In 1601, Shakespeare’s Hamlet asked, “To be or not to be?” In 1942, Hollywood filmmakers asked, “To breen or not to breen?” Just as the immortal bard’s hero decided to endure this “mortal coil” instead of facing the great unknown, Golden Era moviemakers knew they had no choice but “to breen.” You won’t find this verb in any dictionary, but you will find it in old editions of “Variety.” In fact, it was this trade publication which coined the verb in the 1930s. Breening, with its related variation “joebreening,” was a reference to the name of a man who wasn’t employed by any studio but who worked on more movies than probably any other individual in film history.
The PCA’s work was and is highly misunderstood. Most people who are aware of it consider the Code’s influence over movies to have been censorship. PCA members vehemently protested that neither the Code nor its enforcement through the PCA was censorship, since both were voluntarily adopted by the studios in response to the actual censorship from state and city boards all over the country and world. Nevertheless, the notion of censorship persisted.
As awareness of the PCA’s existence has increased in the last few decades, negativity toward it has grown so strong that mentioning the Code is like saying a dirty word. I disagree with the popular opinion among film historians that breening ruined movies. I think that this unique process of self-regulation transformed stories into the best movies they could possibly be. To illustrate my point, I’m going to examine the breening process used on what is often called the most beloved movie of all time, “Casablanca” from 1942.
‘Everybody Comes to Rick’s’
This movie began as an un-produced play called “Everybody Comes to Rick’s,” written in 1940 by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. In case you aren’t familiar with the story of “Casablanca,” I’ll give you a quick summary. Richard Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) is a cynical American who owns a nightclub in the French Moroccan city of Casablanca in 1941. The Nazi presence in the city, led by corrupt prefect of police Louis Renault (Claude Rains), intensifies when German official Major Heinrich Strasser (Conrad Veidt) arrives to investigate the murder of two German couriers. Meanwhile, Underground Resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) arrives in Casablanca in hopes of escaping to America, but the Nazis are intent that he is one refugee who won’t escape to the free New World. With him is the beautiful Ilsa Lund, whom Rick immediately recognizes as the sweetheart who left him in Paris two years earlier. Little does he know that she is secretly married to Victor but still in love with him.This basic plot is not very different from the original play. Some of the characters’ names and nationalities were changed. The Swedish Ilsa Lund was originally the American Lois Meredith. The French Louis Renault was originally Luis Rinaldo, who was supposedly Italian, although Luis is a Spanish name. Rick’s faithful companion and jazz pianist at his nightclub is a black American named Sam (Dooley Wilson), but he was originally called “The Rabbit.” Warner Bros. put its best writing talent, including Casey Robinson, the Epstein Brothers, and Howard Koch, on the project of turning the mediocre play into a profitable movie. They would also need help from the PCA on the project, though, since the play was too salacious for any Broadway producer.
The PCA’s main objections to the film centered around the two characters whose names and descriptions were changed the most, Lois and Luis. Before becoming Ilsa and Louis of the movie, they would need a lot of breening to make them morally suitable. Lois from the play was a very loose woman, far too loose for the sympathetic leading lady in a Code film. She was living with Victor Laszlo out of wedlock, and her immoral affair with Rick was blatantly discussed. Luis was not only a corrupt police official but a lecher who traded favors from desperate women for exit visas. His lascivious pursuit of one Bulgarian girl, Anina, was discussed blatantly in the dialogue and set important plot points later in the story in motion.
To Breen
The first step in cleaning up the leading lady was making her Ilsa Lund, played by the sincere-looking Ingrid Bergman. In the early stages of production, “Oomph Girl” Ann Sheridan was being considered to play the brash American Lois Meredith. The character’s moral standing at the beginning of the film was immediately improved by making her Laszlo’s secret wife instead of his unwed lover. However, while this solved one problem, it only made the relationship between her and Rick more complicated by adding adultery to the situation. Before any attention could be given to Rick and Ilsa’s romance in Casablanca, their earlier relationship had to be cleaned up. The solution was that Ilsa was already married to Laszlo in Paris but that she thought he had been killed. In her lonely grief, she met Rick, and they fell madly in love. As in all Code films, the classically romantic aspects of their love were highlighted to eliminate the implication that they were having an immoral affair. Also, Rick’s suggestion that they get married when they planned to escape the Nazi invasion of Paris made it clear that he had honorable intentions.
Unlike Ilsa, who became a different character from the play’s leading lady, Louis Renault is fundamentally the same as Luis Rinaldo. He is a corrupt Nazi stooge who uses his authority to take advantage of desperate refugee women. Although his system is handled delicately in the movie, there are several references to his game in the screenplay’s dialogue. The PCA asked the filmmakers to remove many of these lines, but they were allowed to remain with slight changes or sometimes unaltered because the overall situation was less blatant. The most suggestive and downright shocking situation with Captain Renault in the play is his attempted dalliance with a young bride from Bulgaria, Annina Brandel, who was played by Joy Page in the movie. In the movie, the girl, whose name is never mentioned, asks for Rick’s advice about whether she should compromise herself to secure exit visas. The dialogue brilliantly skirts around the topic of just what she’ll have to give Renault in exchange for the visas, using delicate phrasing like “she did a bad thing” and eliminating suggestive phrases like “just a couple of hours.”
The Most Beloved Film
LIFE Magazine named “Casablanca” “the most beloved film of all time” in the anniversary edition it printed to commemorate the movie’s 75th anniversary. Whether any film can be called the best or most beloved is highly debatable, but there is no denying that “Casablanca” is one of the most popular movies ever made. Even if they haven’t seen it, almost everyone is familiar with the name, iconic images, and famous lines. There are more lines from “Casablanca” on the American Film Institute’s 100 Greatest Movie Quotes of All Time list than any other film, with six making the top hundred.
How was this mediocre play transformed into an Academy Award-winning film, whose reputation remains golden eighty years later? Was it the perfect combination of actors? Was it the right spirit at an emotional time in American history? Was it the cleverness of the screenplay writers? Was it the brilliance of the production team? All these things were contributors to the transformation of “Everybody Comes to Rick’s” into a cinematic masterpiece. However, a huge piece of the puzzle which is often overlooked is the contributions of Joseph I. Breen, the Production Code Administration, and the Code.
How do you think this movie would have been different if it hadn’t been breened? Would it have been just as good or even better, or did the breening process work as movie alchemy, refining baser material into gold?
