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Morals, Markets, and “Horror Pictures”: The Rise of Universal Pictures and the Hollywood Production Code

Kyle Edwards

Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Volume 42.2 (Fall 2012), pp. 23-37 (Article)

Published by Center for the Study of Film and History

For additional information about this article

[ Access provided at 29 Jul 2020 00:48 GMT from UCLA Library ]

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/490429

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Morals, Markets, and “Horror Pictures”: The Rise of Universal Pictures and the Hollywood Production Code Kyle Edwards Oakland University Emergence: Business Strategies vs. Moral Strategies

n 1906, Carl Laemmle entered the fledgling motion-picture industry when he opened a small nickelodeon movie house in Chicago to exhibit silent short films. After rapid expansion of the company over the next few years,

Laemmle formed Universal Pictures in 1913, and then, two years later, he became one of the first producers to set up shop in Southern California, in a North Hollywood area newly dubbed Universal City.1 From 1915 to the early 1920s, Universal developed a form of vertical integration by producing its own films, distributing them to domestic and international markets, and then exhibiting those films in Universal-owned theaters. However, Laemmle now opted against expanding the company’s theater holdings or updating its cinemas, a period when more venturesome companies were acquiring regional chains that controlled the most profitable theaters. Instead, Universal sold off many of the exhibition outlets it did own and focused on producing “programmers”: shorts and low-budget feature films. While this production and distribution strategy minimized financial risk and provided a steady production schedule, it also threatened the company’s ability to secure favorable exhibition deals at first-run movie houses for its few, but vital, big- budget feature films. The emergence of sound films, or talking pictures, was a boon for many Hollywood filmmaking corporations, but it only exacerbated Universal’s industrial disadvantages.2 While the majors had significant levels of capital and

1 Much of the information in this section has been culled from Bernard Dick, City of Dreams: The Making and Remaking of Universal Pictures (Lexington, KY, University of Kentucky Press, 1997), 1-94; and Thomas Schatz, Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era (New York:, Holt, 1988), 15-28, 82-97. 2 For further examination of sound innovation in the Hollywood film industry, see Donald Crafton, The Talkies: American Cinema’s Transition to Sound, 1926-1931 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1999); Douglas Gomery, The Coming of Sound (New York, Routledge, 2004);

I

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theater holdings to produce and exhibit sound films, major-minors like Universal owned few or no theaters and had little money with which to invest in sound technology. Moreover, if such studios were to produce talking pictures, they would have no guarantee that their films would be distributed to sound-equipped theaters, most of which would be in those large urban markets controlled by the major studios. Universal’s “programmer” production policy was re-evaluated in 1928, the same year that Carl Laemmle ceded control of production to his twenty-one year old son, Carl “Junior” Laemmle. Unlike his father, Junior Laemmle believed the company needed to develop an identity that could help it gain a foothold in the major market and that prestige A-level film releases were the shortest path to that destination, but he was also aware that Universal did not have a steady stream of cash to feed the larger budgets of such pictures. Creditors were not clamoring to supply capital, nor was marquee acting talent (migrating in waves from Broadway to Hollywood after the conversion to sound) eager to sign on with the studio. So Junior Laemmle formulated an alternative strategy that might deliver corporate stability and notoriety for Universal. His solution was the horror genre, which would consist of pictures with sensationalistic subject matter, socially taboo themes, and sadistic and grotesque characters.3 Emphasizing a single production category would allow the company to achieve greater levels of efficiency and, crucially, significant cost savings in the production and distribution of each release. Moreover, if commercially successful, these films would leave an indelible impression on moviegoers and distinguish Universal from its competitors. The implementation of Universal’s strategy also depended, however, on the degree to which it could accommodate the guidelines of the recently formulated Hollywood Production Code and its arbiter, the Studio Relations Committee (SRC). The “pre-Code Hollywood” era—that is to say, the brief

and Charles O’Brien, Cinema’s Conversion to Sound: Technology and Film Style in France and the U.S. (Bloomington, Indiana UP, 2005). 3 The cycle of horror films produced by Universal in the 1930s has been investigated by several scholars and celebrated by countless film enthusiasts. For an extensive and quite useful annotated filmography, see Tom Weaver, Michael Brunas and John Brunas, Universal Horrors: The Studio’s Classic Films, 1931-1946, Second Edition (Jefferson, NC, McFarland, 2007). Recent scholarship has gone further in investigating the industrial and cultural context in which these films were produced and released. Most relevant to my own discussion are Robert Spadoni, Uncanny Bodies: The Coming of Sound Film and the Origins of the Horror Genre (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2007), which investigates the “sensations of strangeness” evident in Dracula and Frankenstein and their use of early sound technology; Stephen Prince, Classical Film Violence, 30-96, which devotes a chapter to the emergence of screen violence conventions within the genre; and Reynold Humphries, The Hollywood Horror Film, 1931-1941: Madness in a Social Landscape (Lanham, MD, Scarecrow, 2006), which explores the repression and disavowal triggered by these early Universal horror films.

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period between 1930, when the Hollywood Production Code was formally introduced by the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), and 1934, when those guidelines were enforced by the newly established Production Code Administration (PCA)—has been mythologized as an anarchic period in which the agency tasked with enforcing the Code, the SRC, watched helplessly as studios “operated under rules of their own,” releasing film-after-film rife with “the raw stuff of American culture.” 4 In such accounts, a spate of sensationalist and thematically adventurous motion pictures, rife with illicit sex, violence, and other Code-challenging content, were curtailed only upon the reinvention of the SRC as the PCA in 1934, upon the installation of Joseph Breen as director, and upon the institution of a Code certificate-of-approval requirement.5 However, even without the support of a strict Code enforcement policy, the SRC actively worked with Hollywood studios to avoid censorship and public-relations problems and to develop film releases that would be acceptable for worldwide consumption.6 While the instructions of the SRC were not always heeded, the agency could influence film content significantly during the pre-Code era.

4 Thomas Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934 (New York, Columbia UP, 1999), 2-3, 8-20. Lea Jacobs summarizes Raymond Moley’s 1945 account of the SRC and PCA in “Industry Self-Regulation and the Problem of Textual Determination,” in Controlling Hollywood: Censorship and Regulation in the Studio Era, ed. Matthew Bernstein (New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers UP, 2000), 89-91. For another discussion of this period, see Mark Vieira, Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood (New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1999). 5 Numerous scholars have chronicled this period and the transition from the SRC to the PCA. See for example Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood; Leonard Leff and Jerold Simmons, Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code (New York, Anchor Books, 1991); Gregory Black, Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics and the Movies (London, Cambridge UP, 1996); Lea Jacobs, Wages of Sin: Censorship and the Fallen Woman Film, 1928- 1942 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1997); and Doherty, Hollywood’s Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration (New York, Columbia UP, 2009). Leff and Simmons attribute the establishment of the Code as a mandate to the increase in sexual content and reference in a number of films during this period, particularly the wildly popular Mae West vehicles She Done Him Wrong (1933), I’m No Angel (1933), and Belle of the Nineties (1934). Ruth Vasey provides an excellent account of the “wider set of parameters” that influenced the Code review process in “Beyond Sex and Violence: ‘Industry Policy’ and the Regulation of Hollywood Movies, 1922-1939,” in Controlling Hollywood: Censorship and Regulation in the Studio Era, ed. Matthew Bernstein (New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers UP, 2000), 102-129. 6 The Code review process was characterized by conflict, compromise and creativity in an ongoing effort to craft motion pictures for mainstream consumption and, therefore, is consistent with Pierre Bourdieu’s analysis of cultural production, in which cultural artifacts are created and circulate within a constantly changing and highly contingent “field,” whose participants occupy variable and often competing positions. According to Bourdieu, “The literary or artistic field is a field of forces, but it is also a field of struggles tending to transform or conserve this field of forces. … The generative unifying principle of this system is the struggle” (The Field of Cultural Production, trans. Randal Johnson [New York, Columbia UP, 1993], 29-37).

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Such was the case for the series of horror films produced by Universal Pictures in the early 1930s. As revealed in documents in the Production Code Administration File at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Margaret Herrick Library, Universal’s Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), and Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) challenged the very tenets of the recently drafted Production Code and forced the SRC not only to redefine its role in relation to scripts and film texts containing questionable subject matter but also to articulate a set of clear descriptive markers for burgeoning genres, in this case “horror.” Although the SRC did not initially expect institutional observers or consumers to be offended, provoked, or disturbed by the themes, images, and sounds in these films, the agency ultimately played a key role in defining the boundaries for the genre and, moreover, helped to formulate the strategies with which Universal could circumvent objections by US and international censorship boards.7

Dracula (1931) In pursuit of its new production emphasis, Universal acquired the theatrical and literary rights to Dracula in 1930 and initiated the Code review process in

7 In Classical Film Violence: Designing and Regulating Brutality in Hollywood Cinema, 1930-1968 (New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers UP, 2003), Stephen Prince explores the process of “adjudication and negotiation” between the SRC (and later the PCA) and Hollywood film producers that led to the development of a series of stylistic conventions used to depict violent acts—for example, the manner in which actors signified a character’s death by collapsing to the ground—and, as a result, bear the trace of the Code review process. Through his analysis, Prince illustrates not only the degree to which the Production Code evolved to accommodate changing standards and preferences between 1930 and 1968, but also the highly contingent approach to interpreting and enforcing Code guidelines by the SRC and PCA during that period (30-52).

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June of that year by sending a letter to Studio Relations executive Colonel Jason Joy that announced intentions to produce the film, along with copies of John Balderston’s play and Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel.8 Universal hoped to elicit “censorship angles” on both texts, since they planned to adapt freely from both sources. After receiving multiple drafts of Dracula’s screenplay over the next three months, Joy reported to Junior Laemmle that he had found nothing objectionable in the developing script.9 A lengthy “final script synopsis” written by a SRC staff member in October 1930 described Dracula as a “tale of horror and mystery,” intermittently relieved by a romantic sub- plot.10 Whereas the SRC reviewer had indeed identified anxiety-inducing moments in the six-page script synopsis, these features were interpreted as elements of exoticism and sensationalism, adding to the entertainment appeal of the famous story. By all accounts present in the Code review files, this opinion represented the consensus at the SRC, which found little to criticize in the numerous script drafts of Dracula exchanged between Universal and the SRC in the summer and fall of 1930. (Joy’s only advice was to eliminate derogatory references to Dutchmen and the “Napoleans and Mussolinis” of Europe.11) In other words, while the SRC had begun to articulate the elements of the horror genre—sensational imagery, exotic settings, for example—it had not yet determined that they were objectionable and needed to be tempered or eliminated entirely. This indeterminacy gave Universal—and the genre—a historic opening. Universal moved quickly on production of Dracula and had a cut of the film ready for SRC reviewers by January 1931. The SRC still found only seemingly inconsequential details to criticize. As a “Code report and story synopsis” of the film by reviewer James Fischer concluded, “The picture satisfies the requirements of the Code and contains nothing to which the censors could reasonably object.” Regarding the depraved, bloodthirsty eponymous character, Fischer predicted, “Dracula is not really a human being, so he cannot conceivably cause any trouble.” Fischer ends his report by categorizing Dracula as a “family picture.”12 Any objections Fischer might have been able to identify were offset by the film’s fictional subject matter, an impression encouraged by the fantastic nature of the story and its foreign locale.

8 Letter from Asher to Joy, 26 June 1930; Production Code Administration File, Special Collections, Motion Picture Academy of Arts & Sciences, Margaret Herrick Library, Beverly Hills (collection referred to hereafter as PCA file), “DRACULA (UNIVERSAL, 1931).” 9 Letter from Joy to Laemmle, Jr., 10 September 1930; PCA file, “DRACULA (UNIVERSAL, 1931).” 10 B.N., “Synopsis of Script (final),” 1 October 1930; PCA File, “DRACULA (UNIVERSAL, 1931).” 11 Letter from Joy to Laemmle, Jr., 13 September 1930; PCA File, “DRACULA (UNIVERSAL, 1931).” 12 “Code Report and Story Synopsis,” 14 January 1931; PCA File, “DRACULA (UNIVERSAL, 1931).”

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However, when SRC junior executive Lamar Trotti screened a version of the film’s trailer just two weeks later, he expressed reservations. Although Trotti found “nothing reasonably censorable” in the trailer, he added that as a potential moviegoer he would avoid what promised to be such a “gruesome” picture, citing as evidence one line by a primary female character: “The Dracula opened a vein in his arm and made me drink his blood.”13 The Code review file contains no other direct correspondence about Dracula prior to its American release later that month, when the film opened to strong box-office receipts and generally positive reviews. While the SRC had identified possible objectionable moments in the Dracula script, trailer, and feature film, those elements did not fall under Code guidelines, nor did they seem particular offensive to staff and executives at the SRC.14 For now, Universal’s opening was secure.

Frankenstein (1931) Hot off the success of Dracula, the production company hoped to capitalize quickly by adapting another popular story featuring depraved characters,

13 “Trailer Synopsis and Report,” 28 January 1931; PCA File, “DRACULA (UNIVERSAL, 1931).” 14 As Trotti’s analysis of the Dracula trailer implies, Universal’s marketing campaign for the film aggressively highlighted the sensational and frightening aspects of the film, while it simultaneously sought to inject the impression of non-fiction into, if not the film, then the conditions of exhibition. The pressbook the studio sent to exhibitors prior to the release of the film suggested numerous exploitation tactics, many of which attempted to implicate spectators into the Dracula narrative and myth. For example, Universal encouraged exhibitors to hold an essay contest on whether vampires actually exist and asks viewers to compare a “Dracula kiss” to kisses received from a friend, romantic partner, mother, or child.

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foreign locales, and a fantastic, science-fiction plot. Like Dracula, Frankenstein was an internationally known novel, play, and cultural myth. Perhaps more attractive to the still struggling studio, Frankenstein’s theatrical rights were much cheaper to acquire, and the literary rights were in the public domain and thus free of charge. However, while the SRC signed off on Dracula without incident, its attitude had changed slightly when Universal submitted a script draft of Frankenstein in August 1931. A letter from Joy to Junior Laemmle expressed optimism that the story could pass censorship boards, but it also offered a stern warning:

…the only incidents in the script about which to really be concerned are those gruesome ones that will certainly bring an audience reaction of horror. We think you ought to keep thoroughly in mind during the production of this picture that the telling of a story with a theme as gruesome as this will not permit the use of superlative incidents of the same character.15

Here, Joy twice uses an adjective, “gruesome,” that would become more prominent in discussions of Universal’s early 1930 films. And the apprehension on Joy’s part is not necessarily related to the presence of “gruesomeness” in the script and film, but in its ability to instill “horror” into a prospective audience.16 Whereas Dracula used horror for entertainment and fantasy, Frankenstein’s deployment of such themes and images seemed more dangerous because of the potential affective response—i.e., terror—it might induce in the audience. Universal addressed some of Joy’s concerns, as evidenced in an August 1931 letter from SRC executive Fred Beetson to Junior Laemmle, which reported that a Code review of Frankenstein foresaw few censorship difficulties for the film.17 However, numerous state censorship boards rejected the film. For example, Kansas censors demanded the elimination of several dialogue sequences, at least one dozen shots, and entire scenes. Asher wrote to Joy defending the film’s entertainment value and dramatic integrity in its present 15 Letter, Joy to Laemmle, Jr., 18 August 1931; PCA File, “FRANKENSTEIN (UNIVERSAL, 1931).” 16 A seminal essay on horror and affect is Robin Wood, “An Introduction to the American Horror Film” (1979), in Movies and Methods: An Anthology, Volume II, ed. Bill Nichols (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1985), 195-220. Subsequent scholarship in this critical vein includes James Twitchell, Dreadful Pleasures: An Anatomy of Modern Horror (New York, Oxford UP, 1985); Rhona J. Berenstein, Attack of the Leading Ladies: Gender, Sexuality and Spectatorship in Classic Horror Cinema (New York, Columbia UP, 1996); Noel Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror; Or, Paradoxes of the Heart (New York, Routledge, 1999); and Mary Beth Oliver and Meghan Sanders, “The Appeal of Horror and Suspense,” in The Horror Film, ed. Stephen Prince (New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers UP, 2004), 242-259. 17 Letter, Beetson to Laemmle, Jr., 2 November 1931; PCA File, “FRANKENSTEIN (UNIVERSAL, 1931).”

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cut, and hoped that the SRC would argue against the demand for cuts.18 But internal discussions at the SRC suggest that the reviewers were beginning to formulate a strategy to limit proliferation of films like Frankenstein rather than defend them. This correspondence also reveals that the SRC was beginning to regret its endorsement of Dracula months earlier. In a January 1932 memo from to Will Hays, Joy described a group of films that threatened the public perception of Hollywood producers and the legitimacy of film as an entertainment medium:

If something … could be done about the so-called horror pictures we’d be very much happier than we are. The fact that the supply of such stories is necessarily limited will lead eventually to straining for more and more horror until the wave topples over and breaks. Universal now has two more such stories in mind for production … and all the others are more intrigued by the fact that Frankenstein is … taking in big money at theaters. Talking out here won’t have much effect, with the cycle as successful as it is. If the scattered … instances that come to our attention reflect the general attitude, resentment is surely being built up. How could it be otherwise if children go to these pictures and have the jitters, followed by nightmares? I, for one, would hate to have my children see FRANKENSTEIN, JEKYL, or the others, and you probably feel the same way. Not only is there a future economic consideration, but maybe there is a real moral responsibility involved, to which I wonder if we as individuals ought to lend our support.19

As in his warning to Junior Laemmle about Frankenstein’s gruesome elements, in this memo Joy strikes the Platonic note that aesthetically charged themes and images can leave indelible impressions on spectators, especially children. Joy also has moved from isolated examples to a group of films described under a generic moniker: “so-called horror pictures.” The ascription of a film genre allows Joy to formulate Frankenstein and other films as a distinct class of social and psychological threats to spectators and to the reputations of Hollywood and the SRC. The potential upwelling of “resentment” from censors and consumers thereby requires that the SRC, according to Joy’s logic, assume responsibility for defining acceptable content in this case and upholding the “moral” role of Hollywood more generally. Joy’s erroneous prediction that studios would exhaust the supply of stories for this burgeoning genre refers to the fact that most of the “so-called horror pictures” up to that point were adapted from literary and theatrical sources. Soon these studios would simply run out of pre-existing stories, at which point

18 Letter, Asher to Joy, 10 January 1932; PCA File, “FRANKENSTEIN (UNIVERSAL, 1931).” 19 Letter, Joy to Hays, 11 January 1932; PCA File, “FRANKENSTEIN (UNIVERSAL, 1931).”

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studios would be hard-pressed to generate new material and sustain the genre. But these early sound-era horror films were not adapted from shallow, anonymous novels, short stories, and plays; rather, Dracula, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) relied for their name recognition and cultural legitimacy on the international popularity, respectability, and literary depth of these pre-existing texts and their famous authors. For example, when Frankenstein faced stiff resistance from Quebec censors, Universal and the SRC collaborated on a solution that would appease censors but also maintain the coherence and integrity of the narrative. Instead of removing large sections of the film, they considered inserting a prologue that featured a dialogue among Frankenstein’s author, Mary Shelley, her husband, Percy Shelley, and their friend Lord Byron to discuss the reasons for composing the book .20 Another option eventually agreed to by Quebec censors and the Canadian Universal Film Company was to diminish the stature of the (female) author and the text as serious literature by featuring a sustained shot of the book jacket behind scrolling text, assuring viewers that

The story of FRANKENSTEIN is pure fiction. It was written by the wife of the famous English poet Percy B. Shelley on a challenge from him and Lord Byron as to who would write the most fantastic tale. Like a “Trip to Mars” by Jules Verne and other imaginative books, it delves into the physically impossible. For almost a hundred years this story has furnished entertainment for countless people, and, though no moral is intended, it might tend to show what would happen to man if he delved into something beyond his ken.21

The SRC’s response to the censorship problems thus resembled its reviewers’ initial interpretation of Dracula: that the film is less objectionable if its story and characters are deemed implausible and framed as consistent with lighter science-fiction literature. Here that heuristic is integrated directly into the text as Universal, the SRC, and international censors all disavow their perceived authority over the film and graft concerns over objectionable themes, characters and images not only to Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron but also to previous generations of readers and to a generic category with separate conventions and audience expectations. In this sense, the audience itself is strategically vested with authorship. As Pierre Bourdieu has observed, the “struggle over the definition of the writer” emerges in the field of cultural production, as participants seek to assign authorship in a way that matches their interests and goals. For Universal, identifying the long history and literary source in credit sequences and in the marketing campaigns for this and other horror genre releases redefined the sensationalism of these films in terms of

20 Letter, Asher to Joy, 12 April 1932; PCA File, “FRANKENSTEIN (UNIVERSAL, 1931).” 21 Letter, Luduc to Fithian, 9 February 1932; PCA File, “FRANKENSTEIN (Universal, 1931).”

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social capital in order to disguise the studio’s lack of financial capital in making them.22 To keep its budget intact, however, the studio then simply redefined the field of authorship.

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) Joy’s January 1932 memo to Will Hays about the horror genre predicted difficulty with future Universal releases, the next of which was Murders in the Rue Morgue, an adaptation of yet another popular public-domain literary source. In its review of Murders in the Rue Morgue, the SRC modified its definition of the horror genre to include the effects that the soundtrack could produce on moviegoers. Moreover, the agency’s approach toward criticizing and reshaping controversial films would solidify, as it assumed a more proactive and authoritative stance with respect to the horror genre. Universal sent a rough cut of Murders in the Rue Morgue to the SRC in January 1932, after the release of Frankenstein but prior to the lengthy discussion of the horror genre initiated later that month by Joy. That January, Joy wrote Junior Laemmle that the film could face significant resistance from censors based of its depiction of a number of criminal acts by the depraved main character, Dr. Mirakle (Lugosi), an amateur scientist who kidnaps Parisian women in order to conduct gruesome genetic experiments. The victimization of women was a new low for the horror genre, according to Joy. His suggestion for amelioration focused on sound rather than on specific shots of the film: “Our feeling is that the screaming of the woman of the street … is

22 As I demonstrate in “’Poe, You Are Avenged!’: Edgar Allan Poe and Universal Pictures’ The Raven (1935)” (Adaptation 4.2 [2011]: 117-136), this is a tactic that Universal would extend in subsequent horror films, most notably in its incorporation of Edgar Allan Poe’s biographical legend into the narrative of The Raven.

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over-stressed … We suggest that you consider making a new soundtrack for the film.”23 In a “Synopsis and Code Review” released three days later, reviewer J.V. Wilson largely agreed with Joy’s views that the images and sounds of the “so- called horror plot” were particularly offensive. However, in a prediction that recalled the SRC’s attempts to make Frankenstein suitable for a general audience, Wilson believed that the “fantastic” aspects of the story, in conjunction with its well-known literary lineage, would buffer the film from criticism by censors and audiences.24 As it had done with Frankenstein, Universal highlighted the author of the literary source, in this case Poe, in its advertisements and in the opening title sequence of Murders in the Rue Morgue, in an attempt to simultaneously raise the cultural legitimacy of the low-budget horror release and diminish the culpability of Universal and the SRC for any images, sounds, or themes that exceeded the bounds of acceptability. An early story synopsis of Murders in the Rue Morgue created by Universal described the numerous “shrieks” and “hair raising” incidents in the film as “high spots,” but a letter from Junior Laemmle to Joy in mid-January 1932 indicated that the studio did in fact address many of the concerns expressed by the SRC, including “toning down” the sound track of women screaming,25 indicating the degree to which sound, as a new formal element in film, was capable of affecting audiences. While a February Code review of a new cut of the film corroborates this claim, an SRC reviewer still raised concerns about the soundtrack:

Probably the strongest scene is the one in which Mirakle is experimenting on the woman of the streets. She is tied to a cross and continues to scream and moan throughout the ordeal, at the conclusion of which [she] dies and her body is cut down and shot through a trap door into the river.26

The reviewer’s description of Murders in the Rue Morgue as “adult entertainment” demonstrates the degree to which the attitudes of the SRC had changed toward “so-called horror” films, even after significant revisions

23 Letter, Joy to Laemmle, Jr., 8 January 1932; PCA File, “MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, (UNIVERSAL, 19**).” 24 “Synopsis and Code review,” 11 January 1932; PCA File, “MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, (UNIVERSAL, 19**).” 25 “Highlights: Carl Laemmle, Jr. Presents ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue,’” undated; PCA File, “MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, (UNIVERSAL, 19**).” 26 “Synopsis and Code Review,” 9 February 1932; PCA File, “MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, (UNIVERSAL, 19**).”

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to dialogue, sound, and story. Dracula, released just one year earlier, qualified as “family entertainment,” and Frankenstein took criticism only after the SRC had received objections from censors. With Murders in the Rue Morgue, of similar theme, plot, and cast as Dracula and Frankenstein, the SRC began to exercise its limited authority and adopt a more proactive stance in its review of scripts and feature films. In this way, the SRC was attempting to move from the role of intermediary to that of arbiter of the themes and content in Hollywood films. Upon the release of Murders in the Rue Morgue in February 1932, the SRC received immediate negative feedback about the film and the “content of horror films” in general. Canadian censors once again requested a prologue indicating the literary source and fictional nature of the story, similar to the one pre-pended to the Canadian version of Frankenstein.27 Other censorship boards demanded extensive cuts before the film could be released in their theaters, often focusing on the suppression of the pitch and volume of a woman’s sharp screams rather than on the images of physical abuse against her. Such complaints attest to the increasing importance of synchronized production and sound design to Universal’s early 1930s horror films, in which voice intonation and off-screen sound effects evoke mood, communicate information, and structure narrative space to propel the story. In these ways, Universal introduced key conventions into the horror genre and provided a riveting demonstration of the affective capabilities of sound-design techniques.28 Despite the fact that these three films were much-needed box-office successes for Universal, the limitations that censorship boards placed on the horror genre were mounting, a development that placed the SRC in an increasingly difficult position. The secretary of the Seattle Film Board of Trade announced, “For the first time in years we have had action by the Seattle Censorship Board—they ordered 247 feet removed from Universal’s Murders in Rue Morgue.”29 In a detailed letter of complaint to Joy, B.O. Skinner of the Ohio censorship board adopted a broader view, identifying horror films as excessively realistic before cataloging the specific objectionable material in Murders in the Rue Morgue. He promised a harsher reception of such films going forward: “I wish to advise you that in the future we are going to take more drastic action concerning such scenes of horror and realism to which we

27 Letter, Wilson to Joy, 27 February 1932; PCA File, “MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, (UNIVERSAL, 19**).” 28 For additional discussion of Universal’s use of sound production in these films, see Spadoni, Uncanny Bodies, and Prince, Classical Film Violence. 29 Quoted in Letter, C.C. Pettijohn to Hart and Joy, 26 February 1932; PCA File, “MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, (UNIVERSAL, 19**).”

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have found the public is reacting unfavorably.”30 SRC reviewers initially believed that the fantastic plots of horror films, coming from the work of internationally famous authors, would defuse the possibility that Dracula, Frankenstein, Murders in the Rue Morgue, and subsequent horror films of the 1930s could be viewed as realistic and censorable. However, public reaction against the growing list of such films motivated the MPPDA to attempt to salvage the family appeal of its members’ products. In 1934, facing widespread resistance from censors and threats from industry critics, the MPPDA reluctantly agreed to institute the Code as an ironclad mandate by requiring all films released in United States theaters to carry a Code certificate of approval granted by the newly formed PCA. Business Is Business A quick look at Universal’s attempt in the late 1930s to reissue some of its seminal horror films from earlier that decade indicates the differing approach adopted by the PCA in its review of motion-picture content and the application of Code guidelines. When a copy of Dracula was sent for Code review in 1938, the PCA responded that the film needed significant cutting: the majority of offensive material involved sound, specifically the “moans and groans” on the original sound track.31 As Joseph Breen reminded Universal producers, “You will of course have in mind that this is a horror picture, and will probably need some careful watching and attention in careful cutting before we can approve it under the Code, as now administered.”32 Whereas in 1931 Dracula had passed easily through the SRC, which classified the film as a “family picture,” just a few years later the PCA applied a more restrictive standard of acceptable content and greater authority to enforce its opinions. The SRC had gradually adopted this perspective between its perfunctory review of Dracula in February of 1931, its tense discussions of the horror genre later that year, its meticulous interrogation of Murders in the Rue Morgue in late 1931 and early 1932, and its review of subsequent entries in the burgeoning horror genre, produced by Universal and other studios, in 1933 and 1934. Ironically, Universal’s early 1930s horror films enabled the SRC and PCA to develop parameters for identifying the genre and strategies for presenting it to spectators in more palatable, less terrorizing form. That Universal incorporated several of these tactics in marketing its horror releases— including calling attention to the supernatural qualities of the stories and

30 Letter, Skinner to Joy, 20 February 1932; PCA File, “MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, (UNIVERSAL, 19**).” 31 Letter, F.S. Harmon to J.D. Miller, 17 March 1938; PCA File, “DRACULA, (UNIVERSAL, 1931).” 32 Letter, Breen to Francis Harmon, 9 March 1938; PCA File, “DRACULA, (UNIVERSAL, 1931).”

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characters and using the cultural legitimacy of a literary source both to instill prestige into these increasingly low-budget films and to disavow responsibility for the films’ objectionable elements—illustrates the degree to which the Code review process initiated the inter-textual relay through which Universal and other studios would communicate the content and appeal of horror films—and films in general—to moviegoers, a group that itself had learned to form the social, psychological, and moral boundaries of aesthetic reception during this period.33 Following several cuts to the films’ soundtracks, the repackaged Dracula/Frankenstein double feature was released by Universal and became a substantial box-office hit in the late 1930s, prompting yet another round of objections from censorship boards and public officials. In his response to a letter of complaint by a White Plains (NY) public-school administrator, who objected to the manner in which the double bill was marketed to children, Breen wrote,

I am considerably disturbed by your letter … and I shall make good use of it with a number of studio folk hereabouts, who have been discussing with us, in recent weeks, some plans for producing some of these, so-called, ‘horror’ pictures. Personally, I dislike these pictures very much. Like yourself, I can hardly sit through them, but, like the popular novels of this same ‘horror’ category, there seems to be a very substantial market for these films, both in this country and abroad. In spite of this fact, it may interest you to know that we have not made a ‘horror’ picture in Hollywood since the FRANKENSTEIN picture – a period of about three years.34

In citing the success of these films’ literary antecedents and their wide commercial appeal, Breen here use logic identical to that employed by the SRC and Universal years earlier, when the two parties appeased censors by disavowing their responsibility for objectionable film content. True to that spirit, Breen goes further by crediting his own record in stifling the genre and indirectly pinning blame on his predecessors, the SRC, for the proliferation of such pictures. Nevertheless, Breen’s offer of further action was either

33 As Steve Neale argues in his analysis of the significance of intertextual relay to the formation and perpetuation of film genres, “Testimony to the existence of genre—and evidence as to the boundaries of any particular generic corpus—is to be found primarily in [the intertextual relay]. … The institutionalization of any generic term is a key aspect of the social existence … of any genre.” Neale, Genre and Hollywood (New York, Routledge, 2000), 43. 34 Letter, Katherine Vandervoort to Motion Picture Production Code Administration, 18 January 1938; PCA File, “DRACULA, (UNIVERSAL, 1931)”; Letter, Breen to Vandervoort, 26 January 1938; PCA File, “DRACULA, (UNIVERSAL, 1931).”

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disingenuous or overambitious. The PCA under Breen turned out to be even less successful than the SRC in stemming the flow of horror films, which flourished in the late 1930s and thereafter, with Universal resurrecting many of the monsters and mad scientists that censors had attempted to suppress years earlier, thus serving as progenitor of a genre—and a culture—that, in tandem with the SRC, the studio had defined.35

35 Many of Universal’s horror releases during the period exploited the commercial appeal of characters the company had presented to moviegoers in the early 1930s, including The Son of Frankenstein (1939), The Invisible Man Returns (1940), The Invisible Woman (1940), The Mummy’s Hand (1940), The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), The Mummy’s Tomb (1942) Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), House of Frankenstein (1944), The Mummy’s Ghost (1944), The Mummy’s Curse (1944), House of Dracula (1945), and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).