Hitchcock and the Censors by John Billheimer
The author indulges in a bit of hyperbole when he calls the Motion Picture Production Code, in full force from 1934 through the ‘50s, a “self-inflicted wound.” But John Billheimer, in Hitchcock and the Censors, goes on to explain that the wound was anything but suicidal. Alarmed to see their films mutilated in various ways by state and local censors, fearing the specter of federal regulation and threatened with boycotts by religious leagues, the studios agreed to be regulated by the predecessor of the group that nowadays stamps film with ratings from G through NC-17.
Focusing on one of the era’s major directors, Billheimer isolates Alfred Hitchcock’s strategy in dealing with the Production Code Office, whose approval was needed before screenplays could be produced. The office’s censors were on alert for forbidden words (including “hell” and “damned”), kisses that lingered too long, ridicule of public or religious figures … it was a long list of taboos that many directors evaded visually, in tone if not words, in settings that signaled things that remained unspoken.
Hitchcock was especially sly in deliberately including taboo words or situations in early drafts presented to the censors. He then made a show of conciliation and fair play by removing them, distracting the censors from “questionable” content he regarded as essential. Hitchcock played games with the censors, but as one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed directors, he played from a position of strength.
Is Billheimer correct in writing that the Production Code “had an adverse impact on many of Hitchcock’s films”? Would Suspicion be better if Cary Grant was a sociopathic killer or Psycho improved if the shower stall was splattered with blood? Just as good a case could be made that working with and around the censors sharpened rather than dulled the director’s edge.
While it may be coincidental rather than causal, Hitchcock’s golden age occurred under the elaborate censorship rules of the Production Code and his films slipped as the guidelines loosened. For that matter, the Code’s strictest years saw the production of The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, Double Indemnity and All About Eve. History is complicated.
