Republican William Harrison Hays, former Postmaster General in President
             Warren Harding's cabinet, as their front man to clean up the image of the movies. The
             industry's self-monitoring Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America Inc.
             (MPPDA) or Hays office in Los Angeles tried a variety of ways to regulate films before
             adopting a formal code. Written in 1930 by two mid-western Catholics, a Jesuit professor
             of drama in St. Louis and a lay publisher of trade magazines; the new Motion Picture
             Code stipulated partly in reaction to the increasing popularity of gangster films, that
             movies stress proper behavior, respect for government, and Christian values. 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. Criminal acts were "never to be presented in such a way as to throw sympathy
             with the crime as against law and justice or to inspire others with a desire for imitation."
             Murder must be presented in a manner that "will not inspire imitation" and "revenge in
             modern times shall not be justified." Methods of crime such as theft, robbery, arson,
             safecraking, smuggling, and dynamiting of trains should not be explicitly presented. If
             these strictures were not met, a film project would no longer receive the code's seal of
             MPPDA approval (Springhall 137-138).
             Organized protest against gangster movies reached its height with the publicity
             ...