Summary: While the earliest motion pictures were admired simply for their novelty, viewers soon demanded more than raw footage of trains, sneezes, and other random subjects. This program describes the discovery of sex as a surefire cinematic attraction and the outrages it provoked among religious and civic authorities during Hollywood's formative years. Documenting the rise of William Hays as the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: After World War II, the wholesomeness of American movies faced a tidal wave of change-from outside, as a growing number of provocative foreign films made their way to the U.S., and from within, as car culture flowered and drive-in theaters sprang up across the country. This program documents the period, from the birth of art house cinema to the ascent of boundary-busting American actors and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: In what many see as Hollywood's Golden Age, the offices of William Hays and Joseph Breen worked overtime to combat sexuality and subversion in American movies. This program examines the products of that era-films that danced around the standards of the Production Code and paved the way for increasingly daring storytelling and images. From the modesty of It Happened One Night to the shocking and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: In 1965, the Catholic Legion of Decency closed its doors; the following year, the Hays Code was scrapped. This program looks at the cinematic milestones which prompted these events and the age of freewheeling film artistry that ensued, despite attempts at censorship issuing from the highest political level. Shedding light on the release of The Pawnbroker and director Sidney Lumet's historic...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008