St. John-Stevas: Obscenity and the Law

A Review of Obscenity and the Law . By Norman St. John-Steva

Tracing Hollywood’s Legacy of Self-Censorship through a Comparative Analysis of the Film Baby Face (1933) in its Censored and Uncensored Forms

In the early 1930’s the film business was booming and filled with sex, drugs, and scandal. All of that changed in 1934 with the enforcement of the Hollywood Production Code which effectively cleaned up the business into what most people today remember as classic Hollywood. By analyzing films from the Pre-Code era, and specifically Baby Face (1933), the roots of self-censorship in Hollywood can be traced to their current incarnation in the film business today