10 Facts About Production Code

Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968.

The Production Code spelled out acceptable and unacceptable content for motion pictures produced for a public audience in the United States.

Production Code sought not only to determine what could be portrayed on screen, but to promote traditional values.

The Production Code contained an addendum commonly referred to as the Advertising Production Code, which regulated advertising copy and imagery.

The Production Code was not created or enforced by federal, state, or city government; the Hollywood studios adopted the code in large part in the hopes of avoiding government censorship, preferring self-regulation to government regulation.

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Adherence to the Production Code 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 Casablancas most famous scenes.

Hays Production Code required a change in a major element of the plot of Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel Rebecca.

In 1956, areas of the Production Code were rewritten to accept subjects such as miscegenation, adultery, and prostitution.

The remake of Anna Christie, a pre-Production Code film dealing with prostitution, was cancelled by MGM twice, in 1940 and in 1946, as the character Anna was not allowed to be portrayed as a prostitute.

At the forefront of contesting the Production Code was director Otto Preminger, whose films violated the Production Code repeatedly in the 1950s.