Censoring Hollywood: Sex and Violence in Film and on the Cutting Room Floor

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One hundred years of film censorship, from the beginning to the end of the 20th Century, is chronicled in this volume. The freewheeling nature of films in the early decades was profoundly affected by Prohibition, the Depression and the formation of the Legion of Decency–culminating in a new age of restrictiveness in the movies.

Such powerful arbiters of public taste as Will H. Hays of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, and Joseph Breen of the Production Code Association, fomented an era whereby films with contentious material were severely censored or even condemned. This held sway until rebellious filmmakers like Otto Preminger challenged the system in the 1950s, eventually resulting in the abandonment of the old regime in favor of the contemporary
G
through
N-17
ratings system.