gangster genres
...ific criminal methods in recent gangster movies. Criminal acts were “never to be presented in such a way as to throw sympathy with the crime as against law and justice or to inspire others with a desire for imitation.” Murder must be presented in a manner that “will not inspire imitation” and “revenge in modern times shall not be justified.” Methods of crime such as theft, robbery, arson, safecracking, smuggling, and dynamiting of trains should not be explicitly presented. If these strictures were not met, a film project would no longer receive the code’s seal of MPPDA approval (Springhall 137-138). Organized protest against gangster movies reached its height with the publicity-surrounding director Howard Hawks’ Scarface (1932); in which the versatile Paul Muni overacted as Tony Camonte, another disguised Al Capone figure. This violent and fast paced film produced by millionaire Howard Hughes and scripted by former Chicago newspaperman Ben Hecht, reached the screen a year after Public Enemy but was actually made at the same time. The delay of Scarface occurred because in an effort to appease the movie censors. A subtitle “Shame of the Nation” was added to Scarface, along with a scene in which civic reformers preached (“You can end it. Fight!”) directly to the camera (McCarty 68). In another new scene, the city’s chief of detectives denounces the glorification of gangsters, echoing the very cries of the censors who ordered the changes. A different ending was also filmed using a double in which Camonte is brought to trial and sentenced to be hung by the state, rather than being shot down by the police on the sidewalk outside his hideout (McCarty 68). New York and Chicago censorship boards rejected Scarface outright until Warner Brothers agreed to make these changes but Jason Joy, who enforced the Hays Code, still had to convince them to show it cut. Each state in America had its own board of censors, so the original ending could still be seen in some theaters when the film was finally released in the spring of 1932 (McCarty 69). Hay’s damage-limitation exercise did little to silence criticism of crime or gangster movies and there was evidence of growing state and municipal censorship; also while reformers wanted to go further and persuade the federal government to institute a national motion picture censorship office. Rising concern about the harmful effects of cinema on youthful American minds had in 1928 led anti-Hollywood campaigner the Rev. William H. Short and his Motion Picture Research Council to commission a series of studies financed from the Payne Study and Experiment Fund, an organization based in Cleveland and headed by Professor W.W. Charters, who was the director of educational research at the Ohio State University. The Payne Fund Studies took four years to complete and was published from 1933 thru 1934. The reports showed that 30 percent of the American cinema audience was made up of children and adolescents (Jarvis 131). One early volume of the Payne Studies offered self-reporting by juveniles in which they blamed gangster films for aspects of their delinquent social behavior; but the report went no further than arguing that movies only indirectly encouraged criminal activities by stimulating fantasies and day-dreaming. Another volume concluded that the influence of movies on children was strong but was “specific for a given child and a given movie” (Jarvis 132). But the Payne Fund’s research was distorted to support the kind of statements about the effects of movies on young audiences that moral reformers had been making for years (Jarvis 135). As more Hollywood gangster movies were released--nine in 1930, 26 in 1931,and 28 in 1932, film cuts relating to violation of the law imposed by state and municipal censorship boards also increased. Half of the censorship material ordered by the Chicago censorship board in 1930-31 pertained to glorifying the gangster and showing disrespect for law enforcement. In New York, state censors slashed over 2,200 crime scenes during 1930-32 (Springhall 141). But gangster films were too far popular for film studios to pay much attention to the Hays Code. Evidently, the 1930 Production Code was not being enforced and was not legally enforceable. So in 1934, the Committee of Catholic Bishops formed the Legion of Decency. The Legion claimed it was dismayed by the movie industry’s sex and crime films of the early 1930s, and at a time of falling box-office receipts, had organized a campaign to boycott “vile and unwholesome” motion pictures. Catholics were asked to sign a pledge in regard to gangster films, swearing to “do all that I can to arouse public opinion against the portrayal of vice as a normal condition of affairs and against depicting criminals of any class as heroes and heroines, presenting their filthy philosophy of life as something acceptable to decent men and women” (Springhall 144). A boycott campaign, utilizing other like-minded groups was launched thorough the media. Lists of condemned films were circulated and some movie theaters were picked. Film producers broke rank in the middle of 1934, even before the anti-crime film propaganda picked up full steam. They agreed not to release or distribute a film that did not have an MPPDA certificate of approval which were to be issued according to the 1930 Code and administered by a Hays Office pro...