Announcing #CleanMovieMonth2020!

Many months are claimed for honoring different causes, groups, or ideas. In 2018, PEPS declared July to be #CleanMovieMonth because the Motion Picture Production Code began to be enforced in July 1934 with the formation of the Production Code Administration (PCA) on July 15. Also, Martin Quigley first described the concept for the Code five years earlier in July at a meeting in Chicago. Thus, we have decided that July is a good month to celebrate the Production Code, the American Breen Era (1934-1954), which is the twenty years during which Joseph I. Breen enforced the Code as head of the PCA, and the films made during that time. This month is all about decent entertainment and clean movies!

Every year, we celebrate #CleanMovieMonth by exclusively watching Code films. That means that, for the entire month, we pledge to watch nothing but American movies made between July of 1934 and 1954. This isn’t difficult for us, since most movies we regularly watch are from the American Breen Era. It’s not difficult for us to only watch and review our favorite era of Hollywood for a month! During the last two years, we have invited our fellow bloggers to join us in this study of the era of decent films, and we have had some wonderful responses and excellent guest articles, which we reposted on our website.

Click here to see all the entries for 2018’s #CleanMovieMonth, the first celebration.

Click here to see all the entries for 2019’s #CleanMovieMonth85, which honored the eighty-fifth anniversary of the PCA’s formation.

Since it is now June, we are planning this year’s celebration of #CleanMovieMonth. We celebrate this month a little differently every year, giving it a new name each year. This year, we are calling it #CleanMovieMonth2020. To celebrate this special month, I am going to post reviews of twenty different Code films which I have never reviewed on PEPS before. Some of these will be my 100 New Code Films articles for the month. The remaining number of reviews will be of Code films I have seen before but have never reviewed on PEPS. Of course, we are going to abstain from watching any movies save those made during the American Breen Era. Thus, we will suspend our Breening Thursday articles during July. Instead, we will publish Code Concepts articles. We will be back to breening with a vengeance in August! We will continue publishing Film Fashion Friday analyses of costumes from Code movies.

As the highlight of #CleanMovieMonth2020, we are hosting a special blogathon around the anniversary of the PCA’s formation. It is called the Code Classics Blogathon, and it is about Code films adapted from classic literature. We are hosting it on July 14-17. Please join!

If you want to participate in #CleanMovieMonth2020, please join us! You can participate as much or as little as you want. Even one themed article would be a wonderful tribute to this month dedicated to Code cinema. All contributing articles will be republished on our website. To find out how you can join this celebration, read the following guidelines:

1. Try to watch only Code films. Remember, these are only American films which were released between July of 1934 and 1954. Foreign films, such as British films, from this time period do not count as Code films, even if they were later released in America with a PCA Seal of Approval.
2. If you can’t watch only Code films, that’s alright! You can venture out of those twenty years if you have previous commitments to review non-Breen Era movies or if you have a simple hankering for your un-Code favorites! The purpose of this series is just to focus on Code films.
3. Even if you don’t stay completely within the Breen Era, watch Code films mindfully. When you are watching a Breen Era movie, whether for the first time or the tenth, notice how it is different from movies made during other eras. Ask yourself how it complies with the Code, as I do in the Code Classification sections of my 100 New Code Films articles. You may enjoy Code-classifying yourself!
4. Review the Code films you watch during the month, including links to this page and using the #CleanMovieMonth2020 banner. We will republish all participating articles here on PEPS!
5. Try to reach our goal of reviewing twenty Code films during the month! They don’t all have to be new movies. You can rewatch your old favorites with a Code perspective for this event. You can combine reviews of multiple films in one articles. By doing overviews, you could review twenty Code films in only five articles.
6. Use the hashtag #CleanMovieMonth2020 and our banner to spread the word about this event. It is always a good time to celebrate the era of decent movies!

Please join #CleanMovieMonth2020 and the Code Classics Blogathon today!

Follow us to bring back the Code and save the arts in America!

We are lifting our voices in classical song to help the sun rise on a new day of pure  entertainment!

Only the Code can make the sun rise on a new day of pure entertainment!