Extra! Extra! Hollywood Production Code Triumphs Over Nature

[bhryun]

Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

--Quote from the Production Code Administration

 

Ever see something in one of our cherished studio era movies that struck you as wildly unlikely or positively absurd, due to the stringent Production Code imposed on movies from the '30s to the '60s? Here's a spot to point some of the most striking examples that you'd like to share with others.

 

 

Boy, the lads in the Hays office must have been breaking out the champagne on the day after they succeeded in imposing their ideas of proper human behavior onscreen on a little flick called "A Child Is Born"!

I'm sure that this triumph may have been particularly cheering coming shortly after David O. Selznick thumbed his nose at the Production Code boys by insisting on inserting the word "damn" into GWTW, (and paying 5k for the privilege)! All the same, a logical person might have pointed out that the fingerprints that they left all over "A Child Is Born" actually violated the clause of the Code quoted above, since this cinematic wonder violated "law, natural or human", on several levels.

 

 

"A Child Is Born" was a Warner Brothers' production from that golden year in Hollywood's history, 1939. Interestingly, as I caught this little B movie this morning on TCM, I was struck by several intriguing points. The story, revolving around the events in a maternity ward, deals with potentially "explosive" topics: pregnancy, mortality and where does that pesky stork come from, anyway?

 

1,) Not one of the women admitted to this ward appears to be physically pregnant--no tummy, no nothing! From Spring Byington, experiencing her sixth blessed event to Geraldine Fitzgerald, as a convicted murderer/lifer having her first babe to Gladys George, as a vaudevillian appalled to be having twins to Nanette Fabray, as a child bride worried about her Mom & Mom-in-laws reaction to her making them Grandmas--they're all just a wee bit fatigued while Gale Page as the head nurse and Eve Arden, (in a regrettably non-sarcastic mode), hover over them, looking the other way while their hubbies, (Jeffrey Lynn & Johnnie Downs, among others), fret, fuss, or in the case of Miss George, abandon them. The only possible indication that these ladies are expecting, aside from the dialogue, is a tendency to swoon occasionally.

 

2.) No one ever suggests, by word, look, or inference that being in the family way might actually be related to, um, marital relations.

 

3.) The films does dare to suggest that not all women have a particularly strong maternal instinct. The highly entertaining Gladys George actually says that she wants to give her kids away so that she can get back to hoofing asap, as long as the possible adoptive parents slip her some long green for her trouble. Gladys practically steals the show demonstrating her spunky refusal to admit that being pregnant may not be the end all and be all of her life. She also smokes like a chimney, drinks hooch until plastered and, of course, falling down, all while wearing a mariboo-laced dressing gown. But guess what?? Despiter her behavior, her two kids--a boy and a girl, of course--come out okay, albeit one of them has a wee bit of a respiratory problem that is quickly curable when exposed to Ma's fast blossoming mother love.

 

4.) Natch, Gladys becomes an enthusiastic mother, though she may, the film implies, allow a nice couple who've lost their baby, to sort of adopt her kids, or at least one of them, when she hits the vaudeville trail again.

 

5. In one of the more poignant storylines, Geraldine Fitzgerald, as a fragile inmate, faced with an operation that would cost her life, chooses to give her life rather than lose her child--despite the fact that her hubby tells the doctors that, given this dreadful choice, he'd rather have his wife, despite the fact that she's going to be in the pen until Junior collects Social Security. Hmm, this seems to be one of the few times in a movie such as this when a woman's choice was actually treated with respect--well, as long as she died in the process.

 

Of course, despite all these quibbles, I stuck with this short excursion into Moms on Film--just as I would in better films such as "So Big", "Stella Dallas" and even "Mildred Pierce". The topic may be soapy, but it's inherently dramatic, and the actresses each gave their part everything they could--except stark realism-- their commitment to the material almost swept my judgment away. Gladys George, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Fay Helm, (as a woman driven mad by her desire to have a baby), along with the other cast members, saved the movie with the small glints of humanity that they managed to slip past the censors.

 

I'd love to read your comments and examples of other absurdities of the Production Code that you've sighted in movies of the studio era.

[ayresorchids]

Possible Waterloo Bridge SPOILER:

 

I haven't seen it in an awfully long time, but isn't Waterloo Bridge extremely veiled about the life that Vivien Leigh's character turns to, once she believes her fiance to be dead? I recall seeing the movie as a child and not understanding what was so terrible about being a seamstress, or whatever else she was doing to make ends meet!

[shainablue1]

Speaking of those mystical pregancies where the woman has been incredibly blessed with no weight gain, even though the next thing you know there's that 6 month old baby splashed with water wrapped in a blanket passing for a newborn she's managed to birth with her make-up still intact.... I recently watched " The Howards Of Virginia." Mrs.Howard after an argument with Mr.Howard (Cary Grant)all of a sudden clutches her small girdled waistline and goes running out into the field calling for him, and I thought " what a miscarriage?" ( shades of GWTW) but it was full term labor, baby! I mean, that was confusing.

[kenwal34]

Interesting topic!

There are so many,but I one that I recall is in FRANKENSTEIN[1931].When his creation comes to life,Frankenstein exclaims" Now I know how it feels to be God!".Quickly this was covered by a loud rumble of thunder in future prints. As was the deleted scene of the Monster throwing the little girl in the lake. This was too much for the censors and the general public to take in 1931!!.Thankfully ,this missing scene and dialogue has been restored for todays viewers.

[brackenhe]

I was thinking the same thing about A Child Is Born that you were, Moira. It reminded me of the Bette Davis/Mary Astor/George Brent film The Great Liewhere Astor is pregnant with Brent's child who was married to Davis in the film but while separated from her had an affair with Astor. Davis takes Astor to the desert to shield her while pregnant so she can then take the baby as her own (they think Brent is dead in South America.) Anyway, it struck me that while Astor was supposedly pregnant the only way they would let her be shown as "pregnant" was that she was a really thick terry cloth robe. Heck, she smoked like a chimney too, all the while Bette telling her she was restricted to one cigarette a day or something like that. It's a good movie (how could it not be with Astor and Davis), but that bit is hard to swallow.

[classicsfan1119]

Moira, I'm happy to see that a least a few of us actually watched "A Child Is Born" yesterday morning, and am particularly please that you have detailed it so precicely concerning the many "absurdities" made visible by the Production Code.

 

I have to admit that I just about stopped watching it because of them, but like you I found that in spite of them, it was the acting that finally won me over, along with those few little glints of humanity that slipped past the censors.

 

As for the Quote from the Production Code Administration, "Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for it's violation"...one certainly has to ponder what these folks were thinking about Motherhood! Was a visibly pregnant mother to be subject to "ridicule" if shown as such? Were movie goers not to see any "sympathy" for the "violation" of what is definitely the result of natural law...sexual relations and pregnancy? I just shake my head!

 

I can think of so many movies that were ruined by the Hays Office Production Codes, and it's always been my contention that it was exclusively this man, and this Office, that ruined them! And, "A Child Is Born" is one of the best examples we have on film today that demonstrates just how absurd these Codes actually were.

[silentfan66]

I taped 'A Child Is Born' yesterday and watched when I came home from work. I just about lost my lunch from giggling at all these thin gals giving birth to full term little bundles. The only real indication of labor that I heard was early on in the film when you hear a woman moan rather loudly from behind the delivery room doors.

 

Hell, I wish I had looked that good when I was pregnant. Despite the Code being in full effect however, I did enjoy the film, especially Gladys George.