Which is more sexy—an actress' half-covered bosom or her uncovered legs?
British moviemakers, puzzled by U.S. cinemorality, want a serious answer to this question. For the past fortnight, the man who knows all anyone needs to know about U.S. censorship has been in London trying to explain it in simple English. It is a tough job—even for the Johnston Office's jowly, jolly Joe Breen. No. 1 U.S. "interpreter" of the Hollywood morality Code.
The basic fact that amazes the British: the Code is a voluntary brake Hollywood puts on itself. Its clearest purpose: to keep non-Hollywood censors—official and amateur—out of the industry's hair. (The Code's dozen-odd pages of printed rules need no explanation. Samples: "Adultery . . . must not be ... justified, or presented attractively. . . . Complete nudity is never permitted. . . .")
What really makes the Code tricky is the way it is "interpreted" for each picture's questionable scenes. Four "interpretations" are currently troubling the British:
Wicked Lady, a 1945 picture starring Margaret Lockwood, James Mason and Patricia Roc, was a big moneymaker in England. But the U.S. will have to wait to see it. Low-cut Restoration costumes worn by the Misses Lockwood and Roc (see cut) display too much "cleavage" (Johnston Office trade term for the shadowed depression dividing an actress' bosom into two distinct sections). The British, who have always considered bare legs more sexy than half-bare breasts, are resentfully reshooting several costly scenes.
The Notorious Gentleman, starring Rex Harrison, was released in England as The Rake's Progress; U.S. distributors changed the title so that American moviegoers would not mistake it for a documentary on gardening. The picture's chief moral lapse: it makes adultery look like too much fun. At the end of all his wenching, the Rake dies as he has lived—happy and unrepentant. Death is just what he deserves, but the Johnston Office wants him to show some remorse, too.
Pink String and Sealing Wax stars Googie Withers, who was none too careful about that cleavage (see cut). The Hollywood Codists—who convinced themselves that Hollywood's Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice were morally clean—have raised eyebrows over the British picture's theme: premeditated murder.
Bedelia allows Margaret Lockwood to poison three husbands for their insurance and then commit suicide when her fourth begins to get the idea. Suicide, in the U.S., is a sloppy out for wrongdoers. A tidy U.S. ending will hand the murderess over to the cops.
In London last week, Interpreter Joe Breen's good humor was holding up. "The difference between me and most people in Hollywood," he said, "is that I know I am a pain in the neck." But the British press—ignoring the fact that British movie men had invited him over—attacked him as a bluenose. The New Statesman and Nation complained:
. . . America's artistes may strip
The haunch, the paunch, the thigh, the hip,
And never shake the censorship,
While Britain, straining every nerve
To amplify the export curve,
Strict circumspection must observe. . . .
And why should censors sourly gape
At outworks of the lady's shape
Which from her fichu may escape?