Editing Hays Code (section)

==Enforcement==
===Pre-Code Hollywood===
{{Main|Pre-Code Hollywood}}
[[File:The Kiss (1896).webm|thumb|left|''[[The Kiss (1896 film)|The Kiss]]'' (1896), starring [[May Irwin]], from the [[Edison Studios]], drew general outrage from moviegoers, civic leaders, and religious leaders, as shocking, [[obscenity|obscene]], and immoral.]]
[[File:Great train robbery still.jpg|thumb|A famous shot from the 1903 film ''[[The Great Train Robbery (1903 film)|The Great Train Robbery]]''. Scenes where criminals aimed guns at the camera were considered inappropriate by the New York state censor board in the 1920s, and usually removed.<ref>Prince. pg. 24</ref>]]

On February 19, 1930, ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' published the entire content of the Code, and predicted that state film censorship boards would soon become obsolete;<ref name="B4445">Black (1996), pp. 44–45.</ref> however, the men obliged to enforce the code—Jason Joy (head of the committee until 1932) and his successor, James Wingate—were generally unenthusiastic and/or ineffective.<ref name="DH8" /><ref name="B5051">Black (1996), pp. 50–51.</ref> ''[[The Blue Angel]]'', the first film the office reviewed, which was passed by Joy with no revisions, was considered indecent by a California censor.<ref name="B5051" /> Although there were several instances where Joy negotiated cuts from films and there were definite—albeit loose—constraints, a significant amount of lurid material made it to the screen.<ref>Jacobs (1997), p. 27.</ref> Joy had to review 500 films a year with a small staff and little power.<ref name="B5051" /> He was more willing to work with the studios, and his creative writing skills led to his hiring at Fox. On the other hand, Wingate struggled to keep up with the flood of scripts coming in, to the point where [[Warner Bros.]]' head of production [[Darryl Zanuck]] wrote him a letter imploring him to pick up the pace.<ref>Vieira (1999), p. 117.</ref> In 1930, the Hays office did not have the authority to order studios to remove material from a film, and instead worked by reasoning and sometimes pleading with them.<ref name="Bl52">Black (1996), p. 52.</ref> Complicating matters, the appeals process ultimately put the responsibility for making the final decision in the hands of the studios.<ref name="DH8" />

[[File:Frankenstein's monster (Boris Karloff).jpg|thumb|left|upright|Actor [[Boris Karloff]] as Doctor Frankenstein's creation in the 1931 film ''[[Frankenstein (1931 film)|Frankenstein]]''. By the time the film's sequel, ''[[Bride of Frankenstein]]'', arrived in 1935, enforcement of the Code was in full effect, and the doctor's overt God complex was forbidden.<ref>Gardner (1988), pg. 66.</ref> In the first picture, however, when the creature was born, his mad scientist creator was free to proclaim [[Frankenstein (1931 film)#Pre-Code era scenes and censorship history|"Now I know what it feels like to be God!"]]<ref>Teresi, Dick. [https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/13/books/are-you-mad-doctor.html?pagewanted=2 "Are You Mad, Doctor?"], ''The New York Times'', September 13, 1988; accessed November 24, 2010.</ref>]]
[[File:DeMille - Sign of the Cross - Sacrifice in the Colosseum.png|thumb|From [[Cecil B. DeMille]]'s ''[[The Sign of the Cross (1932 film)|The Sign of the Cross]]'' (1932)]]
One factor in ignoring the code was the fact that some found such censorship prudish, owing to the libertine social attitudes of the 1920s and early 1930s. This was a period in which the [[Victorian era]] was sometimes ridiculed as being naïve and backward.<ref>LaSalle (2000), p. 20.</ref> When the Code was announced, the liberal periodical ''[[The Nation]]'' attacked it,<ref name="B4445" /> stating that if crime were never to be presented in a sympathetic light, then taken literally that would mean that "law" and "justice" would become one and the same; therefore, events such as the [[Boston Tea Party]] could not be portrayed. If clergy must always be presented in a positive way, then hypocrisy could not be dealt with either.<ref name="B4445" />'' [[The Outlook (New York)|The Outlook]]'' agreed and, unlike ''Variety'', predicted from the beginning that the Code would be difficult to enforce.<ref name="B4445" /> The [[Great Depression in the United States|Great Depression]] of the 1930s led many studios to seek income by any way possible. Since films containing racy and violent content resulted in high ticket sales, it seemed reasonable to continue producing such films.<ref>LaSalle (2000), p. 77.</ref> Soon, the flouting of the code became an open secret. In 1931, ''[[The Hollywood Reporter]]'' mocked the code and quoted an anonymous screenwriter saying that "the Hays moral code is not even a joke any more; it's just a memory"; two years later ''Variety'' followed suit.<ref name="DH8" />

===Breen era===
On June 13, 1934, an amendment to the Code was adopted, which established the [[Production Code Administration]] (PCA) and required all films released on or after July 1, 1934, to obtain a certificate of approval before being released. The PCA had two offices: one in Hollywood and the other in New York City. The first film to receive an MPPDA seal of approval was ''[[The World Moves On]]'' (1934). For over 30 years, virtually all motion pictures produced in the United States adhered to the code.<ref name="Doherty">Doherty (2006), [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901530.html "The Code Before&nbsp;..."].</ref> The Production Code was not created or enforced by federal, state, or city government; the [[Classical Hollywood cinema|Hollywood]] studios adopted the code in large part in the hopes of avoiding government censorship, preferring self-regulation to government regulation.

Father [[Daniel A. Lord]], a Jesuit, wrote: "Silent smut had been bad. Vocal smut cried to the censors for vengeance." Thomas Doherty, Professor of American studies at [[Brandeis University]], has defined the code as "no mere list of Thou-Shalt-Nots, but a homily that sought to yoke Catholic doctrine to Hollywood formula. The guilty are punished, the virtuous rewarded, the authority of church and state is legitimate, and the bonds of matrimony are sacred."<ref name="Doherty" /> What resulted has been described as "a Jewish-owned business selling Catholic theology to Protestant America".<ref>Scott (2004, 2010){{page needed|date=November 2015}}</ref>

[[Joseph Breen|Joseph I. Breen]], a prominent Catholic layman who had worked in public relations, was appointed head of the PCA. Under Breen's leadership, which lasted until his retirement in 1954, enforcement of the Production Code became notoriously rigid. Even cartoon sex symbol [[Betty Boop]] had to change her characteristic [[flapper]] personality and dress, adopting an old-fashioned, near-matronly appearance. However, by 1934, the prohibition against miscegenation was defined only as sexual relationships between black and white races.<ref>The Production Code of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc., 1930–1934, "miscegenation (sex relationship between the white and black races) is forbidden" (Part II, Item 6). No mention was made of miscegenation between whites and any race other than Black people.</ref>

The first major instance of censorship under the Production Code involved the 1934 film ''[[Tarzan and His Mate]]'', in which brief nude scenes involving a [[body double]] for actress [[Maureen O'Sullivan]] were edited out of the master negative of the film.<ref>Vieira (1999), p. 188.</ref> By the time the Code became fully functional by January 1935, several films from the pre-Code era and the transition period beginning in July 1934 were pulled from release exchanges (with some of them never seeing public release again), which led studios to remake some of its early 1930s-era films in later years: 1941 saw the release of remakes of ''[[The Maltese Falcon (1941 film)|The Maltese Falcon]]'' and ''[[Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941 film)|Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde]]'', both having had very different pre-Code versions released ten years prior.

The Hays Code also required changes regarding adaptations of other media. For instance, [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''[[Rebecca (1940 film)|Rebecca]]'' could not retain a major element from [[Daphne du Maurier]]'s [[Rebecca (novel)|1938 novel]] where the narrator discovers that her husband (the aristocratic widower Maxim de Winter) killed his first wife (the titular Rebecca) and she makes light of it, since it followed Rebecca having strongly provoked and taunted him. As having a major character get away with murder and living happily ever after would have been a flagrant violation of the Code, Hitchcock's version had Rebecca die in an accident with Maxim de Winter being only guilty for hiding the facts of her death.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Varnam |first1=Laura |title=Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca |url=https://www.dumaurier.org/menu_page.php?id=143 |website=dumaurier.org |access-date=November 18, 2021 |date=August 2018}}</ref> The [[Rebecca (2020 film)|2020 remake]], not bound by the Code, restored du Maurier's original plot element.

The PCA also engaged in political censorship. When Warner Bros. wanted to make a film about [[Nazi concentration camps]], the production office forbade it, citing the prohibition on depicting "in an unfavorable light" another country's "institutions [and] prominent people", with threats to take the matter to the federal government if the studio went ahead.<ref>{{cite AV media | title=The Brothers Warner | date=2007 | people=Warner, Cass (director) | type=TV documentary movie | url=https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Warner-Jack/dp/B002Y58G7S}}</ref> This policy prevented a number of anti-Nazi films being produced. In 1938, the [[FBI]] unearthed and prosecuted a Nazi spy ring, subsequently allowing Warner to produce ''[[Confessions of a Nazi Spy]]'' (1939),<ref>Holden (2008), [https://books.google.com/books?id=APjtGBMiSG8C&pg=PA238 p. 238].</ref> with [[The Three Stooges]]' short subject ''[[You Nazty Spy!]]'' (1940) being the first Hollywood film of any sort to openly spoof the Third Reich's leadership,<ref>Mushnik (2013), [https://nypost.com/2013/07/14/three-stooges-first-to-blast-hitler/ "Three Stooges&nbsp;..."], nypost.com; accessed December 18, 2016.</ref> followed soon after by ''[[The Great Dictator]]''.

Breen's power to change scripts and scenes angered many writers, directors and Hollywood [[media proprietor|moguls]]. Breen influenced the production of ''[[Casablanca (film)|Casablanca]]'' (1942), objecting to any explicit reference to Rick and Ilsa having slept together in Paris, and to the film mentioning that Captain Renault extorted sexual favors from his supplicants; ultimately, both remained strongly implied in the finished version.<ref>Univ. of Virginia (2000–01), [https://explore.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/show/censored/walkthrough/film1 "Censored"]</ref> Adherence to the Code also ruled out any possibility of the film ending with Rick and Ilsa consummating their adulterous love, making inevitable the ending with Rick's noble renunciation, one of ''Casablanca''{{'}}s most famous scenes.<ref>{{cite book|last =Harmetz|pages = 162–166 |first = Aljean|title = The Making of Casablanca: Bogart, Bergman, and World War II|publisher = Hyperion Books|date = 2002|isbn = 9780786888146}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last =Behlmer|pages = 207–208, 212–13 |first = Rudy|title = Inside Warner Bros. (1935-1951) |publisher = Viking|date = 1985|isbn = 9780670804788}}</ref>

[[File:Notorious1946.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Some directors found ways to get around the Code guidelines; an example of this was in [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s 1946 film ''[[Notorious (1946 film)|Notorious]]'', where he worked around the rule of three-second-kissing by having the two actors break off every three seconds. The whole sequence lasts two and a half minutes.<ref name="mcgmain" />]]
Some of Hollywood's creative class managed to find positives in the Code's limitations however. Director Edward Dmytryk later said that the Code "had a very good effect because it made us think. If we wanted to get something across that was censorable... we had to do it deviously. We had to be clever. And it usually turned out to be much better than if we had done it straight."<ref>{{cite web|title=PBS American Cinema Film Noir|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8uCuKxe4yk| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131001213029/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8uCuKxe4yk&gl=US&hl=en| archive-date=October 1, 2013 | url-status=dead|website=YouTube|access-date=January 6, 2019}}</ref>

Outside the mainstream studio system, the code was sometimes flouted by [[Poverty Row]] studios, while [[exploitation film]] presenters operating on the territorial (state-rights) distribution system openly violated it through the use of loopholes, masquerading the films as morality tales or [[muckraking]] [[Exposé (journalism)|exposé]]s. One example of this is ''[[Child Bride]]'' (1938), which featured a nude scene involving a twelve-year-old child actress ([[Shirley Mills]]). 

Newsreels were mostly exempt from the Code, although their content was mostly toned down by the end of 1934 as the result of public outrage over the coverage of the killings of [[John Dillinger]] in July, and of [[Baby Face Nelson|"Baby Face" Nelson]] and three girls in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the latter two occurring during the same week in November,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Doherty |first=Thomas |title=Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality and Insurrection in Hollywood, 1930–1934 |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1999 |pages=217–218}}</ref> not deviating much from the Code until World War II.  

However, the most famous defiance of the code was the case of ''[[The Outlaw]]'', a [[Western movie|western]] produced by [[Howard Hughes]], which was denied a certificate of approval after it was completed in 1941 since the film's advertising focused particular attention on [[Jane Russell]]'s breasts. When the film's initial 1943 release was shuttered by the MPPDA after a week, Hughes eventually persuaded Breen that this did not violate the code and the film could be shown, although without a seal of approval. The film eventually got a general release in 1946.<ref>Mondello (2008), [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93301189 "Remembering&nbsp;..."], npr.org; accessed December 18, 2016.</ref> The [[David O. Selznick]] production ''[[Duel in the Sun (film)|Duel in the Sun]]'' was also released in 1946 without the approval of the Hays Office, featuring several on-screen deaths, adultery and displays of lust.

The financial success of both films became deciding factors in the weakening of the Code in the late 1940s, when the formerly taboo subjects of rape and miscegenation were allowed in ''[[Johnny Belinda (1948 film)|Johnny Belinda]]'' (1948) and ''[[Pinky (1949 film)|Pinky]]'' (1949), respectively. In 1951, the MPAA revised the code to make it more rigid, spelling out more words and subjects that were prohibited. That same year however, MGM head [[Louis B. Mayer]], one of Breen's foremost allies, was ousted after a series of disputes with the studio's production head, [[Dore Schary]], whose preference for gritty "social realism" films was often at odds with the Hays Office. In 1954, Breen retired, largely because of ill health, and [[Geoffrey Shurlock]] was appointed as his successor.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_vlXAAAAIBAJ&dq=joseph-breen%20censor&pg=710%2C95570|title=Censors try tempering growing movie violence|author=Bob Thomas|publisher=Spokane Daily Chronicle|date=June 1, 1955}}</ref>

===Post-Breen era===
Hollywood continued to work within the confines of the Production Code throughout the late 1940s and 1950s, but during this time, the [[film industry]] was faced with very serious competitive threats. The first threat came from [[television]], a new technology that did not require Americans to leave their houses to see motion pictures. Hollywood needed to offer the public something it could not get on television, which itself was under an even more restrictive censorship code.

In addition to the threat of television, the industry was enduring a period of economic difficulties that were compounded by the result of ''[[United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.]]'' (1948), in which the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] outlawed [[vertical integration]] as it had been found to violate [[anti-trust]] laws, and studios were not only forced to give up ownership of theaters, but they were also unable to control what exhibitors offered.<ref>{{cite web |title=United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U.S. 131 (1948) |url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/334/131/ |website=Justia Law |access-date=23 June 2024 |language=en}}</ref>

This led to increasing competition from foreign films which were not bound by the Code, such as [[Vittorio De Sica]]'s ''[[Bicycle Thieves]]'' (1948), released in the United States in 1949. In 1950, film distributor [[Joseph Burstyn]] released ''[[The Ways of Love]]'', which included ''The Miracle'', a [[short film]] originally part of ''[[L'Amore (film)|L'Amore]]'' (1948), an [[anthology film]] directed by [[Roberto Rossellini]]. This segment was considered to mock the Nativity, so the [[New York State Board of Regents]] (in charge of film censorship in the state) revoked the film's license. The ensuing lawsuit, ''[[Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson]]'' (dubbed the "Miracle Decision"), was resolved by the Supreme Court in 1952, which unanimously overruled its 1915 decision (''[[Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio]]''), and held that motion pictures were entitled to [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] protection, and thus the short could not be banned. This reduced the threat of government regulation, which had formerly been cited as justification for the Production Code, and the PCA's powers over the Hollywood industry were greatly reduced.<ref name="H:325" />

[[File:Colony Theatre Ad - 2 September 1955, NW, Washington, D.C.png|thumb|right|U.S. theatrical advertisement from 1955 for [[Ingmar Bergman]]'s ''[[Summer with Monika]]'' (1953)]]
Two Swedish films, ''[[One Summer of Happiness]]'' (1951), and [[Ingmar Bergman]]'s ''[[Summer with Monika]]'' (1953) were released in 1955 as exploitation movies, their success leading to a wave of sexually-provocative European product reaching American theaters. Some British films, such as ''[[Victim (1961 film)|Victim]]'' (1961), ''[[A Taste of Honey (film)|A Taste of Honey]]'' (1961), and ''[[The Leather Boys]]'' (1964), challenged traditional [[gender roles]], and openly confronted the prejudices against [[homosexuals]], all in clear violation of the Hollywood Production Code.

Furthermore, the postwar years saw a gradual, if moderate, liberalization of American culture. A boycott by the [[National Legion of Decency]] no longer guaranteed a film's commercial failure (to the point several films were no longer condemned by the Legion by the 1950s), and several aspects of the Code had slowly lost their taboo. In 1956, areas of the Code were rewritten to accept subjects such as miscegenation, adultery, and prostitution. For example, a proposed remake of ''[[Anna Christie (1930 film)|Anna Christie]]'', a pre-Code film dealing with prostitution, was canceled by MGM twice, in 1940 and in 1946, as the character Anna was not allowed to be portrayed as a prostitute. By 1962, such subject matter was acceptable, and the original film was given a seal of approval.<ref>Schumach (1964), pp. 163–164.</ref>

Two 1956 films, ''[[The Bad Seed (1956 film)|The Bad Seed]]'' and ''[[Baby Doll]]'', generated great controversy involving the PCA. The first dealt with the deaths of children, including that of the "wicked child" protagonist Rhoda at the end, which had been the result of changing the ending from the original novel to abide with the Code's "crime must pay" rule. On the other hand, the second film was vociferously attacked by religious and moral leaders, partly because of its provocative publicity, while the MPAA attracted great criticism for approving a film that ridiculed law enforcement and often used racial epithets. However, the Legion's condemnation of the film did not attract a unified response from religious authorities, some of which considered that other films, including ''[[The Ten Commandments (1956 film)|The Ten Commandments]]'' (released that same year), had a similar amount and intensity of sensuous content.<ref>{{cite book|last=Haberski|first=Raymond J.|year=2007|title=Freedom to Offend: How New York Remade Movie Culture|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|location=Lexington, Kentucky|pages=84–86|isbn=978-0-813-13841-1}}</ref><ref>[https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/67860/baby-doll "Notes"] on [[TCM.com]]</ref>

[[File:Peachtree Art Theatre ads - 10 June 1955 - 28 March 1958.png|thumb|left|300px|U.S. [[art-house]] advertisements from the 1950s. Many Americans at the time turned towards racier and more provocative foreign films, which remained largely free from code restrictions.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Canby|first1=Vincent|title=FILM VIEW; The Flashbacks of a Festivalgoer |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/20/movies/film-view-the-flashbacks-of-a-festivalgoer.html|year=1992|page=1|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref>]]
During the 1950s, studios found ways of both complying with the code, while at the same time circumventing it.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vq5JpkX4rE8C |last1=Baumann|first1=Baumann |title=Hollywood Highbrow: From Entertainment to Art|year=2002|page=103|publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=0691125279 }}</ref> In 1956, [[Columbia Pictures|Columbia]] acquired an [[art-house]] distributor, [[Kingsley-International Pictures| Kingsley Productions]], that specialized in importing foreign art films, in order to distribute and capitalize on the notoriety of the film ''[[And God Created Woman (1956 film)|And God Created Woman]]'' (1956). Columbia's agreement with the MPAA forbade it from distributing a film without a seal of approval, but the agreement did not specify what a subsidiary could do. Thus, exempt from the rules imposed by the code, subsidiary distributors were utilized, and even created by major studios such as Columbia, in order to defy and weaken the code.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z7QhzlWkFowC |last1=Simmons|first1=Jerold|title=The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code |year=2001|page=227|publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=0813190118 }}</ref> [[United Artists]] followed suit and bought art film distributor [[Lopert Films]] in 1958, and within a decade all the major studios were distributing foreign art films.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6iQGEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT40|last1=Cook|first1=Pam|title=The Cinema Book |isbn=978-1-8445-7193-2|year=2007|page=52|publisher=[[Bloomsbury Publishing]]}}</ref> 

Author Peter Lev writes:
<blockquote>Explicit sexuality became expected in foreign films, to such an extent that "foreign film", "art film", "adult film" and "sex film" were for several years almost synonyms.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lev|first1=Peter|title=The Euro-American Cinema |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TG9ZAAAAMAAJ|year=1993|isbn=978-0-292-76378-4|page=13|publisher=[[University of Texas Press]]}}</ref><br></blockquote>

Beginning in the late 1950s, increasingly explicit films began to appear, such as ''[[Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958 film)|Cat on a Hot Tin Roof]]'' (1958), ''[[Suddenly, Last Summer (film)|Suddenly, Last Summer]]'' (1959), ''[[Psycho (1960 film)|Psycho]]'' (1960), and ''[[The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (film)|The Dark at the Top of the Stairs]]'' (1960), often dealing with adult subjects and sexual matters that had not been seen in Hollywood films since enforcement of the Production Code began in 1934. The MPAA reluctantly granted the seal of approval for these films, although not until certain changes were made.<ref>Leff & Simmons (2001), p. 231.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Nickens |first1=Christopher |last2=Leigh |first2=Janet |author2-link=Janet Leigh |year=1996 |title=Psycho: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller |publisher=Harmony | page=112 |isbn=0-517-70112-X |url=https://archive.org/details/psychobehindscen00leig}}</ref> Owing to its themes, [[Billy Wilder]]'s ''[[Some Like It Hot]]'' (1959) was not granted a certificate of approval, but still became a box office smash, and as a result, it further weakened the authority of the Code.<ref name="Hirsch">Hirsch (2007) {{page needed|date=November 2015}}</ref>

At the forefront of contesting the Code was director [[Otto Preminger]], whose films violated the Code repeatedly in the 1950s. His 1953 film ''[[The Moon Is Blue (film)|The Moon Is Blue]]'', about a young woman who tries to play two suitors off against each other by claiming that she plans to keep her virginity until marriage, was released without a certificate of approval by [[United Artists]], the first production distributed by a member of the MPAA to do so. Preminger later made ''[[The Man with the Golden Arm]]'' (1955), which portrayed the prohibited subject of drug abuse, and ''[[Anatomy of a Murder]]'' (1959), which dealt with murder and rape. Like ''Some Like It Hot'', Preminger's films were direct assaults on the authority of the Production Code, and their success hastened its abandonment.<ref name="Hirsch" /> 

In 1964, the [[Holocaust]] film ''[[The Pawnbroker (film)|The Pawnbroker]]'', directed by [[Sidney Lumet]] and starring [[Rod Steiger]], was initially rejected because of two scenes in which actresses [[Linda Geiser]] and [[Thelma Oliver]] fully expose their breasts, and also because of a sex scene between Oliver and [[Jaime Sánchez (actor)|Jaime Sánchez]] that was described as "unacceptably sex suggestive and lustful". Despite the rejection, the film's producers arranged for [[Monogram Pictures|Allied Artists]] to release the film without the Production Code seal, with the New York censors licensing the film without the cuts demanded by Code administrators. The producers appealed the rejection to the MPAA. On a 6–3 vote, the MPAA granted the film an exception, conditional on "reduction in the length of the scenes which the Production Code Administration found unapprovable". The requested reductions of nudity were minimal, and the outcome was viewed in the media as a victory for the film's producers.<ref name="Leff1996">Leff (1996), pp. 353–76.</ref>

''The Pawnbroker'' was the first film featuring bare breasts to receive Production Code approval. The exception to the code was granted as a "special and unique case" and was described by ''The New York Times'' at the time as "an unprecedented move that will not, however, set a precedent". In ''Pictures at a Revolution'', a 2008 study of films during that era, [[Mark Harris (journalist)|Mark Harris]] wrote that the MPAA approval was "the first of a series of injuries to the Production Code that would prove fatal within three years".<ref>Harris (2008), pp. 173–76.</ref>

===Abandonment===
In 1963, MPAA president [[Eric Johnston]], who had previously "liberalized" the Code, died. The next three years were marked by a power struggle between two factions, which led to an erratic application of the Code. Finally, the "liberal" faction prevailed by 1966, installing [[Jack Valenti]] as the Association's new head. The chaos of the interim period had rendered enforcement impossible and Valenti, an opponent of the Production Code, began working on a rating system under which film restrictions would lessen, an idea that had been considered as early as 1960 in response to the success of the non-approved ''Some Like It Hot'' and ''Anatomy of a Murder''.{{Citation needed|date=March 2023}}

In 1966, [[Warner Bros.]] released ''[[Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (film)|Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?]]'', the first film to feature the "Suggested for Mature Audiences" (SMA) label. As the PCA board was divided about censoring the film's explicit language, Valenti negotiated a compromise: the word "screw" was removed, but other language remained, including the phrase "hump the hostess". The film received Production Code approval despite the previously prohibited language.<ref name="LeffSimmons90" />

That same year, the British-produced, American-financed film ''[[Blowup]]'' was denied Production Code approval for its various instances of nudity, foreplay and intercourse. [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]] released it anyway, under a specially-created pseudonym, Premier Productions. This was the first instance of an MPAA member company directly producing a film without an approval certificate. Also, the original, lengthy code was replaced by a list of eleven points outlining that the boundaries of the new code would be current community standards and good taste. Any film containing content deemed suitable for older audiences would feature the SMA label in its advertising. With the creation of this new label, the MPAA unofficially began classifying films.<ref name="LeffSimmons90">Leff & Simmons (2001), pp. 270–271; 286–287.</ref>

The [[Motion Picture Association film rating system|MPAA film rating system]] went into effect on November 1, 1968, with the four rating symbols: "G" meaning suggested for general exhibition (persons of all ages admitted), "M" meaning suggested for mature audiences, "R" meaning suggested as restricted (persons under 16 not admitted unless accompanied by a parent or adult guardian), and "X" meaning persons under 16 would not be admitted. By the end of 1968, Geoffrey Shurlock stepped down from his post, and the PCA effectively dissolved, being replaced by the Code and Rating Administration (CARA), headed by Eugene Dougherty. The CARA would replace "Code" with "Classification" in 1978.<ref name="LeffSimmons90" /><ref>Doherty (2007), [https://books.google.com/books?id=mBAiYzRx5LQC&pg=PA334 p. 334].</ref>

In 1969, the Swedish film ''[[I Am Curious (Yellow)]]'', directed by [[Vilgot Sjöman]], was initially banned in the U.S. for its frank depiction of sexuality; however, this was overturned by the Supreme Court. In 1970, because of confusion over the meaning of "mature audiences", the M rating was changed to "GP" meaning "for general exhibition, but parental guidance is suggested", then in 1972 to the current "PG", for "parental guidance suggested". In 1984, in response to public complaints regarding the severity of horror elements in PG-rated titles such as ''[[Gremlins]]'' and ''[[Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom]]'', the "PG-13" rating was created as a middle tier between PG and R. In 1990, the X rating was replaced by "NC-17" (under 17 not admitted) because of the former's stigma, being associated with [[pornography]]; as the X rating was not trademarked by the MPAA (which expected producers would prefer to self-rate such product), it was soon appropriated by adult bookstores and theaters, which marketed their products as being rated X, XX and XXX.<ref>Fox, [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-09-27-mn-1406-story.html "X Film&nbsp;..."], latimes.com, September 27, 1990; accessed May 28, 2017.</ref>

As the [[American Humane Association]] depended on the Hays Office for the right to monitor the [[Set (film and TV scenery)|set]]s used for production, the closure of the Hays Office in 1966 also corresponded with an increase in animal cruelty on sets. The association did not regain its access until 1980.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Arnold|first=Jeremy|date=May 6, 2012|title=Jesse James (1939)|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/18071/jesse-james|access-date=August 25, 2021|website=Turner Classic Movies|language=en}}</ref>