it is your argument that is narrow and provincial, lissener. I said it was NOT only the restrictions on sex and sexuality that made the Hayes Code a problem for filmmakers. It was also the requirements that the good guys always win, that authority figures should be treated with respect (they even explicitly forbade that religious figures should not be treated as comic figures!) and the restrictions on the behavior of women. But you try to make it think it was JUST about boobies! Sad, lissener, that you are reduced to such a straw man of an argument as to say it was only about boobies. I know you like old movies, well, that’s your problem.
Let’s see: Bad Guys Cant’ win alone … there’ goes “The Usual Suspects!” Andall the Oceans Eleven remakes … and Empires Strikes Back … and, well, a SHITLOAD of films … no women engaged in violence … No “Catwoman” … ok, that’s problematical, but also, no “Thelma and Louise” … no disrespect for religious figures … there goes “the Handmaids Tale.”
As for no sex and sexuality, no “Body Heat” no fake orgasm scene in “When Harry Met Sally” no “cocksucker suit” joke in “Sophie’s Choice” no … hell, no most of modern films, lissener.
Admit it … you have no legs to stand on, lissener. Old movies are qualitatively different from modern movies, and not in a good way, because of the Hayes Code.
I tend to not like old movies either. I think it is because whatever made the movie great when it came out has been improved upon since, and the ‘original’ looks cheesy to modern movie goers. This goes for special effects, acting technique, story lines, etc.
The exception…Rear Window. The suspense was on many levels at once; I don’t know that I have seen anything else quite like it. It is still very original.
The only way you can even CONTEMPLATE this is to dismiss out of hand the huge number of true masterpieces that were produced during Hollywood’s Golden Era.
As I said, there’s no question that the Hays code was hugely detrimental to the artistic culture of Hollywood. But to suggest that ALL movies during that era are necessarily worse due to the code is ludicrous. You might just as well argue that today’s films are the worse for the marketing necessity of bringing in a big budget film as PG. See? Ludicrous.
There are many films that the Hays code ruined: ***A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tea and Sympathy, The Children’s Hour, Crossfire, ***etc. But there are many, many films made during that era that are truly great works of art, Hays code or not. Again, I’m not defending the Code by any stretch: I think it’s one of the worst things that ever happened to this country, and its effects are still being felt. But watch some Anthony Mann westerns, for example, to see mature subjects treated with subtlety and mastery.
One of the stars of the precode era was Ruth Chatterton, who made films such as Female, in which she was CEO of a car company who hired male secretaries, slept with them, then discarded them. After the code came into effect, such roles were gone (the code was more about misogyny than sex or violence), but the greatest film she was ever in was 1936’s Dodsworth, in which she played the spoiled wife of a car company CEO. That career arc represents one of the great travesties the Code represented. But that doesn’t make ***Dodsworth ***any less of a masterpiece in its own right.
It’s the old rule that there’s no, absolutely no, artifact of culture that is so beloved, so cherished, so universally admired, that some anonymous yahoo on the Internet isn’t going bash the crap out of it and be proud of themselves for doing do.
This thread, case in point.
In fact, these kinds of threads are annoyingly persistent on the SDMB.
I have to disagree. I don’t think either remake (titled The Island of Doctor Moreau) approaches the original Island of Lost Souls, despite massive improvements in special effects and makeup.
How far back “Old” movies go isn’t clear, but by some doper’s lights in this and other recent threads the original versions of Day of the Jackal and Flight of the Phoenix and Charade are all “old movies”. But I hated the remakes the Jackal and The Truth about Charlie, and I haven’t even seen the remade **Flight of the Phoenix ** because of what I’ve heard. The originals don’t look at all cheesy – the new ones fail because of their own lack of merit.
Ditto for The Day the Earth Stood Still, with a literate and mature script utterly undone by the remake. Reportedly the new Andromeda Strain was equally awful.
Old movies suck because of the Hays code. I’m sure an occasional gem was made, but why bother looking? I’m sure an occasional Full House episode was just fantastic, but I’d be a fool to wade through that series looking for it. Same idea.
Nothing sanitized for children is worth seeing voluntarily, IMO.
Because of the Hays code. I cannot stand censored material, and basically everything before the 70s was censored far more than what networks broadcast today during the family hour. Because of the Hays code, I’m comfortable declaring all old movies garbage.
This is a great point that really resonates for me, because I find it difficult to articulate exactly why I consider animation to be childish.
On a probably unrelated note, I also find as I grow older that my appreciation for “Awesome!” is greatly diminishing.
This reminds me of Edward Norton on the Fight Club commentary track talking about critics decrying how crappy movies had become. He wondered what they were watching, since in his opinion great movies had made a major resurgence and anyone who didn’t see it simply wasn’t paying attention.
If you don’t consider Fight Club a great movie that’s fine; many don’t. But then again, many don’t consider old movies great either.
Memento, The Usual Suspects, Pulp Fiction, Requiem For A Dream, The Professional (aka: Leon), Silence of the Lambs, American History X, American Beauty, Lost In Translation, Saving Private Ryan, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Braveheart, Slumdog Millionaire, Fargo, The Sixth Sense; there are many modern movies I would consider great, and if you notice something about my thrown-together and nowhere near complete list, all of them would have been censored beyond recognition by the Hays code.
For those unfamiliar with the Hays code, it forced all movies to be rated G from 1934 to 1968. This is why most of the intelligencia back in the day gravitated toward subtitled foreign films. American films were the equivalent of cartoons by comparison. It’s also no coincidence that the 1970s are heralded as a decade of greatness in filmmaking. Once filmmakers had the shackles removed, we were finally able to see what they could do.
There is nothing about movies made after 1990 that make them a special class. The Hays code makes old movies a special class.
EDIT: Crap, didn’t see the second page. Oh well, being beaten to the punch doesn’t invalidate my point.
I was waiting for someone to recomment All About Eve. It’s one of my favorite “classic” movies. Caveat: I also love Casablanca and don’t really understand folks who don’t.
I agree that the Hays code had a detrimental effect on old movies, but I can’t then make the leap to say all or even most older movies are therefore categorically worse.
It wasn’t just your point about the Hays code that had already been raised, but it had also been addressed and rebutted. Not that you have to necessarily agree with me of course, but I’d be interested in your response to the entire dialog, not just to the first mention of the subject.
There’s absolutely no question that many, many subjects were not addressed in a mature manner, that were addressed overseas. There’s no question of the detrimental effect the Hays code had on a lot of movies–and by extension, on the culture, since they were such a huge part of it. But among the ruined movies, some real masterpieces were created.
Also, if you’re familiar with the Code, you can often notice the heavy hand of the censor, and compensate for it mentally while you’re watching. Many filmmakers made their tacked-on endings in a different tone from the rest of the movie, so that it was clear where the “real” movie ended and the censor’s “fix” began.
But condemning ALL movies of that era because of those strictures, would be like condemning all poetry that hewed to a rigid structure of meter and rhyme. I’m not a huge fan of the notion that the Code was beneficial, in that it forced some directors to be more subtle and creative. That’s pretty much bullshit. But there WERE some directors who did great, masterful work, DESPITE the Code. It did a lot of damage, but it did not defeat all of the artists who were challenged by it. Many of them were able to rise above it.
Agreed on all your points in the previous post, lissener.
My point is that I see no need to wade through the oldies in hopes of finding one of those gems. It also doesn’t help that I’m viscerally offended by the censorship in the first place, so in a sense I feel that supporting (recommending) any movie made under the Hays code is to support the Hays code itself. I just won’t do it.
I’ve no doubt that there can be a great rated G (Hays code) movie. I also am sure there is a great cartoon out there, or a great kid’s show. But I will never look for one, and would only watch one if I were forced to. (Like watching tv with my niece, for example.)
I have gradually begun resenting the MPAA system, with many R rated films getting censored down to PG-13 for purely financial reasons. That offends me viscerally as well, but there is a world of difference between PG-13 and the ultra-G-rated fare of the Hays code.
EDIT: I also contend that because of the Hays code, the signal to noise ratio of the Hays code era was much smaller than the signal to noise ratio today. In other words, the Hays code raised the ratio of crap by a fair margin. Any given movie today has a greater chance of being good simply by virtue of it not laboring under draconian censorship.
[to lissener] I don’t think anyone has said that there weren’t any good movies made. Just about everyone who has said they don’t generally like old movies has said that there are exceptions.
I’d also like to note (since someone implied that I said it) that I didn’t say Casablanca sucked, I just said I wouldn’t have finished it. I just thought it was kind of boring.
Casablanca isn’t a bad movie, but it’s a terrible romance. Bogart’s facination with Bergman makes no more sense than Bella’s obsession with Edward. If people held Casablanca up as a good example of a pointless infatuation, sure, but as an actual romance? It’s so anemic.
Well there’s exceptions to everything, so that doesn’t really count. But A), yeah actually a couple people have indeed said that no good movies could *possibly *have been made under the Code. And B), even those not resorting to absolutes are using sweeping generalizations that honestly do not accurately represent the truth.
Look at it this way: what if you COULD “adjust” yourself somehow so that you suddenly loved old movies? Think of the VAST experience of fantastic experiences you’d have to look forward too, going through a century of films, instead of just a decade or two. There would suddenly be an incredible library of great movies for you to enjoy. So thinking of the payoff alone, isn’t a little preparation–say, dipping into the list of masterpieces the Rosenbaum suggests–likely to be worth the effort?
You’d be opening a bottomless treasure chest. (I know I know, that’s what she said.)
Not to get too far off topic but one thing to remember is that it wasn’t like there was an “anything goes” climate in the rest of popular culture during the time the Motion Picture Production Code (i.e., Hays Code) was in effect. On the whole, books, plays, music, radio, and (after WWII) television, were considerably tamer before the 1960’s than they were afterward. Of course, most media had (and still do) their own codes of what’s allowed and what isn’t but don’t underestimate the role social mores had on artistic expression.
Right. But the motion picture industry was censored by the Catholic church, whereas all those other media you mention were entirely self governing. One of the reasons we know exactly how insidious the Code’s effect on Hollywood was because of the many, many films that were adapted from plays and novels. A play that dealt frankly, if not graphically, with homosexuality would have any such references, even oblique ones, removed on its way from the stage to the screen. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tea and Sympathy, The Children’s Hour, Crossfire, all had central themes touching on homosexuality, but before they could be allowed on the big screen they had all their gay took out. Abortion was excised from A Streetcar Named Desire. The gleefully evil child who got away with murder in The Bad Seed on the stage was struck by Hays code lightning–literally–in one of the most hilarious tacked on endings in the history of Hollywood. A prostitute became a dancer in Waterloo Bridge. In Tunnel of Love, the entire play hinged on the farcical goings on that followed on a husband getting an adoption agent pregnant; on the screen, they left in the farce, but tacked on an ending in which the baby’s resemblance of the wayward husband was just a coincidence; the real father was in Europe!
Still, some great movies squeaked under the radar. Mostly by largely avoiding such topics, which is a shame. But sometimes by stealth. One of my favorite Code-breakers is Scarlet Street, which ends with a man being executed for a crime he did not commit, and the real murderer getting away with it. This was explicitly against the Code, but Fritz Lang used a bit of sleight of hand: he allowed the audience hate the former, and sympathize with the latter, so no one really raised a fuss.
Anyway, obviously to some nerds like me, even Code-mining for emasculations and exceptions can be a diverting pastime.
My impression is that the bad movies from that era are worse. With modern bad movies, I can watch them and still be entertained. With the older ones, I often get bored to death unless I have somebody to riff on them with.
I mean, I actually liked the Lost In Space movie. I liked the Matrix sequels. I don’t think they are good films, but I liked them
Every old movie I’ve found that isn’t a “classic” has completely bored me. The pacing is slow, and a lot of times, nothing really happens.
And, even in the classics, there is a cheesiness in the acting. That clip from It’s a Wonderful Life? Potter is overdone throughout, and George overplays his emotions here. It’s like he thinks he’s in a play.
BTW, that’s my secret. Imagine it’s a play. That helps a lot.
I haven’t seen Tea and Sympathy or Crossfire but do people really have trouble figuring out what’s going on in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or the Children’s Hour?
While I certainly don’t think censorship is a good thing, I do think the Hays Code forced writers/directors etc. to be more creative in getting certain themes/motivations/acts across and I find that more appealing than a lot of films these days which (strictly my opinon) have all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. It’s obvious, for example, there’s a lot of sex in old movies, you just don’t see it. In Rear Window, Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly are obviously not celibate, would it really enhance the viewer’s experience to see Kelly humping Stewart’s cast?
I also think that, in many ways, with a few exceptions from the 60’s and 70’s, movies are just as puritanical as they were back in the Hays days. Can you imagine something like the Exorcist being made today? Because I can’t (cue a bunch of intellectual dopers jumping in to say how bored they were with the movie). Too many “cunts” and Regan’s masturbation/stabbing crucifix scene would be cut.
Abortion is also still a hot button topic. Again, IMHO, it was completely unrealistic that the characters from Juno and Knocked Up carried their children to term (although in all fairness, if they did have abortions the movies would have been five minutes long) but in 1945, you’ve got Leave it to Heaven winning Oscars for Gene Tierney aborting her child not to mention killing a cripple. Granted, she’s the villain but I wonder what the reaction to that movie, if it were made today, would be.