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... The 1950’s saw all these restrictions challenged, and The Man with the Golden Arm was one film that led the charge in altering censorship. Before we consider the film specifically however, it is important to be clear on exactly how Hollywood reached this point in its history, where a revolution of censorship concepts had become so necessary to revive the film industry. ...
In 1915 The Mutual Film Company went to court, claiming that Ohio’s film censorship laws violated the First Amendment of the US constitution. ... This decision essentially gave the green-light to film censorship across the US and in 1921 New York established the first Motion Picture Commission, whose role was to deny a license to any film deemed ‘obscene, indecent, immoral, inhuman, sacrilegious, or . ...
In the four decades that followed thousands of films were cut or banned due to strict censorship laws. ... An intriguing case of censorship can be found with the film version of Carmen (1927), condemned in Ohio because girls ‘smoked cigarettes in public’, and in Pennsylvania because of ‘the duration of a kiss.’ In 1928 alone, writes Gregory Black, New Yorks censorship board ‘cut over 4,000 scenes from the more than 600 films submitted, and Chicago censors sliced more than 600 scenes.’ (Black: 1994: p30)
At this point in film censorship history, each state had its own laws and restrictions on films, and standards were extremely varied across the US. Some states didn’t have any form of censorship at all. ... Hays introduced a uniform code for the US film industry, uniting all the states film censorship laws in one decisive, but still extensive list of do’s and don’ts. ...
At the same time the Catholic Church began to take matters into their own hands, and hired a theologian named Daniel Lord to produce a Catholic code with regards to film censorship. ... The gangster genre of the 30s and 40s more than any other caused massive problems for issue of censorship. ... Thus the gangster genre became the primary target for the church and its fellow lobbyists fighting for control and censorship over the film industry.
Often films only survived the censorship net thanks to putting in certain safeguards on the request of the PCA. ...
And in Howard Hawks’ Scarface (1932) censorship and film cutting was taken to a new level:
‘A subtitle “Shame of the Nation” was added, along with a scene in which civic reformers preached “You can end it. ... He, more than most, saw the damage that film censorship was having on both Hollywood and cinema reflecting real life and real issues. Thus he set out to defy the code and incite change in the censorship system. The Man with the Golden Arm was Preminger’s second open defiance of the Production Code, following a more minor but still noted success with The Moon is Blue (1953). ... 96)
The Man with the Golden Arm was the first Hollywood film to tackle the subject of drug addiction with honesty and graphic depiction. ... The film, produced and fully backed by United Artists (UA), had a massive impact upon the censorship system and the Production Code, and can be credited more than any other film with truly taking steps towards revising the 25 year old rules and regulations that the studios had had to operate under.
When the film was released in 1955, it was refused the seal of the MPAA, meaning that it had fallen short of the guidelines and limits set by the Production Code. ... ’ (De Grazia and Newman: 1982: p 139)
Thanks to its stars and the varying judgments of the censorship bodies the film was released without an MPAA seal and was huge box office hit across America.
Approximate Word count = 3020
Approximate Pages = 12.1
(250 words per page double spaced)
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