Changes

The popularity of these actors and the genre as a whole was due in part to the uncensored cinematic violence and sexual innuendo portrayed on screen. The extra-cinematic exploits of such outlaws as John Dillinger and Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd, coupled with the rise in crime due to bootlegging during Prohibition, added to the appeal of the screen gangster. All of that changed in 1934. The gangster character changed from a courageous, enterprising individual to a weak victim of society. Evident alterations of characters and the overall atmosphere of films of this genre were due to the enforcement of the Production Code, the capture of America’s outlaws, and passage of the 21st Amendment.

== Conditions and Attitudes of the U.S. in the Early 1930s ==

At the theaters, moviegoers vicariously lived out the feelings they shared with gangsters. Those fortunate enough to have a few coins in their pockets to spend at the movies were not immune to the dire suffering of those in their community. People were angry and shared a common enemy with Dillinger and the like: banks and the government. Lorena Hickcock, who traveled throughout the country as chief investigator for the head of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), Harry Hopkins, reported via letters on the horrific living conditions many Americans were forced to endure. In a letter dated August 6, 1933 from Pennsylvania she wrote that those with whom she had spoken did not “see any let-up” of the Depression. The following day she witnessed a man “re-soling shoes for his family with pieces of automobile tire.”<ref>Lorena Hickock, ''One Third of a Nation: Lorena Hickock Reports on the Great Depression,'' edited by Richard Lowitt and Maureen Beasly (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981), 7-11.</ref>October found Hickock in New York City where she reported that 1.25 million people were on relief. More importantly, she noted that another one million needed but were not receiving relief. She witnessed some of those one million who were “barely existing, undernourished, in rags, constantly threatened with eviction from their homes, utterly wretched and hopeless, their nerves taut, their morale breaking down.” The impoverished of New York City were a diverse group represented by “business and professional men, immigrants, uneducated, and intelligent and educated.”<ref>Hickock, 44-45</ref>With poverty on every street in every neighborhood, no one remained ignorant to the plight of his neighbor. People wanted an escape, and they found it in the theaters.

== The Hays Code ==

Prior to the enforcement of the Production Code in 1934, which censored films for content and morality, the movie industry was free to portray its heroes and villains more realistically and less romantically, thus providing honest insight into 1930’s society. The Code was the ultimate product of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) which was established in 1922. Acting as president, Will Hays helped to establish the MPPDA in order to curtail censorship that was being implemented by local and state governments.<ref>Richard B. Jewell, ''The Golden Age of Cinema: Hollywood, 1929-1945'' (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007), 114.</ref>

On July 1, 1934 Breen replaced the ineffective SRC with the Production Code Administration (PCA). The PCA not only reviewed scripts prior to filming, it also scrutinized the final production of the film and either issued a “Seal of Approval” or returned the film to the studios to make the recommended changes. If the film was released without the approval of the PCA, the studio was fined $25,000. More importantly, without the PCA’s Seal, major urban theaters did not show a film, thus leaving the studios with no other choice but to adhere to the regulations stipulated under the Code.<ref>Jewell, 133.</ref>The new “morality” stipulated by the Code had dramatic consequences for the gangster genre. The ability of the gangster to evade capture and enjoy a brief period of luxury, sin, and excitement was stifled by the first general principle of the Code, which stated that “the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing or sin.”<ref>Jewell, 117.</ref>Additionally, the Code forbade the ridicule of law enforcement and sex was off limits.

== Real Life Gangsters ==

Until the summer of 1934, shortly after enforcement of the Code, bank robbers and gangsters moved freely throughout the American Heartland. Newspapers and radios unabashedly publicized the inept efforts of the police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in their attempts to capture America’s Public Enemy Number One, John Dillinger. After Dillinger and many of his peers were captured or killed in 1934, the FBI was suddenly respected while the gangster and outlaw were no longer seen as folk heroes.

Studios were careful to depict violence and murder off-camera and filmed dead bodies as bloodless and handsome victims. This romantic vision of crime and death was true in the extra-cinematic escapades of Dillinger and his peers. The public read and heard of bank robberies and the entertaining escapes the outlaws made at the expense of law enforcement. Those romantic notions came to a crashing halt in 1934. received no national notoriety until On May 23, 1934, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were slaughtered in an ambush by police in Gibsland, Louisiana. On the side of a dusty road, one hundred fifty bullets pierced through the couple’s car and into their bodies. When the firing ceased, a lawman approached the vehicle and witnessed an unforgettable scene that was “‘like a slaughterhouse.’”<ref>Bryan Burrough, '' Public Enemies: Americas Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-1934''(New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 359</ref>

== The End of Prohibition ==

== Conclusion ==

Many people saw no futures for themselves during the Depression and were captivated by the gangsters, both real and fictional, who lived for the moment, however brief. The events of 1934 changed the opinions of movie audiences as the Hays Code dictated morality, real-life gangsters were killed in non-heroic and well publicized situations, and the end of Prohibition meant the end of the bootlegger. Although the gangster genre continued after 1934, it did so without the grit and authenticity of the pre-Code films that were made when outlaws and bootleggers lived off the screen.

== References ==

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