In a recent discussion here, I recited a few bits of the (in)famous Hollywood production code. Somewhere in the course of the discussion I tried to look it up and couldn’t find it anywhere on-line. I’ve tried Ask Jeeves, Google, Alta-Vista, what remains of Deja (just in case on the newsgroups), and Dogpile: Nuthin’
People have web pages where it’s mentioned, but no-one reproduces the text! (I couldn’t find the Hayes Code either. There is a song from the musical “A Day in Hollywood, A Night in the Ukraine” which reproduces a portion of it as a tap-number.
Is it available on line? It can’t have been copyrighted, could it???
So, was that laughable code ever officially dropped, or has it just been forgotten over the decades? I ask because many of the shows I have watched violate the code in whole or in part (usually in whole :)).
Aw, this is lovely. Thank you, Bibliophage. My personal favorites: (I was going to include snappy answers, but then I realized that that would be gilding the lily).
There’s more but I think this is something folks need to go read for themselves.
P.S. The Hays Code was dropped in 1966; in 1968 the MPAA code took over.
I always was surprised that, in the Hayes Code days, Mr. Potter in It’s A Wonderful Life was allowed to go unpunished despite the fact that he stole $8,000 from the Bailey Building and Loan. Capra has said that he thought any comeuppance for Potter was tangential to the story, and he took some heat for it, but I’m still surprised it was permitted at all.