Almost everyone knows who Tarzan is.  Not too many remember the Hays Code or Will Hays who created it.  The MPPC or Motion Picture Production Code was a quasi self-regulating industry watch dog that was given the power of censorship over most every form of recorded entertainment in the country.  It was a kind of morality police force that could stop a film from being distributed unless and until changes were made.  It lasted from 1934 to 1968 when it was replaced by the current rating system of G PG R and X which are mostly voluntary designations.

The code banned things like showing two people in bed together for any reason.  Everybody slept in twin beds right?  And of course, no nudity, swearing, drug use, wrong doing, evil or sin.  You could not even make a film that showed any sympathy for any sort of criminal.  Bonnie and Clyde for example.  Heaven forbid that you saw an inter-racial couple or any suggestion of homosexuality.  At the time and especially with the advent of the talkies film makers were becoming bolder and bolder in the material they presented.  Some were very serious character studies of gender and power in sexual relationships like the 1933 film Baby Face staring Barbara Stanwyck as a young woman who is taught the philosophy of Neitzsche to use men to get what she wants and boy does she!

Much like prohibition which had just ended as this started it was pushed by what we would call the morality police today but didnt get much traction until one film in particular drove them over the top.  And that was the 1934 classic, Tarzan and his Mate starring Johnny Weismueler and Moreen O'Sullivan  The film featured a 7+ minute full frontal nude water ballet between the couple though Johnny still had on his loin cloth and Jane was another Olympic swimmer like he was in an uncredited role.  Never the less, more than eyebrows were raised that by the end of the year the Hays code was made law.  Its still interesting to note that the trailer for the film begins with little children reading the comic/graphic novel version including depiction of a naked Jane (see link above).  Today it would get an R at worst.

In the coming months we will be presenting a number of these so called "pre-code" films including C. B. Demille's "Madam Satan", a sexy farce operetta featuring an over the top set of musical productions that take place on a blimp no less.  Demille as it turns out was not shy about using sex to sell his films including his religious epics like Sign of the Cross where he case the stripper Sally Rand as a naked virgin being sacrifice to a gorilla.  (no Im not kidding!) as well as other less serious works such as Roman Scandals in which none other than Lucile Ball plays in an uncredited role as a naked (no not really) slave girl. 1933.  Of course there's lots more to offend a more modern eye like the use of blackface and racial stereotypes almost all of these but looking back never hurts.  These are all mistakes we can learn from especially the censorship.

We will also be playing many of the Betty Boop cartoons as special features which in fact have many sexual situations in them that include fending off a grabby boss to facing down the devil by giving him the cold shoulder.  I remember these from the 50s when they they were broadcast on local stations as KID SHOWS!  She lived along, had all manner of adventures and careers and always managed to have a good time...  She was a proto-feminist icon more nearly 100 years ago now.