CHAPTER FOUR
JESUIT REGULATION OF THE MOVIE INDUSTRY: THE PRODUCTION CODE

“A Jewish-owned business selling Roman Catholic theology to Protestant America.” ⁸¹ This description of Hollywood’s “Golden Age” is very true. This is exactly what it was. The Jews owned the studios, but the “Church” of Rome dictated the morality of the movies, and Protestant-majority America rushed to cinemas to soak it all up. It was, when one stops to think about it, a truly extraordinary situation.

Jews were making most of the films, and various Roman Catholic reformers (and Protestants too) viewed Jews and their movies as attacking the morals of America. For example, a newspaper account at the time stated, “The Jews control the film industry and they are using their power to demoralise this Christian country. What they are doing today against the Irish they will do tomorrow against every other element in the American population with the exception of the ‘chosen people’ who must not be ridiculed in the movies or criticized in the press.” ⁸² There was truth in this. Jews did run the movie industry, and even if the major first-generation Jewish executives in Hollywood were not Communists themselves, they had become unknowing pawns in the hands of those who were out to pull down the morals of America. And the use of Hollywood to do this was part of the Communist agenda.

It was, in fact, a time when two powerful forces were vying for ever-greater influence over the American way of life; but Roman Catholicism was poised to trump Jewish-influenced Communism for decades.

In 1921 Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent stated that the movies were “Jew-controlled, not in spots only, not 50 per cent merely, but entirely; with the natural consequence that now the world is in arms against the trivializing and demoralizing influences of that form of entertainment as presently managed…. As soon as the Jews gained control of the ‘movies’, we had a movie problem, the consequences of which are not yet visible. It is the genius of that race to create problems of a moral character in whatever business they achieve a majority.” Later it stated: “It is not that producers of Semitic origin have deliberately set out to be bad according to their own standards, but they know that their whole taste and temper are different from the prevailing standards of the American people…. Many of these producers don’t kn ow how filthy their stuff is – it is so natural to them.” ⁸³

By sheer weight of numbers due to the large-scale Roman Catholic mass migration to the United States, by the late 1920s urban areas were politically in the control of Roman Catholics. In 1928 A1 Smith, an Irish-American Papist, was even nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate. Rome’s plan was working: the United States was gradually becoming a Roman Catholic nation, via huge Roman Catholic immigration.

Many Protestant Americans saw the danger from both camps: Jewish Communism and Roman Catholicism. They began to speak out and oppose both. This caused William Brady, president of the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry, to say in 1921: “If these slanderers, Jew-baiters and Catholic haters are not silenced, we must fight to the finish with no quarter.” ⁸⁴

And because of this new-found political clout, American Papists were now able to strongly oppose whatever they considered a threat to their religion:

The Callahans and the Murphys (1927): a Storm Erupts Over the Portrayal of Irish Papists

In 1927, right at the tail end of the silent movie era, The Callahans and the Murphys was released by MGM. This movie, a comedy, dealt with the rowdy relationship between two Irish-American Roman Catholic families living in a New York City tenement – and a storm erupted over the fact that Irish Roman Catholics were portrayed as dirty, often drunk, rowdy, vulgar; and also because it portrayed Irish Romanists essentially as foreigners in America, implying in addition that they were not even racially white. Irish-American organisations in Los Angeles asked MGM to recall the film, but the studio would not do so, saying that it was a comedy and that the Irish-Americans, like everyone else, must learn to accept a certain amount of good-natured humour. “Unfortunately for MGM”, however, “Irish eyes weren’t smiling, much less laughing, by that point”. ⁸⁵ The protests spread across the country, with Irish-American organisations leading the way. Many theatres refused to show the movie. MGM tried to calm things down by pointing out that Irish-American actors had played in the film, and Irish-American groups had been consulted before it was released; but to no avail. And furthermore, films about the Irish made by other studios now also came under the spotlight. Things got so bad that a warning was issued to all studios, by an MPPDA official, that special care had to be taken with any movies dealing either with the Irish or the Roman Catholic religion.

MGM agreed to consider possible cuts to the film, and also asked Rita McGoldrick of the IFCA and priest John Kelly of the Catholic Theater Guild to suggest possible revisions to the movie. They suggested that all references to the Roman Catholic “Church” be cut out of the film. But Charles McMahon and priest Burke of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) were disgusted with the film, and claimed that it could not be redeemed by any cuts. In a statement to America’s Roman Catholic press, the NCWC declared, “In its introduction of Catholic ‘atmosphere’ – the name of St. Patrick, the Crucifix, the Sign of the Cross – it [The Callahans and the Murphys ] is a hideous defamation of Catholic beliefs and practices.” ⁸⁶ State and local censorship boards became involved, withdrawing the film in some cases. Cuts were made. But even when Will Hays convinced Los Angeles Romish bishop, John Cantwell, to issue a statement that the changes meant the film was no longer anti-Catholic, the Irish-American and Papist press did not widely report on this. And the opposition continued unabated, the cuts that were made not changing Irish Papist anger at the film. The Gaelic American, a New York Irish newspaper, stated that the film was still, after all the cuts, “the most insulting characterization of the Irish ever put on the screen”, and actually warned MGM that unless the studio withdrew the movie people would take matters into their own hands. ⁸⁷

MGM decided to fight back, saying no more editing would be done to the film, and declaring that the attacks were unfounded. The Irish Roman Catholic press continued to condemn the film. Irish- American Papists and their priests protested vehemently countrywide, even at times throwing rotten fruit, lightbulbs, rocks, and even acid at the screen. Many protesters were arrested. And similar protests occurred at the screenings of other films perceived as being anti-Irish. Stampedes occurred in the movie houses. Some theatres were placed under police guard. Irish Roman Catholics were on the rampage, and yet could not see the irony and the hypocrisy of their actions: they were violently protesting against a film in which the Irish were depicted as violent brawlers! They were demonstrating, to the rest of America, that Irish Papists were precisely the kind of people as depicted in the film! As Life magazine put it so well in an exchange: “Mr. Callahan: ‘Did you protest against showing the movie that represents the Irish as disorderly?’ Mr. Murphy:‘Did we? We wrecked the place!”’ ⁸⁸

Next, the Irish-American press fumed that “traitorous” Irish-American judges issued what they deemed harsh sentences against the protesters who had been arrested. And the Gaelic American stated that when one protester refused to pay his fine, a Jewish judge had taken the “outrageous step” of ordering him to be sent to jail, handcuffed to a black prisoner – thereby (according to the paper) “express [ing] his opinion of the entire Irish race.” ⁸⁹

In fact, this barb about a Jewish judge mistreating an Irishman was part of a much wider attitude of Irish Romanists to Jews. The Irish- American press claimed the “Jewish Trust” was warring against Irish- Americans, and one paper, the Irish World and Independent Liberator, spoke of the “filthy hands” of Hollywood Jews being laid on Irish women. ⁹⁰ The opposition continued throughout that year of 1927. Romish priests condemned the film in their sermons, and in places Roman Catholics were told by their priests to boycott it. Theatres began to withdraw it in cities and towns across America. And ultimately, under huge pressure, MGM withdrew the film from circulation. ⁹¹

The Irish-American Roman Catholic critics rejoiced at their power to force a major Hollywood studio to cave in to their demands. Roman Catholicism had flexed its muscles, and was very pleased with its growing power. “The campaign against The Callahans and the Murphys taught Irish and Catholic organizations that united action could force Hollywood to bend. As a member of Hays’s staff prophetically remarked at the end of 1927: ‘I am inclined to think the withdrawal of The Callahans and the Murphys… has established a precedent which will rise up to plague us in the future.’” ⁹² As subsequent events proved, he was right.

King of Kings (1927): Introducing Jesuit Priest Daniel Lord to Hollywood

This silent movie was a depiction of the life of Christ, by Hollywood’s larger-than-life religious-epic creator, Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille, fearful of negative reaction over his depiction of Christ, asked Will Hays to assist him in finding religious consultants to advise on the film as it was being made; and he also invited possible religious critics to the set, where they held Bible readings and prayers. Hays recommended certain consultants, but DeMille chose advisors from the three major religious groups: Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish. Of the three, DeMille knew that his Roman Catholic choice would be the most important, for Roman Catholic reaction to the film was what concerned him the most – Rome’s muscle in Hollywood was being flexed and he knew it! So, to placate possible Papist protesters, he took no chances: on the recommendation of priest Burke of the NCWC, he employed a Jesuit priest, Daniel Lord, to be the technical advisor for the film. We shall hear much of Lord, for he was to become a very prominent and important figure in Hollywood. In a few short years’ time, he would be the author of the all-important Motion Picture Production Code, that would cast Rome’s shadow over Hollywood for decades to come.

DeMille, a very vain man, managed to convince Lord that his motive for making the movie was – as he told the cast and crew on the very first day on set – because he wanted to “do good and make people know and love Christ”. He told the Jesuit that he was willing to do anything to make the Roman Catholic “Church” happy with the film. He was even willing to cut the “Protestant” ending to the Lord’s Prayer when the film was shown in the USA and in Roman Catholic countries. He banned profanity on the set, and every morning, as he appeared on set, the musicians played “Onward, Christian Soldiers”, “with all the players standing with bowed heads in reverence”. ⁹³ He even asked Lord if Roman Catholics could pray for the film’s success. All these things convinced Lord that DeMille’s was “the only real Christian company producing films”. ⁹⁴ And DeMille was later to state in his autobiography that the sight of priest Lord saying mass at sunrise on the set every morning was one of his “brightest memories”, because it was “like a continued benediction on our work.” Well, that might be the reason he gave, but here is the real reason: it was “a good insurance policy against future attacks on the film.” ⁹⁵ DeMille was certainly not a “Christian” film-maker, as many Protestants foolishly assumed. He was in it for the money, plain and simple, and he knew that keeping the “Church” of Rome satisfied was the best way to make money.

In fact, it was believed by many that the real reason he loved to make biblical epics was because they enabled him to film scenes that would never make it into a film otherwise. This was certainly seen in King of Kings, when it came to the portrayal of Mary Magdalene. DeMille used the opportunity to film her “nude from the waist up except for large jewelled plates at her breasts and a loose robe over her shoulders”, giving a sensual kiss, with her leg being leered at by a man. ⁹⁶ All this was too much for Lord, although DeMille convinced him not to make an issue of Mary Magdalene’s costume, claiming it was necessary to the story. But on Lord’s advice, DeMille cut the kiss scene and the leg scene. He also revised a scene which gave the impression that Mary Magdalene was Judas Iscariot’s mistress. Lord, who had no problem with DeMille taking certain liberties with the factual history of the life of the Lord, drew the line here!

Hollywood producers in the decades ahead learned from DeMille that this was the way ahead: to get Roman Catholic advisors onto their sets. “Hiring Catholic technical advisors became roughly analogous to obtaining an imprimatur. It did not assure there would be no controversy, but it did smooth the way to the theater.” ⁹⁷

Films in which an actor portrays the Lord Jesus Christ are completely contrary to Holy Scripture, ⁹⁸ and thus Christians are not to support or endorse any film of the life of Christ in which He is shown. But a film could still be made of biblical or historical events if it is accurate and truthful. Hollywood, however, from its inception sold its soul to the devil, and simply could not be trusted to produce such a movie, because film-makers desperately tried not to offend anyone, religiously. In making a biblical film, it was inevitable that if it was going to be accurate, it would offend someone; but Hollywood, in seeking to offend no one, produced films that were inaccurate, leaving out major events or important aspects, preferring rather to attempt to keep all religious groups happy by producing movies that trod carefully between all of them. To offend no one, they had to please everyone; and to please everyone they had to sacrifice truth.

Daniel Lord, the Jesuit, rejoiced that his influence was so great on the set of King of Kings, and wanted Roman Catholic influence over Hollywood to continue and to grow. The last thing he wanted was for the (Protestant) Federal Council of Churches, represented by minister George Reid Andrews, the Protestant advisor on the set, to increase in influence over Hollywood productions. So Lord asked priest John Burke of the NCWC to appoint a committee to critique King of Kings. Lord believed that if the “Church” of Rome would endorse the movie, Roman Catholic influence over future Hollywood films would be greatly increased.

A committee was duly appointed, and all but one of the members endorsed the film. That one was Lord’s fellow-Jesuit priest, Joseph Husslein. He objected to the movie’s sensuous nature and the historical licence permitted in the making of it, saying, “It is the movies that must yield to the scriptures and not the scriptures to the movie”. ⁹⁹ This was of course a very correct statement; but he was still a Roman Catholic and a Jesuit priest, not a true Christian.

The result was that the NCWC did not endorse the film. It was however recommended by the IFCA. This lack of NCWC endorsement must have been a severe blow to DeMille, who believed he had bent over backwards to accommodate the Roman Catholic “Church”. But his troubles were far from over, for in addition, Jews objected to his film as well. Even though a rabbi had been a consultant on the film, the Jewish B’nai B’rith organisation, and various Jewish papers, demanded the withdrawal of the film on the grounds that it would prejudice Christians against Jews. Eventually it was agreed that certain scenes which Jews found objectionable would be eliminated, and a foreword would be added exculpating the Jews for the death of Christ. ¹⁰⁰

These concessions to the Jews, in turn, angered influential Roman Catholics! One of these was Rita McGoldrick of the IFCA. She engaged in an all-out battle to promote the film despite Jewish objections. If the Hays Office heard of a local Jewish protest against the film, McGoldrick was contacted, and she immediately wrote to Romish priests to get them to promote the film in their areas.

The Production Code: a Jesuit Creation

The first step towards regulation and control of the movie industry came in 1927, a result of growing calls for censorship: as was seen, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America adopted the “Don’ts and Be Carefuls”, guidelines for handling such issues as religion, race, national origin, etc. ¹⁰¹ But as far as a small but growing number of Roman Catholic priests and “laymen” were concerned, it did not go far enough. They felt something more had to be done, and that more censorship, in Rome s favour, was needed. And now the Romish hierarchy in the United States and the leadership of some Romish “lay” organisations became involved, more than ever before, in film censorship, resulting in Roman Catholics actually becoming the regulators of the movie industry from 1930 onwards! This is how it happened:

Hollywood producers felt that the censorship boards were too strict; and so the trade organisation for movies, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), worked out how they could get around these censors. In 1930 the members of the MPPDA adopted what was called the Motion Picture Production Code (also known as the Hays Code). This Code set out the moral standards for movie plots, behaviours, and representations. It stated, “No picture shall be produced which will lower the moral standards of those who see it.”

There was heavy Roman Catholic involvement in the actual formulation of this Production Code. And here is the bombshell: the man who actually authored the Code was none other than the Jesuit priest, Daniel Lord, assisted by a staunch Irish-American Roman Catholic publisher of a film trade journal named Martin Quigley! ¹⁰² And who would enforce it? Yet another staunch Irish-American and Jesuit- trained Roman Catholic, Joseph I. Breen! Lord, Quigley, Breen: the three Papists who held Hollywood in their hands.

Let us see how this came about:

Martin Quigley was a devout Irish-American Papist, a graduate of Catholic University, and the owner and publisher of Exhibitors Herald, a movie industry trade journal. This later became the Motion Picture Herald. He wanted movies to promote Rome’s idea of good morals, not pull them down, but he opposed government censorship, believing it to be ineffective. He was also in a very compromised position himself, condemning immoral movies yet making his living by advertising those very movies in his trade journal! This often meant that he was viewed as a hypocrite – which, in fact, is what he was.

His view of censorship was that objectionable content in a film should be removed during the production stage, thereby removing the need for government censorship. In addition, he believed that movies should avoid social, political and economic subjects. They should be straightforward entertainment, not social commentaries. ¹⁰³

So what did he do? In 1929 he teamed up with a Jesuit priest, Fitz-George Dinneen, to come up with a new code of behaviour for the movie industry!

Dinneen differed with Quigley on the issue of government censorship, believing it was necessary. He viewed movies as destroying, in particular, the morals of the youth of America. Both he and Quigley were on the board of trustees of Loyola University, and one night in 1929 Dinneen declared at a trustees’ meeting, “I’m going to teach some people in town a lesson. I’ll stop these filthy pictures from coming into my parish.” He believed that the moviemakers were incapable of policing themselves, and in an anonymous editorial in the archdiocesan paper, which he probably wrote, it was stated that the moviemakers “were not artists [but] ex-pants pressers and ex-push cart merchants of the lower east side of New York”, and that few of them were “real Americans.” ¹⁰⁴ However, once he began meeting with Quigley to discuss how movies could be cleaned up, Dinneen listened to Quigley’s thoughts about the need for a self-regulating system of censorship rather than government censorship. They saw a need to replace the “Don’ts and Be Carefuls” with a better set of rules for the film industry, and they began to draw one up. It was to be a code of morality. They asked Roman Catholic “layman”, Joseph Breen (more about him further on), and another Jesuit priest named Wilfred Parsons, to give their input as well.

Dinneen arranged a meeting for Quigley with Romish cardinal, George W. Mundelein, to discuss this proposed Code. Mundelein was a long-time advocate of police censorship of movies, but Quigley reasoned that a new Code, written by Roman Catholics and supported by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, would remove any need for censorship, either by the police or by the government. He believed that the movie industry could be massively influenced by the Roman Catholic institution, consisting as it did of twenty million members in America at that time, most of whom were massed in the great urban centres (where most movies played). Quigley reasoned – correctly as it turned out – that the movie industry would be too afraid to oppose any united Roman Catholic action against immoral films. The industry had too much to lose by effective Roman Catholic opposition. ¹⁰⁵ Essentially Quigley was saying: money talks.

Mundelein agreed with Quigley, and when Dinneen suggested that yet another Jesuit priest, Daniel Lord (Dinneen’s friend and a former pupil of his), be brought in to write the Code (Lord had been suggested to Dinneen by Quigley), Mundelein supported this as well.

Lord was an intellectual, a professor of dramatics at St. Louis University, a gifted musician, popular speaker, prolific author, lover of movies, and the editor of Queen s Work, a publication for Roman Catholic youth. Thus he was well versed in the Jesuit techniques of using theatrical productions for Rome’s own purposes, analysed in an earlier chapter. He of course was the priest who had been hired in 1927 by Cecil B. DeMille as a technical advisor on the production of the movie King of Kings. He not only became lifelong friends with DeMille but he also caught the Hollywood bug. As a result of his work on King of Kings, he was considered to be the leading Papist expert on movies. Although he loved films, he hated immoral films. He wanted films to promote good in society, not evil. He was very opposed to drama and literature which realistically dealt with sexual and social issues, as well as evolution, birth control, abortion, secular education, and Communism. And so it was that when Quigley approached him with the task of writing the Production Code he was ecstatic, saying, “Here was a chance to tie the Ten Commandments in with the newest and most widespread form of entertainment.” ¹⁰⁶

The Motion Picture Production Code, which Lord wrote, making use of the notes prepared by Quigley, Breen, and the Jesuits Dinneen and Parsons, was far more comprehensive than the earlier “Don’ts and Be Carefuls” had been. It had a list of positive and negative injunctions, giving specific guidelines on what was morally acceptable and what was not.

We see, then, the hand of the Jesuits at work behind the scenes, establishing their sinister influence over this relatively new, but vast and powerful medium. The very Code that would regulate Hollywood movies for decades to come (from 1930 to 1968) was conceived in the mind of a devout Roman Catholic, and then drawn up by Daniel Lord, a priest of Rome and a Jesuit priest, no less, with input from two other Jesuit priests, Dinneen and Parsons.

The Roman Catholic control of Hollywood was deliberate. And it was Jesuit-inspired and Jesuit-controlled!

All these Roman Catholics wanted movies to emphasise that the “Church” (by which they meant the “Church” of Rome), the government and the family were vital to an orderly society, and should not be undermined in films. Films should reinforce religious teaching concerning morals. Lord stated that films were, above all else, “entertainment for the multitudes” and therefore had a “special Moral Responsibility”. And because films were so immensely popular with all classes of people, and so powerful and seductive a medium, he believed they could not be permitted the same freedom of expression granted to plays, books or newspapers. It was vital, therefore, that no film should lower the moral standards of the one watching. No movie should make the audience feel any sympathy for a criminal, adulterer, etc. Right and wrong should be clearly set out in a film, and never be doubtful. Society’s values should be upheld, not attacked in films. The sanctity of marriage must never be questioned or attacked. The judicial system must be portrayed as being just and fair. Police must be shown to be honest. Government must not be ridiculed. ¹⁰⁷

No sensible person can deny that when a society’s moral foundation is undermined, that society has to crumble; and the evidence of this is all around for anyone with eyes to see. The problem, however, was twofold. Firstly, as we have seen and as will yet be seen in this book, any kind of moral or religious censorship, imposed either by a government, or by one segment of society, or by a particular false religion, is never a good thing, in fact it is a very dangerous minefield for many reasons. An entire country is forced to bow to the “morality” of a particular group or power. And secondly, this particular Code was, from beginning to end, a Roman Catholic Code, a Jesuit Code, with its great purpose being to exert Roman Catholic and Jesuit control over Hollywood. As moral as some Roman Catholics can be, they are still Roman Catholics, and their morality is a Roman Catholic morality, which is not (despite some resemblances) a biblical morality. Furthermore, the commitment of these men to their “Church” meant that they would also seek to ensure that films painted Roman Catholicism in a very good light. It was therefore a very dangerous thing.

After Lord had written the Code in 1929, Martin Quigley, with the backing of the “Church” of Rome, took the draft to Will Hays, and began working to get the movie industry to adopt it. Hays himself was sold: “My eyes nearly popped out when I read it,” said this Presbyterian. “This was the very thing I had been looking for.” ¹⁰⁸ He liked it because it would give him more control over the Hollywood studios. So he too began to work hard to get studio bosses to accept it. He and Quigley, fully supported by Mundelein the cardinal, set out to win over Hollywood. And later, as we shall see, so did Joseph I. Breen, who became the Code’s enforcer.

It was no easy task. The producers were not impressed. Some of them argued that the only restriction needed was that of moviegoing audiences themselves, who would simply support films they liked and stay away from those they did not. Lord, of course, was totally against such an idea.

How, then, did it come about that ultimately these servants of Rome were successful? How did the Code come to be accepted by Hollywood’s producers?

Well, many in Hollywood did not actually believe that the Code meant exactly what it said; and in addition, the producers had insisted on a concession that if a studio felt the Hays Office was interpreting the Code too strictly, a “jury” of producers, rather than officials from the MPPDA, would have the final say on whether a cut should be made to a film. The producers, therefore, on the strength of this, accepted the Code. But this was certainly not the way Lord understood it! As far as he was concerned, Jason Joy, the man appointed to enforce the Code for Hays, was authorised to reject scripts, thereby preventing a film from being made; and he was also convinced that Joy would enforce his Code rigidly, with the producers agreeing fully. Lord and the producers were certainly not reading from the same script! The producers believed the Code was nothing but a general guideline; the Jesuit believed it had to be enforced strictly. ¹⁰⁹

Playing Down the Papist Origin of the Code

The Code was adopted by the MPPDA and the Association of Motion Picture Producers (AMPP) in March 1930. But the Production Code Authority (PCA) would not actually be created until a few years later. Sometimes this period is referred to as the “pre-Code” years, but this is incorrect: the Code was in fact enforced during this period, just not as strictly as it would be after Joseph I. Breen was appointed as the Hollywood censor and the Roman Catholic Legion of Decency was created, in 1933-4.

The Code was known as the Hays Code, although in truth it was the Quigley-Lord Code. Hays himself, devout Presbyterian though he was, was certainly somewhat underhanded in this whole matter. Knowing that the Code had been written by “a Catholic priest, and a Jesuit at that” ¹¹⁰ , he sought to keep this fact hidden. As Lord put it, “Mr. Hays rightly felt that it was most effective if the spontaneous nature of the Code was stressed, the fact that it grew out of the will of the industry.” ¹¹¹ There was nothing spontaneous about it, of course, and the very fact that Hays was so willing to accept a Jesuit work says much about him and his Protestantism. And although he did not want it to be widely known that the Code was a Jesuit production, Hays was nevertheless perfectly willing to claim the glory for it himself by being “willing to let the Code be called the Hays code,” as Lord himself remarked. The reasons for Hays’ reluctance to let the truth be kn own were well understood by the three most important Roman Catholics involved: Quigley, the Jesuit Lord, and Code enforcer Joseph Breen. Quigley told Breen, “The recollection of your colleague, W.H., also is not very correct about this development [i.e. the origins of the Code], but the purpose in this case, is, of course, obvious.” ¹¹²

The reason for keeping the true origin of the Code secret for a long time was because its creators did not want a Protestant backlash, if it became widely known that the movie industry’s morality was in the hands of Papists. Quigley told his colleagues that it would not be a good idea for a Roman Catholic publication, such as the Jesuit weekly, America, to be in the forefront of supporting the new Code. Rita McGoldrick of the IFCA was very enthusiastic about the Code, but the Jesuit, Wilfred Parsons, told her to play it down. He told Quigley, “She didn’t like it, but she always does what we ask of her, even though she doesn’t know why.” ¹¹³

Lord’s authorship of the Code was only publicly revealed, in fact, in May 1934, in America; and Variety magazine stated that Lord’s authorship was “kept more or less a secret even from the average member of the film trade by the Hays organization during the [four] years the Code has been in effect.” Martin Quigley himself played down the Roman Catholic involvement in the Code’s creation, not wanting to “increase the fears and apprehensions of non-Catholics and strengthen the opposition to the Code operation.” He made it clear, to Lord himself, that “It is most undesirable that the Code and the Legion of Decency should be confused, [to imply] that the idea of the Code did not originate in the industry but was, seemingly, imposed on the industry by a Jesuit priest who came to New York and made the company heads take it”. ¹¹⁴ He stated that the Code “was formulated after intensive study by members of the industry and, according to Will H. Hays, by church leaders, leaders in the field of education, representatives of women’s clubs, educators, psychologists, dramatists and other students of our moral, social and family problems.” ¹¹⁵ Not by any means a true statement, but he was, after all, a Roman Catholic, influenced by Jesuits, with a Jesuit’s attitude to lies and deceit if it serves the “cause”. He even omitted mentioning, in his own journal, that he had played a significant role in devising the Code.

Lord attempted to play down his own role (and thus that of the “Church” he represented) in the creation of the Code. Years later, in 1946, he stated, “The Code was not to be an expression of the Catholic point of view. It was to present principles on which all decent men would agree. Its basis was the Ten Commandments, which we felt was a standard of morality throughout the civilized world.” Yes, he said, the Code just “happens to have been written by a Catholic priest,” but “the Motion Picture Production Code is not the product of the Catholic Church.” As one author remarked, “In so saying, Father Lord broke what, in the Catholic Decalogue, is the Seventh Commandment.” ¹¹⁶ Indeed he did; but a Jesuit priest has never been shy to lie if it will advance the cause of Rome by hiding Rome’s true intentions or involvement in something.

Roman Catholic Reverence for the Code

At first the Code was not well received by many Roman Catholics, with some Romish publications openly opposed to it. And what these publications said about it naturally filtered down to the general Roman Catholic public. This was very problematic, for the studios would eventually cotton on to the fact that there was no need for them to abide by the Code if the public did not support it. The devout Roman Catholics who had created it knew that something had to be done, and fast. They earnestly believed that the Code was primarily promoting not just any morality, but Roman Catholic morality. And so they went to work. On her radio show Rita McGoldrick praised the Code, while being at pains to hide its Roman Catholic origin, as she had been instructed to do by Parsons the Jesuit. Joseph Breen contacted most of the editors of Roman Catholic newspapers in 1930 to obtain their backing for the Code, and convinced over half of those he contacted to support it. Parsons, meanwhile, worked hard at getting the readers of America magazine to give it their support. Things did not go smoothly, however. Quigley distrusted Hays and told Mundelein, the cardinal, to avoid the Hays Office “as he would poison”, but Parsons wanted Mundelein to publicly endorse the Code. And Quigley was also angry to learn that Lord had accepted a $500 honorarium from Hays for his work on the Code. This caused Parsons to withdraw an article on the Code which Lord had written for America. But eventually Mundelein endorsed it, followed by the New York cardinal, Hayes. The cardinals’ endorsements of the Production Code were then published in America , ¹¹⁷ the Jesuit magazine.

In time, the Code came to be revered by many devout Papists. “Conceived in faith and invested with a sacred aura, the Code would be likened to another text, the Bible, and metaphors of print-based religiosity would waft around it like incense: the commandments, the tablets, the gospel… ‘The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me to be an inspired document,’ Breen recalled years later, italicizing his reverence.” ¹¹⁸ To the Roman Catholics who sought to control Hollywood, the Code practically was Scripture, given by God through His servants Quigley and Lord to keep Hollywood clean and to promote the “one true Church”. Breen believed the Code was “a moral treatise” whose “rules and regulations” stemmed from “the ancient moral law, which had been accepted by mankind almost since the dawn of creation.” Thomas Doherty, Breen’s biographer, declared: “To Breen, the Code was less a collaboration between Martin Quigley and Father Lord than a tablet handed down from Mount Sinai.” ¹¹⁹

Enforcing the Code a Constant Struggle

After the Code was adopted, Hays appointed Jason Joy and the Studio Relations Department (SRD) to enforce Lord’s creation. Joy served as censor till 1932, followed by Dr James Wingate until 1934. Producers voluntarily submitted scripts to these censors, who tried to get films to conform to the Code. At first the Roman Catholics behind the Code were quite satisfied. At the end of the first year of the Code’s adoption, Martin Quigley felt able to write, triumphantly, that “it has been enormously successful.” And Rita McGoldrick stated, “These are the days when the most fastidious person may have a wide variety of splendid films to select from.” Furthermore, “Everything Catholic on the screen has been, and is being, protected one hundred percent.” As for Lord, he wrote to Mundelein that if there was no Code, “conditions in the motion pictures this year [the first year of the Code’s adoption] would have been beyond description.” ¹²⁰

But despite such gloating, it was an uphill struggle for them and things were not going as well as they would have liked. The Great Depression had started, and moviemakers, desperate to woo back a dwindling movie audience, made films that were increasingly sensationalistic. Gangster films became extremely popular at this time, as gangsters were portrayed as above the law, with lots of money, fast cars and beautiful women, and yet they were men who did not work for their money and thumbed their noses at the authorities. Even the fact that at the end of these films the gangsters were either killed or arrested did not make them any less appealing to moviegoers struggling in the Depression era. Over fifty gangster movies had been made by the end of 1931. And of course such films were very popular with boys, which enabled the studios to rake in even more money. Yet the notorious gangster, A1 Capone himself, during a press conference before going to prison, said that all gangster films should be thrown away. “They’re doing nothing but harm to the younger element,” he said. “[They] are making a lot of kids want to be tough guys, and they don’t serve any useful purpose.” ¹²¹

But because the gangsters were punished in the end, and thus the lesson was put across that crime did not pay, Joy felt this rash of gangster movies did not in fact promote crime, but rather the opposite. He did not want to be seen as narrow-minded, but constructive as far as possible in his censorship; and so these movies were passed by him. But his approach was anathema to censorship boards, and he had an ongoing struggle to convince them that he was right. As one author put it, “With the chair of the Studio Relations Committee going around the country lobbying for crime films, Code supporters began to wonder if the fox had been appointed to protect the henhouse.” ¹²²

Little Caesar (1930): Just a Nod to the Roman Catholic Religion

This, one of the most famous gangster films of all time, like other gangster films of the period pitted Roman Catholic immigrants against native-born Protestant Americans, the former being depicted as free- spirited, anti-Prohibition, etc., and the latter as puritanical spoilsports. In this film the gangster hero is a lapsed Roman Catholic, a tough immoral killer and a closet sodomite. Many railed against the film because of its apparent glorification of crime and criminals, but the lead actor, Edward G. Robinson, often stated that this was not the case, and that the film taught the Christian lesson that “he who lives by the sword shall die by it, or, the wages of sin is death.” ¹²³ Doubtless this was the angle used to attempt to mollify offended Romanists and others, but more discerning people could see the real truth: that gangster movies, first and foremost, were entertainment for people in the Depression era, not moral lessons. One cannot watch an entire film in which the hero lives the high life by means of his criminal deeds, and then expect the audience to go home with the message that “crime doesn’t pay” merely because the hero “dies like a rat” at the end. Any supposed “morality” in such films was inserted merely to pacify religious critics.

Public Enemy (1931): Depicting Irish Papist Gangsterism

This film, another gangster movie, revolves around an Irish-American immigrant family where two sons are gangsters. “Hollywood’s Irish are all shantytown papists, full of blarney and bluster.” ¹²⁴ The movie is permeated throughout with the Roman Catholicism of the brothers, for in those times to be Irish was to be Papist, and everything in their world was permeated by their “Church”. But even so, the movie was certainly not a pro-Papist morality film. It was a gangster film, plain and simple, in which the gangsters happened to be Papists (as so many were). In an attempt to mollify critics, the producers added a title card in which they stated: “It is the intention of the authors of The Public Enemy to honestly depict an environment that exists today in a certain strata of American life, rather than glorify the hoodlum or criminal.” But again, this disclaimer was nothing more than a sop to the critics and to the new Production Code administrators. The film, like all gangster films of the time, was all about violence and vice to thrill the audience. The producers’ advertising copy, as has been correctly pointed out, revealed their real intentions far better, for there they said: “It is real, real, devastatingly real. A grim depiction of the modem menace! Come prepared to see the worst of women and the cruelest of men – as they really are!” ¹²⁵ When one truly wants to get across the message that crime is evil and does not pay, one does not make a movie which focuses on the criminals’ lives with relish and in graphic detail. Plainly, some film-makers were ignoring the Code, or at most paying only scant attention to it. Jason Joy was not doing a good job of enforcing it.

Scarface (1932): Depicting Italian Papist Gangsterism

The film’s main character, Italian immigrant Antonio Camonte, was perhaps the most disturbing of all the gangsters portrayed in movies of that era, for he was based on real-life gangster A1 Capone. And just as with Public Enemy, the producers of Scarface tried to mollify critics with a prefatory title card, in which they stated that the movie was an “indictment of gang rule in America and of the callous indifference of the government to this constantly increasing menace to our safety and liberty.” But, as with Public Enemy, this disclaimer was simply designed as a sop to the critics and the Production Code administrators.

Director Howard Hawkes made certain that there was always a religious context to the crimes of Camonte, by including the all- pervasive symbol of the cross. It is, quite literally, almost everywhere in the film. It is seen at every depicted killing. Also, Camonte’s mother is depicted in the film as an Old World Papist, superstitious, devout, trying to protect her daughter from going the same way as her evil son.

Italian Roman Catholics were not impressed. They felt the film besmirched their religion and their ethnicity. Calls were increasingly being heard for something to be done about such movies.

“Fallen Woman” Films Follow the Gangster Films

When, finally, a clampdown by Hays occurred, the studios turned to making movies with frank sexual themes and seductive actresses, such as Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford. Sex, they knew, always sells. There was a rash of “fallen woman” films. In a movie called Possessed, Joan Crawford was the mistress of a politician. Jason Joy challenged MGM producer Irving Thalberg over this film, but Thalberg claimed that there was no nudity in it, the subject was handled “in good taste” (how often these words have been used to justify sin!), and the Code was therefore not violated. Joy told Hays that it would be very difficult to force Thalberg to make any changes because in all likelihood a jury would rule in Thalberg’s favour. ¹²⁶

Joy was increasingly struggling to enforce the Code, as one “fallen woman” film followed another, each pushing the boundaries as far as they dared. Thus, despite the supposedly good influence of the Hays Office over Hollywood via the Production Code, things were going from bad to worse. “Even Irving Thalberg, whose studio had started the cycle with Possessed, feared that the industry was suffering from a surfeit of sex and crime pictures. He suggested as an antidote that each major studio should make ten important movies each year without any sex or crime angles, but no one, including Thalberg himself, volunteered to take the lead.” ¹²⁷

Jason Joy left the Hays Office in 1932 to work as a story consultant for Fox studios, and was replaced by James Wingate. When Wingate saw the Mae West films, She Done Him Wrong and I’m No Angel, full of one-liners containing sexual innuendo, he found nothing much offensive in them and told Hays so. They were passed by Wingate, amidst a storm of criticism from censorship boards countrywide.

Making Indecent Films of Indecent Books

It was precisely at this time of the Roman Catholic campaign against movies it deemed unsuitable, that Rome was also coming out with guns blazing against obscene and dangerous literature, calling on Papists to avoid it; and Daniel Lord was involved in this campaign as well. So was another Jesuit priest, Francis X. Talbot, who called for federal censorship of indecent novels, and who would later become an important player in the Legion of Decency. Hollywood, of course, wanted to make films of the very books that were being condemned as indecent: books by authors such as Sinclair Lewis, William Faulkner, James Joyce, Theodore Dreiser, Eugene O’Neill, and Ernest Hemingway. Talbot called some of these authors “crawling vermin” ¹²⁸ – and he was right.

Paramount Studios purchased the screen rights to Hemingway’s novel A Farewell to Arms. The Hays Office pointed out that the book contained profanity, illicit love, illegitimate birth, and a not very flattering picture of Italy during the war. This unflattering picture of Italy offended the Roman Catholics in America, for Italy was a very Papist country. Paramount, consequently, sought to remove Hemingway’s anti-Italian sentiments, toned down the illicit affair, and inserted some morality. Jesuit priest Dinneen, however, was greatly angered by the immorality in it.

RKO studios bought the screen rights to Sinclair Lewis’ novel Ann Vickers, a book containing such themes as illicit affairs and abortion. The script was submitted to the SRD for approval, and Joseph Breen, whom Hays had hired, said that he had not read anything quite so vulgarly offensive in years, and that it would not do. James Wingate agreed, and informed RKO. The studio was livid, but eventually agreed to make some cuts, which satisfied Wingate, and the film was released, angering Roman Catholics and others. Meanwhile Hays wrote to all the film studios, saying illicit relationships in movies were never justified, and demanded that films abide by the Code.

The Hays Office and the studios were colliding.

Enter Joseph I. Breen.