in 1968.***
When Bobby Kennedy was murdered, america went berzerk! The public and media placed the blame on ...guns, violence on TV, comic books, the Vietnam war, race riots, the NRA, and violnt movies.
So, comic books became less bold.
Tv shows dumbed down (Look at GUNSMOKE before and after the dumbing down in 1968).
The 1968 Gun Control Act became law (Today we make America safe by taking guns out of the hands of criminals!-LBJ when signing the act into law).
But the Movie industry’s Damage Control said they would police themselves! HOT DAMN! The Hays Code is dead Producem boys! And the most vile movies then began to be made as they all had a “rating” to ptotect children.
G-M-R-X!
then
G-GP-R-X.
Then
G-PG-R-X.
And now it is worse. Some 1969 “R” movies are now considered “PG”.
It is so bad that I don’t go to theaters anymore and I rarely watch new movies as the most vile language and way too much blood runs from the screen (compare THE TAKING OF PELLAM 1-2-3, 1974 version vs today’s version).
There were many great films made, but the ones that actually got effected by the Hays Code were damaged by it. Forced to do dumb things like send Scarface to trial instead of having him get shot, put married couples in separate beds, it even kept them from making anti-Nazi movies. The problem the Hays Code had was the same problem internet filters have, they were hooked on concepts without paying attention to context. The Code said bad guys had to face justice, but the people running the Code didn’t understand that getting gunned down WAS justice. They didn’t want sex on film, but they didn’t understand that if a married couple has kids we already know they do it, separate beds won’t change that. So they forced stupid changes.
“Excuse me, lady, but that upon which you sit is mine.”
bookmark
I saw “Big Fish” just the other day and was surprised I had never heard of it. A really good movie.
Also saw an oldie, “The Edge of the World” made in the 30’s and thought it was a great movie. Even in Black and White the scenery was beautiful.
TCM shows One Night often. All these shows are viewable on that channel. I’ve discovered so many NEW favorites - for instance, Joel McCrea in the 30’s and 40’s was gorgeous and his scene on the front steps in The More the Merrier is one of the sexiest ever!
Another example? Casablanca, the night before Ilsa and Victor Lazlo leave. Earlier, Rick Blaine has the following conversation with a beautiful young Bulgarian refugee:
Annina: Oh, monsieur, you are a man. If someone loved you very much, so that your happiness was the only thing that she wanted in the world, but she did a bad thing to make certain of it, could you forgive her?
Rick: Nobody ever loved me that much.
Annina: And he never knew, and the girl kept this bad thing locked in her heart? That would be all right, wouldn't it?
Rick: You want my advice?
Annina: Oh, yes, please.
Rick: Go back to Bulgaria.
It is clear from context that Annina has agreed to engage in adulterous sexual intercourse with Casablanca's Prefect of Police, Capt. Louis Renault, in exchange for the exit visas she and her (unwitting) husband need to escape. (Lisbon will not accept refugees from Morocco without visas signed by the country's Vichy government.)
During the course of the movie, Rick comes to possess two "letters of transit" personally signed by General Charles De Gaulle -- letters that are accepted as exit visas in any country outside of the Axis powers. Victor Lazlo, an escaped freedom fighter fleeing from a Nazi death camp, and his wife Isla Lund, need these documents if they are to escape the SS.
Unfortunately for the Lazlos, Ilsa had broken Rick's heart in favor of Lazlo in Paris several years prior. Now, Rick Blaine finds in his hands the power of life and death over the man responsible for ruining his life.
In the end, of course, Rick's conscience gets the better of him, and he gives the letters of transit to Victor and Isla. As the airplane for Portugal and safety prepares to take off, Rick hands the documents to Victor Lazlo. The dialog between the two men makes it plain the price Isla paid for changing Rick's mind.
Victor Laszlo: Everything is in order.
Rick: All except one thing. There's something you should know before you leave.
Victor Laszlo: Mr. Blaine, I don't ask you to explain anything.
Rick: I'm going to anyway, because it may make a difference to you later on. You said you knew about Ilsa and me.
Victor Laszlo: Yes.
Rick: What you didn't know was that she was at my place last night when you were. She came there for the letters of transit. Isn't that true, Ilsa?
Ilsa: Yes.
Rick: She tried everything to get them and nothing worked. She did her best to convince me she was still in love with me but that was over long ago. For your sake she pretended it wasn't — and I let her pretend.
Victor Laszlo: I understand.
And so do we.
Then, in one of the most famous scenes in all of cinema, Rick and Ilsa say their goodbyes:
Rick: Last night we said a great many things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I've done a lot of it since then, and it all adds up to one thing: you're getting on that plane with Victor where you belong.
Ilsa: But, Richard, no, I... I...
Rick: Now, you've got to listen to me! You have any idea what you'd have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we'd both wind up in a concentration camp. Isn't that true, Louie?
Captain Renault: I'm afraid Major Strasser would insist.
Ilsa: You're saying this only to make me go.
Rick: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow — but soon, and for the rest of your life.
Ilsa: But what about us?
Rick: We'll always have Paris. We didn't have, we, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you...
Rick: And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.
[Ilsa lowers her head and begins to cry]
Rick: Now, now...
[Rick gently places his hand under her chin and raises it so their eyes meet]
Rick: Here's looking at you kid.
Cue la Marseillaise! Buy War Bonds! The End!
I miss old movies.
The stupid age for movies is now.
absolutely...
At least they could tell a story.
Take a look at “The Pacific”. Spielberg and Hanks can’t make it through any 45 minutes of plot in the miniseries without a 15 minute sex scene.
Just think of having to compress a 3 year World War in the Pacific theater from before Pearl Harbor to after Nagasaki into 7 or so 1-2 hr segments, yet over 10% to a quarter of the film time is dedicated to sex scenes.
Speaks volumes to the incredibly perverted leadership in the film-making.
"We'll always have Paris."
Rick was fighting for the wrong side in Spain, in my opinion. Still, it’s my favorite Hollywood movie!
My fave too-—and I’ll add Notorious, Maltese Falcon and African Queen.
Holy cow, 26 times?
Actually I can relate. My friends and I were little kids when we saw it in the theater, and it practically defined our childhood. Nearly all of our pretend play for the next several years was Star Wars based (it was always a fight over who got to be Han Solo). That movie is still seared into me in a pretty fundamental way, as corny as that sounds.
I call this bull. There were horrible movies made under the code... and great movies made without it. (and vice versa)
Just a few that are made for the ages and made after the code:
2001
A Clockwork Orange
Logan’s Run
Blade Runner
Star Wars
The Godfather
Fiddler on the Roof
Goodfellas
Schindler’s List
Amadeus
Full Metal Jacket
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Rocky
Patton
Unforgiven
...just to name a few.
In my defense, it’s the only movie that I did that with. I was also a HUGH Star Trek TOS and 2001 a space odyssey fan. The previews to Star Wars completely ruined the movie Silver Streak for me at the theater.
It was a quantum leap in movie entertainment for me.
You beat me to it. One of the greatest movie lines ever written.
If you liked Sixth Sense you’ll also like Unbreakable. It was written by the same guy and has the same lead guy (can’t believe I’m blanking on his name), plus Samuel Jackson. The concept is different but it has an equally clever and satisfying twist.
Another good one along those lines is The Game, with Michael Douglas.
Thank the Good Lord. That was the biggest soap opera ever put on film.
Bruce Willis and M. Night Shyamalan??
The people running the code may have had a better virtuous grasp of justice than those who think illegitimate violence is just.
That’s them.
I am sorry to have to ask this but did you bother to read any of the article? If so, I must have missed your sarcasm. It is hilarious that the vast majority of the films you chose to illustrate your assertion that good films were still made after the fall of the code, were themselves the very few films made since 1968 to the code's standard! If you intended this self-depricating irony, I applaud your wit!!!
Thanks for the tip! Hubby is very into movies lately he’s got a queue at Blockbuster, so I’ll have him put those on it.
One film that really let me down was “House of Sand & Fog” it was jut so stupid. I wanted to see it because it had that great actress who was in “24” a couple of years ago. And she was good, but it was just NOT BELIEVABLE at all in any way.
Another disappointment was “Up in the Air”. I think that was the most disheartening movie I’ve ever seen. But that George Clooney, my gosh but he’s got charm to spare.
I’m looking forward to this new Ironman movie, it is funny to see Mikey Rourke repeating his “wrestler” role. But that was a VERY GOOD movie. So Jersey, the most Jersey thing I’ve ever seen.
Adult themes, etc. of course. But very good.
I think you might have to be IN NJ when you watch it to get the full effect.
The actor who had the most to say about censorship, oddly enough, that I've seen, was Karl Malden. At least one movie he did didn't violate the code, but was pulled out of theaters due to pressure from the Church.
The Golden Age was the Golden Age because the movies were a new thing and the edge of the envelope was constantly pushed. It also helped to have really educated writers (seriously). Personally, I think some of the "great" films that are considered essentials are overrated and there are some, like "The Snake Pit" that aren't on anyone's list.
But, that's just me. After Casablanca, The This Man series, musicals and Raphael Sabatini adaptations are my preferred viewing from this era.
I saw a part of The Wrestler the other day on HBO and thought it was really good. Made me want to see the rest. I keep hearing good things about Iron Man.
I prefer the “Red Dwarf” version.
Your list fails to recognize some of the greatest works of cinematography.
Attack of the Vampire Cheerleader Bikini Models The fact that this movie was not even nominated for an Emmy proves the contest is rigged!
Attack of the Vampire Cheerleader Bikini Models Two Even though this movie strayed from the original "Vampire Cheerleader Bikini Models" story line, it was still a riveting masterpiece.
Attack of the Vampire Cheerleader Bikini Models III - Whips, Chains and Pom-Poms I'm sure all of the movie connoisseurs on this thread will agree, not only did this film redeem the "Vampire Cheerleader Bikini Model" series, this movie was the definitive "Vampire Cheerleader Bikini Model" movie.
My 23 year old daughter and I watched this movie and found Mr.McCrea most attractive! My daughter was raised on TCM so the black & white films do not bore her. Did you know what that Joel was a Republican?
Just read your post and at least I do not feel alone in getting older. I was a senior in high school, when the first Star Wars came out, over 30 years ago.
A Clockwork Orange met the code’s standards... really?
Or Schindler’s List with it’s full frontal nudity?
Emperor Ming the Merciless of Mongo will make you pay for your insolence.
:-P
Silly theory. Post war sensibilities and TV ended the “Golden Age of Hollywood” long before 1968.
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