MovieChat Forums > Man Hunt (1941) Discussion > Hays' Office

Hays' Office

posted 18 years ago by fatso_forgetso
12 replies | jump to latest

Hi guys,

I'm currently making my thesis (don't know what you call that) on the topic of Fritz Lang, his style, characteristics and evolution therein.
What do you think of the fact that Zanuck, following the directives of Hays' Office, was opposed to making Jerry a prostitute, so they gave her a sewing machine in her appartment, suggesting that she had a decent job?!
They were constantly being nit-picky that she couldn't swing her purse back and forth so lively, because that would emphasize the whore-thing again :-)

Lang often had the ability to stretch the boundaries layed upon him by the Hays commission, like in You only live once (what a great movie), where the criminals couldn't possibly be portrayed as heroes that lived happily ever after.

Weird guys, those art makin', creativity stimulatin' bosses in Hollywood.

[–] LtdTimeAuthor 18 years ago

The re-make of Man Hunt (Rogue Male) doesn't have the female chracter who aids the hunter at all. Maybe due to the low-budget, but the focus on the creativity of the resourceful lone fugitive helps make it an absorbing, thrilling film.

Dave Stevens

[–] SanSanSan 11 years ago

There is no female role in the original novel, because--and this is a SPOILER--the lead's motivation is revenge for the death of his lover. That's why the title is "rogue male", a hunting/nature science term for a widowed male animal. Such males are dangerous--sometimes they go berserk and cause serious havoc.

[–] wmousie 14 years ago

Unless you are framing your research to fit your thesis (a common failure these days) you are 'formulating' your thesis on the topic of Fritz Lang as you research.

But it wasn't just Lang who had to become creative to get around the pettifogging nit-pickery of the Hays Commission. Lubitsch's 'touch' for telling an adult story beneath a layer of double entendres, metaphor, and sight gags was legendary.

In certain cases, from this distance, it sometimes appears that their films became great BECAUSE, and not just in spite of the censors. Occasionally. perhaps that happened, but I wonder where the cinema would have developed had filmmakers working under a studio system been permitted the scope that the movie business is allowed today.

I can attest to screenwriter Gene Fowler's opinion from his parody of The 23rd Psalm, although most of it has left my memory.

It begins:

"Will Hays is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in clean postures.
He purges me with bilge water,
He forecloseth my soul."

and it ends:

"Surely mediocrity and pelf shall follow me all the days of my life;
And I shall smell in the house of art forever."

(By the way, if anybody has the complete Fowler's Psalm, I wish they would post it.)

[–] dalbrech 14 years ago

It's no secret that Zanuck and the other studio heads behind the scenes HATED the Hays office with a passion.
I'll Teach You To Laugh At Something's That's Funny
Homer Simpson

[–] Squeeth2 12 years ago

~~~~~Lubitsch's 'touch' for telling an adult story beneath a layer of double entendres, metaphor, and sight gags was legendary.~~~~~

He could have this any time but if you look at pre-code films their maturity disappears until well into the 60s.

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.

[–] defiant-10 13 years ago

Lemme tellya somethin- if Jerry was selling, I'd corner her market. What a sweetie.

As for Hays, he may have been an even sicker twist than Hoover was. So much of culture has been so obscured by governments and religions that we tend to think humans were any different then than they are now- which applies to every era of the human experience, ever since we fell out of the trees and couldn't figure how to get back up there.

What I had in mind was boxing the compass.

[–] brucepantages-1 10 years ago

Sorry this is coming 8 years after the question was asked, but the presence of a sewing machine was certainly no way of "cleaning up" Jerry's profession. Back in the early part of the 20th Century, the term "dressmaker" was often another term for "prostitute' without having to say it. Certainly unfair to "real" dressmakers, but hay, life was not always fair. I'm totally surprised no one has mentioned this, but there are always a bunch of people who like to jump in and chatter without actually answering the question at hand.

Also, there were other references to her actual line of work. The scene on the bridge with the policeman and the way George Saunders referred to her as "THAT kind of girl."

[–] WILLIAMHART 10 years ago

I compliment your due diligence here brucepantages-1. I'm not knowledgeable about the "dressmaker" thing but the scene on the bridge left no question as to Jerry's line of work.

Made me think of Vivien Leigh's character in Waterloo Bridge.

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] lepanto 9 years ago

Permit me to offer a perhaps naive interpretation on the 'occupation' of Jerry as strongly opined, even approaching the level of summary judgment by some on this stream. If looking at this as strictly an evidentiary matter one could advance the argument that given the highly stratified sociey in Britain in the mid-20th Century, anyone of the class Jerry was from could easily been deemed inappropriate by members of Thorndike's class; hence, the comments about 'that kind of girl' could mean a 'girl of the cockney or lower-end class. Also, if the Bobby on the bridge scene is the foundation for this judgment, he could well have been referring to her intentional hyping up the 'pick up' line to throw him off so she could continue on with Thorndike. In those days, the police many times felt a kind of unwritten duty to 'protest' to upper classes from the Eliza Doolittles of the time from attempting any liaison with 'gentleman.' As for Sanders' comments in the cave scene, this is consistent with German superiority attitudes, 'That kind of girl' being a metaphor for the 'little' people of poor education and low social status. Just thoughts... Santiago

[–] kenny-164 9 years ago

The film danced around whether Jerry was working class or in fact a prostitute. Fwiw I took it to not mean so much of the latter. She complained about and seemed afraid of being hit upon, and her clothing was not too whorish. Just one person's take on it...

[–] amsdragons-2 9 years ago

This topic was directly addressed by Robert Osbourne on a recent airing of the movie on TCM. And the answer according to this VERY reliable source, is yes. They added the sewing machine to appease the Hays office because in the original script Jerry was both a nice person and a prostitute and that wasn't allowed because it would be glamorizing prostitution, which of course wasn't allowed.

"AT LAST SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER"