Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
45 used & new from $14.43

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration
 
 
Tell the Publisher!
I’d like to read this book on Kindle

Don’t have a Kindle? Get yours here.
 
  

Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration (Hardcover)

by Professor Thomas Doherty (Author) "What follows is not a biography of Joseph I. Breen but a cultural history of Hollywood and America with the life and character of Breen..." (more)
Key Phrases: miscegenation clause, motion picture medium, social problem film, Breen Office, New York, Production Code (more...)
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

List Price: $29.50
Price: $23.60 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $5.90 (20%)
  Special Offers Available
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Only 4 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want it delivered Wednesday, July 8? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
25 new from $19.95 20 used from $14.43
Also Available in: List Price: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover Order it used!
Paperback $22.50 $22.50 33 used & new from $16.95

Special Offers and Product Promotions

  • Purchase this entertainment book and get a 12 issues to either Rolling Stone, Men's Journal or Us Weekly for $2.95 each. That's less than $0.20 an issue. Here's how (restrictions apply)

Frequently Bought Together

Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration + Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema; 1930-1934 + Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies (Cambridge Studies in the History of Mass Communication)
Price For All Three: $75.16

Show availability and shipping details


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Going Bush: New Zealanders and Nature in the Twentieth Century (AUP Studies in Cultural and Social History series)

Going Bush: New Zealanders and Nature in the Twentieth Century (AUP Studies in Cultural and Social History series)

by Kirstie Ross
$22.76
The History of Sex in American Film

The History of Sex in American Film

by Jody W. Pennington
$39.96
Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies (Cambridge Studies in the History of Mass Communication)

Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies (Cambridge Studies in the History of Mass Communication)

by Gregory D. Black
4.7 out of 5 stars (3)  $35.09
The Catholic Crusade Against the Movies, 1940-1975

The Catholic Crusade Against the Movies, 1940-1975

by Gregory D. Black
4.3 out of 5 stars (3)  $38.99
You Can't Air That: Four Cases of Controversy and Censorship in American Television Programming (Television and Popular Culture)

You Can't Air That: Four Cases of Controversy and Censorship in American Television Programming (Television and Popular Culture)

by David S. Silverman
$14.96
Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this comprehensive coverage of cinematic censorship, Doherty, a professor of American studies at Brandeis University, probes the power of Joseph I. Breen (1888–1965), head of Hollywood's puritanical Production Code Administration from 1934 to 1954, and along the way, he captures the clash of Catholic priests, Jewish moguls, visionary auteurs, studio hacks, hardnosed journalists and bluenosed agitators in pre-TV Tinseltown. Born in Philadelphia, the Irish-Catholic Breen was a journalist turned publicist. His successful marketing of a film documentary showing Catholic multitudes at the 1926 Eucharistic Congress catapulted his career. With powerful backers in his corner, the Catholics and the New Dealers, Breen tightened the screws: I am hopeful of doing something, to lessen, at least, the flow of filth, but I have no illusions about the problem. He ruled with an iron fist, altering scripts and deleting footage until Otto Preminger cracked the Code in 1953 with The Moon Is Blue. Amid an avalanche of anecdotes and fascinating movie lore are 60 illustrations (ads, posters, stills) and a copy of the 1956 Production Code. The 42 pages of bibliographic notes are evidence of the author's exhaustive research. Doherty writes with such wit and verve, bringing the past to life, that this scholarly study is also a very entertaining read. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Doherty writes with such wit and verve, bringing the past to life... a very entertaining read." -- Publishers Weekly



"Compelling, colorful, insightful, and nearly encyclopedic in detail, this book seems destined to become the definitive scholarly biography of Breen. Highly recommended." -- Library Journal



"[An] entertaining and rigorous biography of Breen." -- Ada Calhoun, New York Times Book Review



"A fascinating read for anyone interested in American film history." -- Carol O'Sullivan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



"[An] authoritative, entertaining, unexpectedly unnerving biography." -- Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times



"[A] brilliant and absorbing new book." -- Gerald Peary, The Phoenix



" Hollywood's Censor is a stinging portrait of a cultural strongman who made it his business to baby his fellow citizens." -- Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post



"Written with controlled exuberance, and much wit." -- Scott Eyman, Palm Beach Post



"A pleasure to read." -- Rob Hardy, Commercial Dispatch



"An exemplary biography... Highly recommended." -- CHOICE



See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 440 pages
  • Publisher: Columbia University Press (October 10, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0231143583
  • ISBN-13: 978-0231143585
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.7 x 1.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #365,610 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category: (What's this?)

    #28 in  Books > Literature & Fiction > Books & Reading > Book Banning

Inside This Book (learn more)

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration
69% buy the item featured on this page:
Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration 5.0 out of 5 stars (2)
$23.60
Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema; 1930-1934
10% buy
Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema; 1930-1934 3.8 out of 5 stars (8)
$16.47

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below.

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
Help others find this product — tag it for Amazon search
No one has tagged this product for Amazon search yet. Why not be the first to suggest a search for which it should appear?

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

 

Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Inescapable Code, January 10, 2008
By R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
According to _Liberty_ magazine in 1936, Joseph Ignatius Breen probably had "more influence in standardizing world thinking than Mussolini, Hitler or Stalin." Joseph who? Breen's name is lost to history. People who know something about Hollywood's history might know about the Hays Code, the now ridiculed moral standards Hollywood imposed on itself to keep the screen free of actors uttering words like "hell" or married couples using one bed. Will Hays had become president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, but Breen became his second-in-command, the one to tighten the code and make the studios do things according to his strictly upright, strongly Catholic, moral view. In the surprisingly lively and entertaining _Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen & the Production Code Administration_ (Columbia University Press), Thomas Doherty, a professor of American Studies who has written extensively on movies and television, presents not just a biography of Breen, but a history of American movie censorship. Anyone who loves old films will be amused and exasperated by how much Breen succeeded in imposing his personal version of morality on the movies.

Breen, born in Philadelphia in 1888 and raised in parochial schools by the Jesuits, had been a journalist and diplomat. He gave the Hays Code teeth, and his Production Code was in force from 1930 to 1968, and at least in its early decades it was in force with few violations. It is fun to read how directors got around the Code, both by bargaining and by winking at the censorship in a way audiences could enjoy. The films of Ernst Lubitsch were good examples, like _Angel_ (1937), a comedy set in Paris which squeaked by since the women in it offered "an amusing time" in a "delightful salon" rather than sex for hire in a brothel. It did follow the letter of the Code, but viewers with any intelligence could catch a plot that _Variety_ called "tartly flavored with the risqué". Those intelligent viewers were the ones that eventually spelt an end to the Code, and Doherty's description of its long decline and fall is fascinating. There was Rhett Butler's "I don't give a damn" speech that the studio managed to get approved with much publicity, but the millions who had already read _Gone with the Wind_ snickered about all the movie fuss. People also giggled about the Breen office's fixation about sweaters, garments which the Code insisted must not outline an actress's breasts. There was Howard Hughes's famous campaign to get uncensored shots of the zaftig Jane Russell in _The Outlaw_ (1941). It caused a battle with Breen that lasted for years, and resulted in the movie being shown to appreciative audiences without a Code seal but in independent movie houses. Protestants grumbled about the Catholic power over movies: "The minority control of the most vital amusement source of the nation is one of the most astounding things in the history of the United States," stormed the _Protestant Digest_. Film noir helped do in the code, as did World War II, as Breen fought to keep battle realism from the screen. Foreign films were a real menace to Hollywood's business-as-usual in many ways, but since Breen had no control in other countries, they kept sending films their own citizens found laudable and Breen thought execrable. The attempted censoring of the classic Italian film _The Bicycle Thief_ (1948) was because in one scene the kid in it stood at a wall and urinated, although no genitalia or urine was seen. People resented Breen's effort to keep this and other serious films from American eyes.

Breen does not come off as a prig, but simply as a pugnacious fighter for his own brand of morality and a conscientious Catholic with what he saw as a God-given duty, a duty he took so seriously that overwork probably shortened his life. There was never a hint of scandal in his public or private life, and he loved movies and was able to get along with most studios via amicable discussions rather than any strong-arm tactics. He was unable to tolerate any change in the Code, attempting to hold to it up to his retirement in 1954. He did have astonishing power; while it is possible to appreciate the way films subtly and cleverly got around his restrictions, they could have blossomed in other ways if there were no restrictions to begin with. Also, he had the power to snuff ideas; the film version of Sinclair Lewis's dystopian novel _It Can't Happen Here_ was never made because Breen thought the script submitted for his approval was "filled with dangerous material." There are many serious pages here to make a reader worry about how power got wielded in such a way, but there is also a good deal of fun because censorship, while inherently a nasty concept, seems extremely silly when viewed in retrospect. Doherty's witty prose is up to it; this is an academic work that shows resourceful digging through many archives, but it is a pleasure to read his humorous descriptions of serious censorial changes. For instance, he writes about an imported British film: "_Fanny by Gaslight_ (1944), a costume drama featuring a scene in a brothel and whose title was changed to _Man of Evil_ to preclude dorsal connotation stateside."
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Man Who Held Holllywood for Ransom, June 26, 2008
By A. M. Schmidt (Philly, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This book clearly explains the intricacies of movie censorship. Even without knowing too much, any reader may jump in and discover why Hollywood movies were as dull as ditch water from 1934-1968. The whole book centers around Joseph Breen, his censorship office and his furious efforts to thwart movies. It would be fascinating just to focus on him, but the book deftly links him to the rest of efforts by politicians and a stodgy Catholic clergy to impose morality on the nation. Throughout the text readers are treated to a man who wanted any taint of subversion or sensuality bleached out. Yet the efforts failed.
We see that the writers trumped censorship by doubling the dialog and oblique innuendos. Hence in "The Maltese Falcon", Spade faces off against a homosexual gang of thieves (Peter Lorre & Sydney Greenstreet), and Mary Astor reveals that she was the murdered Thursby's lover--through obscure observations. For example Ninotchka is an oblique commentary on Communism disguised as a love story. It didn't matter what the movie or cartoon, writers had either to go over their audiences' head or dumb down a storyline to get any profound or salacious detail in.
All this continued throughout Breen's woozy tenure as censor. But in the post WWII environment, the censorship of movies combined with the popularity of television, worked against it. Directors rebelled, starting with Otto Preminger's "The Moon is Blue" and ending with Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". Those films included more and more blatantly offensive materials to try the waters. Ultimately, the Censorship Board became a ratings board in 1968, conceding the battle to Hollywood.
The author reaches an unexpected conclusion. The 1930's to the 1950's aren't really Hollywood's Golden Age. In fact they were a period of Film Infantilization and finger-wagging moralism. Many films that were outright raunchy (Convention City), politically daring (Duck Soup), or bawdy (Belle of the Nineties), were airbrushed, suppressed or destroyed. He argues that the films were decent but could have been much better. All this because reactionaries got together and repeated conservatism's mantra:Decadence. This book serves as a starting point for alternative studies of the Studio System. Next, one should proceed onto "Dangerous Men" and "Complicated Women".
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
New! See all customer communities, and bookmark your communities to keep track of them.
This product's forum (0 discussions)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
  No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]


   


Product Information from the Amapedia Community

Beta (What's this?)



Look for Similar Items by Category


Need a Wrench with Great Impact?

Shop for impact wrenches at Amazon.com
Tough jobs require the power of a wrench that won't back down. A variety of impact wrenches are available for any number of projects at prices you'll like.

Shop for impact wrenches

 

Best Books of 2008

Best of 2008
Find our top 100 editors' picks as well as customers' favorites in dozens of categories in our Best Books of 2008 Store.
 

Dive into Summer Reading

Summer Reading for Kids and Teens
Don't even think about hitting the beach without browsing the books in our Summer Reading Store. Discover bestsellers, paperback picks, beach reads, and more terrific titles all summer long.
 

Best Books

Best of the Month
See our editors' picks and more of the best new books on our Best of the Month page.
 

 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.


Where's My Stuff?

Shipping & Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.

Continue shopping: Top Sellers
Paranoia
Paranoia by Joseph Finder
Glenn Beck's Common Sense
Glenn Beck's Common Sense
Darkfever
Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

Conditions of Use | Privacy Notice © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates