Will H. Hays
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Will H. Hays | |
---|---|
Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America | |
In office 1922–1945 | |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Eric Johnston |
46th United States Postmaster General | |
In office March 5, 1921 – March 3, 1922 | |
President | Warren G. Harding |
Preceded by | Albert S. Burleson |
Succeeded by | Hubert Work |
Chair of the Republican National Committee | |
In office February 13, 1918 – June 8, 1921 | |
Preceded by | William Willcox |
Succeeded by | John T. Adams |
Personal details | |
Born | William Harrison Hays November 5, 1879 Sullivan, Indiana, U.S. |
Died | March 7, 1954 Sullivan, Indiana, U.S. | (aged 74)
Political party | Republican |
Spouses | Helen Louise Thomas
(m. 1902; div. 1929)Jessie Herron Stutsman
(m. 1930) |
Children | 1 |
Education | Wabash College (BA) |
William Harrison Hays Sr. (
Early life
William Harrison Hays Sr. was born November 5, 1879, in Sullivan, Indiana.[2] He attended Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana.[3]
Career
He was the
Teapot Dome scandal
The oilman
In 1924, after his resignation from the Harding administration and while he was serving as President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Hays was called to testify before the Senate Committee on Public Lands. When asked how much money Sinclair had contributed to the Republican Party, Hays testified that his contribution was $75,000. In 1928, after more details of Sinclair's scheme had emerged, Hays was called to testify again. Hays then told the full story of Sinclair's contribution, including the donation of $185,000 in Liberty Bonds and the $75,000 cash contribution. He stated that he had not mentioned the bonds in his earlier testimony because the Committee "had not asked about any bonds." While there was some public perception that Hays was attempting to conceal Sinclair's large contribution to the Republican National Committee, he testified that he was "using the bonds to raise money for the deficit."[4]
Chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America
Hays resigned his cabinet position on January 14, 1922, to become Chairman of the
The goal of the organization was to improve the image of the movie industry in the wake of the scandal surrounding the alleged rape and murder of model and actress
In his new position in Hollywood, Hays' main roles were to persuade individual state censor boards not to ban specific films outright and to reduce the financial impact of the boards' cuts and edits. At that time, the studios were required by state laws to pay the censor boards for each foot of film excised and for each title card edited; in addition, studios also had the expense of duplicating and distributing separate versions of each censored film for the state or states that adhered to a particular board's decisions.[citation needed]
Hays attempted to reduce studio costs (and improve the industry's image in general) by advising individual studios on how to produce movies to reduce the likelihood that the film would be cut. Each board kept its "standards" secret (if, indeed, they had any standardization at all), so Hays was forced to intuit what would or would not be permitted by each board. At first he applied what he called "The Formula" but it was not particularly successful; from that he developed a set of guidelines he called "The Dont's and Be Carefuls". In general his efforts at pre-release self-censorship were unsuccessful in quieting calls for federal censorship.[citation needed]
Catholic bishops and lay people tended to be wary of federal censorship and favored the Hays approach of self-censorship; these included the outspoken Catholic layman
The studio heads were less enthusiastic but they agreed to make the code the rule of the industry, albeit with many loopholes that allowed studio producers to override the Hays Office's application of it. From 1930 to 1934, the production code was only slightly effective in fighting back calls for federal censorship. However, things came to a head in 1934 with widespread threats of Catholic boycotts of "immoral" movies, as well as reduced funding from Catholic financiers such as
As an example of Hays' philosophy, he reportedly said to a movie director: "When you make a woman cross her legs in the films, maybe you don't need to see how she can cross them and stay within the law; but how low she can cross them and still be interesting".[10]
Hays worked with the U.S. government, particularly the State Department and the Department of Commerce, to maintain Hollywood's domination of overseas movie markets.[11]
Central Casting
When the entertainment industry started to take off in the early 1920s, thousands of people flocked to Hollywood with hopes of becoming the next big star. These hopefuls were called "extras" because they were the extra people who filled out scenes. The main way to find work at this time was to wait outside the gates of studios, hoping to be hired on the spot. With little regulation on hiring film extras, many people were exploited while looking for work. In an effort to fix the employment issues and exploitation that plagued the industry, Hays commissioned several studies of the employment conditions in Hollywood, including one from Mary van Kleeck, a prominent sociologist with the Russell Sage Foundation.[12] After reviewing the results of the studies, Hays adopted a suggestion of van Kleeck's and created the Central Casting Corporation in 1925 as a way to regulate the hiring of extras in Hollywood.[13][14]
Production Code
The production code enumerated three "General Principles":
- No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.
- Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
- Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.
Specific restrictions were spelled out as "Particular Applications" of these principles:
- Nudity and suggestive dances were prohibited.
- The ridicule of religion was forbidden, and ministers of religion were not to be represented as comic characters or villains.
- The depiction of illegal drug use was forbidden, as well as the use of liquor, "when not required by the plot or for proper characterization."
- Methods of crime (e.g. safe-cracking, arson, smuggling) were not to be explicitly presented.
- References to sex perversions such as homosexuality and venereal disease were forbidden, as were depictions of childbirth.
- The language section banned various words and phrases that were considered to be offensive.
- Murder scenes had to be filmed in a way that would discourage imitations in real life, and brutal killings could not be shown in detail.
- "Revenge in modern times" was not to be justified.
- The sanctity of marriage and the home had to be upheld.
- "Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing."
- Adultery and illicit sex, although recognized as sometimes necessary to the plot, could not be explicit or justified and were not supposed to be presented as an attractive option.
- Portrayals of miscegenation were forbidden.
- "Scenes of Passion" were not to be introduced when not essential to the plot.
- "Excessive and lustful kissing" was to be avoided, along with any other treatment that might "stimulate the lower and baser element."
- The flag of the United States was to be treated respectfully, and the people and history of other nations were to be presented "fairly."
- "Vulgarity", defined as "low, disgusting, unpleasant, though not necessarily evil, subjects" must be "subject to the dictates of good taste."
- Capital punishment, "third-degree methods", cruelty to children and animals, prostitution and surgical operations were to be handled with similar sensitivity.
Death
After his retirement, Will H. Hays returned to Sullivan, Indiana, where he died on March 7, 1954.[1][15] His widow died in 1960.[16]
In popular culture
In their 1940 short No Census, No Feelings, The Three Stooges refer to Will Hays and his position as censor czar in a joke, when Moe tells Curly, "We have a job now, we're working for the Census"; Curly replies "You mean Will Hays?" in a word association of "census" and "censors".
In 1942 Looney Tunes Abbott and Costello parody cartoon “A Tale of Two Kitties,” two cats Babbit and Catstello try to eat a naked “tweety” bird. During the ladder scene, Babbit yells "Give me the bird!" To which Catstello replies, "If the Hayes Office would only let me, I'd give him the boid alright!"
See also
- Film censorship in the United States
- List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s– September 13, 1926
- Nazism and cinema
References
- ^ New York Times. March 8, 1954. Retrieved January 12, 2015.
- ^ a b c "Will H. Hays", Hollywood Walk of Fame, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce
- ^ "ISL: Hays, Will H." www.in.gov. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
- ^ Frederick Lewis Allen (1959). Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s, New York: Harper & Row.
- ^ "Hays to Be Mogul in Silver Screen Realm", San Antonio Express, January 15, 1922, p 4
- ^ "Will Hays, Who Is to Get $17 Hourly, to Make the Movies Behave Hereafter", Syracuse Herald, March 5, 1922, p33
- New York Times. January 19, 1922. Retrieved January 12, 2015.
Postmaster General Will H. Hays yesterday signed a contract to become the "Landis of the movies" for three years, beginning next March 4
- ^ "Hitler in Hollywood". The New Yorker. September 9, 2013. Retrieved January 27, 2023.
- ISBN 9780060961329.
- ^ Current Biography 1943, p277
- ^ John Trumpbour (2002). Selling Hollywood to the World: U.S. and European Struggles for Mastery of the Global Film Industry, 1920-1950, New York: Cambridge University Press, p4.
- ISBN 9781405179843– via JSTOR.
- ^ "From Film Extras to Background Actors". Central Casting. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
- Wilmington News Journal. Retrieved June 1, 2021.
- ^ "Will H. Hays Dies; Former Movie 'Czar'". Associated Press. March 8, 1954. Retrieved July 3, 2008.
- New York Times. August 30, 1960. Retrieved January 12, 2015.
Bibliography
- Black, Gregory D. Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994; ISBN 0-521-45299-6.
- Hays, Will H. The Memoirs of Will H. Hays. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1955.
- Jarvie, Ian. Hollywood's Overseas Campaign: The North Atlantic Movie Trade, 1920–1950. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
- Trumpbour, John. Selling Hollywood to the World: U.S. and European Struggles for Mastery of the Global Film Industry, 1920–1950. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
External links
- Time magazine cover: Will H. Hays – Sept. 13, 1926
- Will H. Hays at IMDb
- Will H. Hays at Find a Grave
- Will H. Hays Collection, Indiana State Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts
- Hays Manuscript Collection, Lilly Library
- Mr Will H. Hays at the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America Digital Archive