Movies on Patriotic theme
The economic downturns of the Great Depression contributed to the county's fascination with gangster genres. As Americans lost their jobs or saw their farms foreclosed on by the once admired establishment or banking system; with public endorsement gangsters descended in spirit from America's frontier outlaws such as the James Gang, and led by desperadoes like Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, and Machine Gun Kelly--rose up to assault the system. Because of Prohibition, the Great Depression and World War II, gangsters became the modern gunslingers and outlaws. The gangster saga replaced the Western as the American myth. It told the story of modern America. Young Americans enjoyed watching gangster films during the 1930s. Before President Roosevelt's New Deal, gangsters were without doubt the American cinema's most striking heroes. The film industry's love affair with members of criminal gangs was only natural, they were colorful, violent, and charismatic men and women whose law-breaking activities were followed by millions of law abiding Americans. But when brought to the screen, gangster films more than any other Hollywood genre created problems not only for the usual censorship lobbies but also for judges, lawyers, teachers, po
For example, G-Men used the resources of a popular film form and one of it's star names to advocate the arming of the FBI because "federal power depends ultimately on firepower" (McCarty 97). The transformation of the movie gangster star into a policeman or FBI agent was in part a response to criticism from censorship lobbies like the Legion of Decency. As the decade continued on, Hollywood studios discovered that the best way to exploit the crime genre's immense popularity and to satisfy the censors at the same time was to turn the gangster character into a law enforcement officer. Lists of condemned films were circulated and some movie theaters were picked. 3 (1998): 135-154 Word Count: 1730 . The reports showed that 30 percent of the American cinema audience was made up of children and adolescents (Jarvis 131). They agreed not to release or distribute a film that did not have an MPPDA certificate of approval which were to be issued according to the 1930 Code and administered by a Hays Office promising to be more earnest about censorship. Nonetheless, Hollywood managed to avoid federal government regulation and even after 1934 continued to also evade the Code. " Murder must be presented in a manner that "will not inspire imitation" and "revenge in modern times shall not be justified. A subtitle "Shame of the Nation" was added to Scarface, along with a scene in which civic reformers preached ("You can end it. By the mid-thirties, Warner Brothers started to offer idealized portraits of policemen and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, rather than gangsters or criminals. Short and his Motion Picture Research Council to commission a series of studies financed from the Payne Study and Experiment Fund, an organization based in Cleveland and headed by Professor W. The Payne Fund Studies took four years to complete and was published from 1933 thru 1934. The Hays Code was made mandatory in 1934, and began with an attack on what was seen as a general tone of lawlessness and on depicting specific criminal methods in recent gangster movies.
Common topics in this essay:
Hays Code,
Roosevelt's Deal,
Decency Legion,
Payne Fund's,
Nonetheless Hollywood,
Warner Brothers,
Los Angeles,
Shame Nation,
Payne Studies,
,
gangster films,
motion picture,
hays code,
gangster movies,
warner brothers,
legion decency,
federal government,
love affair,
journal popular culture,
municipal censorship,
hays office,
love affair mob,
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