Of course there was the old "code" long before ratings that dictated that a wayward, abused, or abandoned spouse always had to return to the "original" husband or wife regardless ... good example - "Now Voyager"
I remember the M rating before PG-13. My brother snuck me in to see the rerelease of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in 1971. It was rated M. They then for a very brief time used GP, but people thought that meant it was like a G rating, so they changed it to PG. Pg-13 was introduced with either the first or second Indiana Jones movie.
Posted by Max at 1:54 am (PDT) on Tue August 18, 2009
It used to be that every movie had to be fit for the whole family to watch. Adults would not be able see anything that was unfit for a kindergarten child to watch. The rating system is a better idea.
Having said that, I really like seeing in old movies how cleverly mature themes could be communicated to adults without giving children a clue. Watch how Barbara Stanwyck asks (without asking) a doctor for an abortion in Stella Dallas; or the "up yours" gesture Bette Davis makes with a carrot stick in All About Eve. In Westerns, the prostitutes became dance hall girls and the Madam was a sort of tough housemother. Movies that oozed sex made use of gestures and costumes and some dialogue that doesn't always seem too subtle, as in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Maybe that's when movie makers decided that Hays Code type censorship was not satisfactory.
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Having said that, I really like seeing in old movies how cleverly mature themes could be communicated to adults without giving children a clue. Watch how Barbara Stanwyck asks (without asking) a doctor for an abortion in Stella Dallas; or the "up yours" gesture Bette Davis makes with a carrot stick in All About Eve. In Westerns, the prostitutes became dance hall girls and the Madam was a sort of tough housemother. Movies that oozed sex made use of gestures and costumes and some dialogue that doesn't always seem too subtle, as in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Maybe that's when movie makers decided that Hays Code type censorship was not satisfactory.
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