Thursday, May 26, 2011
Censorship in the Philadelphia Story?
We have talked about the censorship of these early movies and how certain things were listed as taboo and off limits. Did anyone else notice when Jimmy Stewart’s character is drunk and at Dexter Grant’s place after leaving the engagement dinner and all of the sudden his girlfriend shows up with Hepburn passed out in the back seat of her car, then all of the sudden both Stewart and Hepburn jump into the same car and Hepburn drives then back to her home. Was drunk driving an issue back then? We have all heard stories about people drinking and driving in the early days, was this just the norm back then? I don’t think there were any laws on the books for drunk driving and if there were shouldn’t the censors have caught this? Just an idea? What are your thoughts?
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If you think that was problematic, wait until you see North by Northwest. At least in Philadelphia Story it was offscreen. Both instances show how different our attitudes and awareness about the dangers of mixing drinking and driving. At the time, it was usually played to comic effect in film--as we'll see in Hitchcock. Tellingly, it seems unlikely the Hayes Office would have troubled themselves with such scenes. Alcohol wasn't much of an issue at all for them (unless it involved underage characters).
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