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English

9780813143453

9780813143453

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"This excellent, lively study examines the 'raucous debate' sparked by the Code over the morals and ideals of American movies." -- Publishers Weekly The new edition of this seminal work takes the story of the Production Code and motion picture censorship into the present, including the creation of the PG-13 and NC-17 ratings in the 1990s. Starting in the early 1930s, the Production Code Director, Joe Breen, and his successor, Geoff Shurlock, understood that American motion pictures needed enough rope -- enough sex, and violence, and tang -- to lasso an audience, and not enough to strangle the industry. To explore the history and implementation of the Motion Picture Production Code, this book uses 11 movies: Dead End , Gone With the Wind , The Outlaw , The Postman Always Rings Twice , The Bicycle Thief , Detective Story , A Streetcar Named Desire , The Moon Is Blue , The French Line , Lolita , and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The authors combine a lively style with provocative insights and a wealth of anecdotes to show how the code helped shape American screen content for nearly 50 years. "A readable, intimate account of the rise to near-tyrannical power, and the fall to well-deserved ignominy, of the old Production Code Administration." -- Atlantic Monthly "A valuable insight into our own innocence and naivet.̌" -- The New York Times Book Review "The triumph of Leff and Simmons's fine work is that they have reminded us of how fatuous and inimical a code of conduct can be: how tempting it is as a theoretical answer, and how intrinsically flawed it is as a working solution." -- The Times of London"--,Provided by Freading.