In 1921 the U.S. Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America Inc. asked W. H.
Hays, a prominent
Republican, to be their president in an effort to ward off plans for government censorship. One
of the first Hays
initiatives was to insert a "morality clause" into all actors' contracts forcing them to maintain at
least a facade of
clean living. In 1930 his Production Code was adopted by the industry; in 1934 it was made
mandatory, with
fines and sanctions on any film-maker who ignored it. The Code had a statement of general
aims followed by
twelve sections of "Particular Applications." These latter included such declarations as "The
treatment of
bedrooms must be governed by good taste and delicacy" and "Suicide, as a solution of
problems occurring in the
development of screen drama is to be discouraged as morally questionable." Inevitably, all sex
organs - even
those of children - were forbidden for screen representation, as were all forms of "perversion."
The critic George
Jean Nathan has commented that the effect of the Hays Office Code on Hollywood
film-making was "to picture
most characters in their amorous reactions to each other as practically indistinguishable from
little children
dressed up in their parents' clothes and playing house."