From the Headlines to Hollywood by Chris Yogerst

Author:Chris Yogerst
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-11-17T05:00:00+00:00

This sparks a series of transgressions, through which Lily quite literally sleeps her way to the top of a well-established business building. The above speech was eventually truncated and paraphrased Nietzsche without mentioning him, as the cobbler tells Lily to “be a master, not a slave!” By June, the final version was approved at four minutes shorter, with a forced moral ending (where Lily and her husband give all their money to save a bank) but retaining much of its sex appeal.[79] Baby Face’s production and subsequent censorship battle led the film to be banned in countries such as Switzerland, Australia, and throughout Canada,[80] as well as in the states of Virginia, Ohio, and, temporarily, New York.[81]

The naughty narratives of films like Baby Face were not the censors’ only concern. Will Hays added an attack on film advertising in addition to film content. A main concern was the use of legs and cleavage, which played a major role in the steamy Warner Bros. sex films. Hays’s document frowns on “fancy lingerie,” “lengthy display of legs,” “bending over postures,” and any “scenes of bawdy nature.”[82]

Looking at Warner Bros.’ canon of films and musicals full of scantily clad dames and promiscuous stories, such pictures violate just about every aspect of Hays’s mandate. Part of his concern can be seen in a speech he gave to the MPPDA in March 1933 regarding new bills presented in Congress, including one that would “prohibit the shipment of allegedly obscene and immoral motion pictures in interstate commerce” as well as bills against block-booking and importation of foreign actors.[83] While dealing with local censorship boards unhappy with the promiscuity in Baby Face, Warner Bros. was getting ready to release Footlight Parade on September 30, 1933, another musical choreographed by Busby Berkeley.[84]

Footlight Parade begins on the premise that talking pictures will prevail over sound films (the reality for several years prior to 1933). This technological evolution changes the industry for those who worked with musicals, particularly Chester Kent (James Cagney), who finds himself out of a job. After hearing the news, Chester walks into a theater where a crowd is watching one of the John Wayne/Leon Schlesinger Westerns. Realizing that he needs to break the news of his unemployment to his wife, Chester says, “Bread line I hear you calling me.” Chester takes matters into his own hands and produces live prologues for movie theaters[85] with the help of Nan Prescott (Joan Blondell), Bea Thorn (Ruby Keeler), and Scotty Blair (Dick Powell). As Chester, Cagney commands the screen with both a tough-guy nature and a smooth, rhythmic dance style.[86]

In one particularly important scene, a man from the theater censorship office (Charlie Bowers, played by Hugh Herbert) shows up on set to complain about how Chester’s production will create decency offenses in 39 different cities. Chester angrily tosses a stack of papers at Charlie, before physically shoving the man through the door. One cannot help but notice this sequence was Warner Bros.’ way of sending a message to the MPPDA offices.

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