The Reasons Behind the PCA

The Production Code Administration was formed in 1934 for several reasons which had been developing for almost twenty years. Since the Supreme Court ruled in 1915 that films were not governed by the First Amendment, censorship boards had been strenuously cutting and banning films all over the nation; this was very annoying and costly to …

The Production Code Administration and the Handmade Furniture Company

The Production Code Administration, which served as a self-regulation board for Hollywood from 1934 to 1954, was like the board of review at a handmade furniture company. Such a furniture company has a rule book defining the company's code of standards, such as durability, sturdiness, and pureness of materials, just as Hollywood had the Motion …

PEPS’s definition of PURITY

Purity is often used to mean cleanliness or an absence of a foreign object or substance; however, it can have a deeper, less physical meaning. The dictionary acknowledges this first meaning, but it also defines purity as freedom from any contamination, adulteration, guilt, or sin. In this meaning, purity may be regarded as a synonym …

James Cagney, Hollywood’s Favorite Irish Gangster

James Cagney was a famous gangster actor for thirty years; although the gangster films' heyday was in the pre-Code years, they continued to be made through the Code and post-Code years, and James Cagney went right along with them. He made his big break as the nefarious gun-man Tom Powers in the 1931 film The …

Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, Singing Sweethearts of the Code!

Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, the Singing Sweethearts of the Silver Screen, made eight diverse and entertaining musicals together between 1935 and 1942. Their first film together is Naughty Marietta, an adaptation of a play by Victor Herbert about a runaway princess who falls in love with a handsome Scout in colonial New Orleans. Their …