“The Edge of Unacceptability”: Preston Sturges and the PCA | Refocus: the Films of Preston Sturges | Edinburgh Scholarship Online (2024)

“The Edge of Unacceptability”: Preston Sturges and the PCA | Refocus: the Films of Preston Sturges | Edinburgh Scholarship Online (1) Refocus: the Films of Preston Sturges

Jeff Jaeckle (ed.), Sarah Kozloff (ed.)

Published:

2015

Online ISBN:

9781474416146

Print ISBN:

9781474406550

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Matthew H. Bernstein

Matthew H. Bernstein

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Pages

83–106

  • Published:

    November 2015

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Bernstein, Matthew H., '“The Edge of Unacceptability”: Preston Sturges and the PCA', in Jeff Jaeckle, and Sarah Kozloff (eds), Refocus: the Films of Preston Sturges, ReFocus (Edinburgh, 2015; online edn, Edinburgh Scholarship Online, 18 May 2017), https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474406550.003.0004, accessed 30 June 2024.

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Abstract

This chapter poses one of the most fascinating questions about Sturges’s career: how did he manage to insert so much sexual innuendo in his comedies of the 1940s, given the notorious vigilance of Joseph Breen and other members of the Production Code Administration? Part of it was in the PCA’s quixotic mandate; part of it arose from the filmmaker’s greater skill in exploiting the Code; part of it also stemmed from changing, more expansive conceptions of what met the Code’s censorship requirements. Through close examinations of script drafts and correspondence with the PCA, this chapter explores how Sturges deftly negotiated with the censors to satisfy their demands while ensuring that his satires of war and sexuality made their way to the screen, revealing that in addition to his prolific comedic imagination, Sturges was often aided by the very body that was alleged to be censoring him.

Keywords: Production Code, Joseph Breen, innuendo, censorship, satire, sexuality

Subject

Film

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