# When did movies regularly start to have bad language in them? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 23, 2012, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101 "2012-06-23T21:27:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/21 "2012-06-24T09:16:18Z")
I can’t say as to movies but I STRONGLY remember at some point during the A-Team BA called someone an “ASSHOLE” and I jaw-droppedly said to my mom “Can you SAY that?!” AND SHE SAID JAW-DROPEDLY: “I don’t know?!!” ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/22 "2012-06-24T09:50:52Z")
The A-Team??!? That was rather late in the game. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/23 "2012-06-24T10:59:32Z")
> [@The\_Shroud](#): > > [Anatomy of a Murder](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_of_a_Murder) (1959) springs to mind. It was a courtroom drama about a rape case. Besides clinical terms, I remember hearing “slut.” > > Of course, before 1934 there were some too. You can listen for some "son of a bitch"es and "like hell"s in [Hell’s Angels](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell%27s_Angels_(film)), and at the end of this [Flip the Frog](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE7Fxv5h7tA)cartoon from the early 1930s. Anatomy of a Murder is one of my favorite films, it even has the line: “the first thing I’m going to do [when the husband gets out of jail] is kick that bitch from here to kingdom come”.😛 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/24 "2012-06-24T11:33:53Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > The A-Team??!? That was rather late in the game. Yeah, but on network TV? Before 1985? In prime time? :eek: Sounds more like Eddie Murphy doing his impression of Mr. T, if you ask me. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/25 "2012-06-24T11:37:12Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I saw lots of movies in 1968 that had profanity. Again, it gets back to 1966. With the possible exception of _The Professionals_ (1966), which I saw back then but don’t remember all that well, I think _The Green Berets_ was the first time I heard swearing in a movie. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/26 "2012-06-24T11:43:07Z")
I also remember the episode of “Hill Street Blues” where Furillo announced the death of Sgt. Esterhaus (I think that was Thanksgiving of '83). They let JD get in a “Sonofabitch!” Now that I think about it, there was an episode of “Charlie’s Angels” in '77 (I think it was the only episode of that show I ever watched) in which Art Metrano (playing one of the bad guys) told Kate Jackson she had “a cute ass.” (And she did, too! 🆒) Both of those happened so quickly that if you were distracted for only a second, you would have missed them. ---
**Author:** ![Ashley\_Pomeroy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c68b51/32.png) [@Ashley\_Pomeroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashley_Pomeroy)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/27 "2012-06-24T13:02:39Z")
I remember the 1973 Jack Nicholson film _The Last Detail_ was often held up as a watershed in sweariness - [the poster](http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3773079040/tt0070290) emphasises the bad language. And also makes Jack Nicholson look like Burt Reynolds, oddly enough. Quoth the IMDB: \*The script was completed in 1970, but contained too much profanity to be shot as written. Columbia Pictures waited for two years trying to get writer Robert Towne to tone down the language. Instead, by 1972, the standards for foul language relaxed so much that all the profanity was left in. A tamer version with less profanity was filmed at the same time for TV showings. Because of the amount of swearing, the entire movie was pretty much shot twice.\* I was expecting the quotes page to be full of relatively mild language, but it’s still pretty salty, and reminds me of [this classic routine](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCJK_yDAeOM) from Father Ted. I remember reading that _Catch-22_, in 1970, was a landmark for full-frontal nudity, and Siam has mentioned _M_A_S_H\* for its language, so I assume the answer to the original poster is “the early 1970s”. But not mainstream. I’d always mentally remembered _The French Connection_ being full of bad language, but looking at the IMDB it seems to be typical tough-guy language without actual swearing. The Exorcist had a few precious profanities but not many overall. _The Godfather_, _The Sting_, _Cabaret_, the other big films, are relatively mannered (albeit that they’re not predominantly set in the 1970s). My mental stereotype is that the 1970s are filled with sex, drugs, and countercultural anti-heroes, whereas the 1980s was a decade of swearing, violence, but only the bad guys took drugs and there wasn’t much nudity and the heroes didn’t have sex. And in the 1990s there was less of everything, because 18/R = limited audience. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/28 "2012-06-24T14:21:43Z")
No, early 1970s is too late. I was old enough to go to the movies on my own in the 1960s, and that’s when the swearing really picked up. And again, the film historians agree 1966 was the dividing line. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Prize](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d2c977/32.png) [@Sir\_Prize](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Prize)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/29 "2012-06-24T14:48:15Z")
I have the impression that there was a point in the mid 70’s where the writers realized that they could get away with a lot more dirty language. I seem to remember that the movie House calls, which I haven’t seen since it came out in 1978, seemed to be written by a screenwriter who was celebrating his release from censorship. Not sure if I would get the same impression if I saw it today. Another Walter Matthau movie, the Bad News Bears form 1976 was also featured a lot of bad language, but from kids. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/30 "2012-06-24T16:35:42Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Lots of really early movies were pretty filthy, that’s why they had the Hays Code. > > [Hays Code - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code) There’s lots of confusion about the Hays Code, and that link does a pretty good job and explaining why the popular conception of it is wrong. The short version for this thread: Language wasn’t the major issue in the silent era. Some lip-readers understood what was really being said and some of the title cards had innuendo, but it was other types of nastiness that got the censors all hot and bothered. The problem was that even if Will Hays cared about enforcing the Code, he had no real power beyond argument and that has never stood up to someone making money. A tighter Code was written by some influential Catholics in 1930, but it wasn’t enforced. Not until 1934, when some teeth were put in and Joseph Breen, another Catholic, took over did the so-called Code era began. Technically, though, almost the entire early history of sound firms that we call the “pre-Code” era today was under Hays and his Code. You can’t get much more ironic than the term Hays Code representing an era when Hays was gone and the term pre-code referring to the era when he was in charge. Hays became the villain to history when it was all Breen. But there was basically no dirty language even in those “pre-code” sound films. The public wouldn’t have stood for it and they were the only ones who counted, because it was their money that bought the tickets. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/31 "2012-06-24T18:15:01Z")
> [@urban1a](#): > > Missed the edit window. I should have said that that dirty movie was out in about 1953 or 1954. > > Bob And was, coincidentally, the subject of a _M_A_S_H\* episode. ---
**Author:** ![lew\_cody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e274bd/32.png) [@lew\_cody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lew_cody)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/32 "2012-06-24T20:33:45Z")
Garden variety profanity, like damn and hell, was pretty common in the titles of silent films. Sometimes the words were only suggested (e.g. written as “d–n”, but they were often spelled out too. THE BIG PARADE (1925) actually took title-card profanity about as far as you could in those days. After one character is killed in battle, John Gilbert says “They got him! They got him! GOD DAMN THEIR SOULS!” and then “You got my Buddy, you b---------s! Now… COME ON!”. ROARING RAILS, a 1924 film with Harry Carey, also contained “bastard” written as “b-----d”. On a somewhat different tangent, TWO ARABIAN KNIGHTS (1927) contains title cards that likely provoked amusement in its original release but today would be considered blasphemous to Islam. William Boyd says to Louis Wolheim: “One flash at than pan of yours, and she’ll yell for Allah!” He replies, “I’ve had more broads yell for me than you and this guy Allah put together!” There’s also an “Oh, hell!” title and a “unick” joke. In ALL TEED UP, a Charley Chase comedy from 1930, Charley storms out of a country club and breaks some golf clubs over his knee, apparently referring to them as “shitty sticks”. In SKYSCRAPER SOULS (1932), there’s one seen where Maureen O’Sullivan gets drunk with two gentlemen friends and apparently says “We’re being awfully shitty!” ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/33 "2012-06-24T21:22:09Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > Anatomy of a Murder is one of my favorite films, it even has the line: > > “the first thing I’m going to do [when the husband gets out of jail] is kick that bitch from here to kingdom come”.😛 There was a huge battle with the censors over the words _panties_ and _sperm_, which the moviemakers eventually won. How times change. _Panties_, which was almost taboo in the 50s, had been perfectly acceptable in the 20s and 30s when the word meant briefs for men! In _Shuffle Off To Buffalo_, a song from the 1933 movie _42nd Street_, the newly-wed guy sings these words to his bride: > [@](#): > > I’ll go home and get my panties > You go home and get your scanties > And away we go > Off we’re gonna shuffle, shuffle off to Buffalo. ---
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2012, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/34 "2012-06-24T21:54:01Z")
> [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](#): > > Me too. I’ve always heard the British film _I’ll Never Forget What’s’Isname_ (1967) was the first to have the word “fuck” in it. It was a fairly big release, starring Orson Welles, Oliver Reed, and Marianne Faithfull, who got to say the word. > > “Regularly” as per the OP is difficult to assess, but that kind of language got more and more common from that point on. > > Meanwhile in America, as late as 1966, _Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf_ had to get special exemption from the Production Code for using such laughable phrases as “hump the hostess.” I saw that movie when it came out and while I cannot remeber whether the “f” word was used, there was some serious nudity. Carol White was absolutely beautiful. Prior to this, however “Blowup” had what I remember as full frontal about 1966. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/35 "2012-06-25T00:37:50Z")
> [@wedgehed](#): > > _Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid_ (1969) was the first movie I recall hearing the word **shit** in. Well, they didn’t exactly say “shit”. What they actually said was SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Shroud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/439d5e/32.png) [@The\_Shroud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Shroud)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2012, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101/36 "2012-06-25T12:33:16Z")
> [@lew\_cody](#): > > In ALL TEED UP, a Charley Chase comedy from 1930, Charley storms out of a country club and breaks some golf clubs over his knee, apparently referring to them as “shitty sticks”. In SKYSCRAPER SOULS (1932), there’s one seen where Maureen O’Sullivan gets drunk with two gentlemen friends and apparently says “We’re being awfully shitty!” Luckily everything’s on YouTube. I think [Charley Chase’s line](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi45vT-faKo) is pretty clear, but I think Maureen O’Sullivan [says “shilly.”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90wkfSkITJ8) When she says “I didn’t say silly,” I don’t think she means to imply that she said “shitty,” only that she’s somehow aware of her own word-slurring. As an aside, while searching YouTube I came across this [awesome music video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uajK1UE1qKM&feature=related) that’s a must-see for any fans of the era. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-movies-regularly-start-to-have-bad-language-in-them/626101.md?page=1)