This visual talk takes the audience (via DVD clips and slides) on a colorful tour of Hollywood film censorship during the early 20th century and its official demise by the 1960s. Although a Production Code of Ethics was in place by 1930, studios paid little attention to this Code and produced countless Depression era melodramas and comedies depicting gangsters, drugs, bootleg gin, prostitution, political corruption and other society ills. As Barbara Stanwyck, Mae West, James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward G. Robinson--and even Betty Boop--gleefully ignored various laws and religious commandments, morality watchdogs plotted ways to enforce the rigid Code to “clean up” the movies.
Max Alvarez is a New York writer, film historian and frequent speaker on the subject of world cinema culture.
New York City, NY; NYC