MovieChat Forums > Love Me or Leave Me (1955) Discussion > Divorce in 1955--Hayes Code???

Divorce in 1955--Hayes Code???

posted 17 years ago by redheadedfool
4 replies | jump to latest

Does anybody know whether LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME had any problems with the Hayes Code in Hollywood? I know that anyone guilty of infidelity had to be "punished" in the story -- so OK they were coy about Ruth and Johnny not actually doing anything inappropriate together. But she tells Johnny in the hospital that she will be with him for the rest of her life. She would have to divorce Marty for that to happen.

I thought as of 1955 with the Hayes Code still in force that anyone who divorced had to suffer some kind of bad fate? Was the code loosening by the mid-50s? Or did it get by because the script was so oblique (never actually mentioned divorcing).

[–] brookabbott 17 years ago

By the time she tells Johnny that she wants to be with him forever, she had already told Marty that she was filing for divorce -- she wasn't doing it to be with Johnny, but to end the abusive relationship with Marty.

[–] rayoflight7 16 years ago

The code had definitely loosened by that point, and divorce was not only not usually "punished" in film, it was seen by the censors as a good thing when there was an abusive relationship -- for example, in the play "A Streetcar Named Desire" Stella stays with Stanley at the end, but for the film (made four years prior to "Love Me or Leave Me") they required the implication that she was going to leave him.

[–] dmnemaine 14 years ago

In the Alice Faye film, "Lillian Russell", Henry Fonda plays a character in love with Lillian Russell who ends up marrying a girl from his hometown when Lillian Russell proves unavailable. At the end of the film, he meets Lillian Russell again, and tells her that his marriage to Lucille ended in divorce. By the last frame of the film, it's clear that he and Lillian Russell are going to live "happily ever after". That was 1940. The 1939 film, "The Women" is all about divorce and remarriage, and not all the characters in the film who get divorces end up "tragic". So divorce really wasn't all that taboo in films of the Code era.

[–] pianosteve-246-62255 10 years ago

I don't know about the divorce part but I heard that they had trouble with the Hayes Code regarding the rape scene. From what I understand, quite a bit was cut and just enough was shown on the screen to convince the audience. Doris mentioned this in her book and she was sad that they had to cut some of the scene but she was still pleased with the film.