If there had been no movie censorship many years ago, we probably would have seen:
* Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney saying things like, "I'm gonna kick the s**t out of you!"
* Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler having sex
* Jean Harlow naked
* The Marx Brothers farting
* W.C. Fields puking after a long night of drinking
Thank God for censorship!
Other than not knowing who Jean Harlow is, *none* of those occurances would've improved the material and would have made it considerably worse
Jean Harlow was the original blonde bombshell. I think she actually did one or two topless scenes, before the Hayes Code.
As much as I hate censorship, it does require more imagination, rather than relying on gratuitious violence & nudity -- not that there's anything wrong with them.
raj wrote:
"Jean Harlow was the original blonde bombshell. I think she actually did one or two topless scenes, before the Hayes Code."
I have seen one or two pictures of her topless. I wasn't sure if they were from pre-code movies or if they were just stills.
Unfortunately, she died of kidney failure when she was only 26 years old.
We would have seen Deborah Kerr's breasts on "Quo Vadis".
We also would have seen more realistic depictions of prostitutes in movies like I WANT TO LIVE and FROM HERE TO ETERNITY.
For a good depiction of prostitution, check out The Red Kimono. It's a silent movie (from way back when), and even though there's no nudity I actullay felt a lot of empathy for the girl. (especially compared to that PoS Pretty Woman).
Historical note: Red Kimono was based on a real life instance, about a woman who wound up marrying a famous (for the time) California politician. The movie blew her past, she got snubbed by High Society, she sued the film makers, won, and that is why now movies say "any similarity to people & events living or dead, is purely coincidental"
Honestly, I don't think it would have made that much difference. If the authorities hadn't said "don't show tits or curse", the filmmakers (aside from the ones out to "make a statement" like Eisenstein and his pals) probably wouldn't have bothered anyway. Movies were just classier back then. Can you imagine Lugosi's Dracula with buckets of gore and gratuitous nudity? It would probably be crap. The very face of cinema as we know it would be entirely a different world.
Also, Ed Wood's porno flicks would be commercially available. If anyone knows where I can find them I'd appreciate the information. I can't even begin to imagine what a porn directed by a drunken Ed Wood would be like.
Brother R
I think Something Weird video has a lot of Wood's porno stuff....
if we didn't have censorship then the entire face of movies would be different: modern day 'shock horror' type films wouldn't be all too new and original [though many aren't anyway] and controversial films wouldn't be controversial [obviously] and therefore they wouldn't be famous. a film like cronenberg's ''Crash'' gained much of its notoriety by being controversial and therefore its an interesting film.
although i dislike many of the censorship laws [and copyright :P ] it was probably a good thing in many cases.
otherwise we would've originally seen mickey mouse naked and that would've scarred me for life...
Winnie The Pooh was naked until Disney bought him and put a shirt on him