im lets Jen talk him into discussing an unasked-for remake of a noir classic, The Big Sleep.

Jen incorrectly described the short film in which Will Hays introduces the Vitaphone sound system as a public deployment of the Hays Code. In his capacity as chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Hays did introduce a rubric for self-imposed censorship that would deform the film industry for more than thirty years. However, not only did that not happen until 1930, he didn’t even write the damn thing in spite of putting his name on it! The text of the Hays Code was devised by a handful of Catholic busybodies, including the insidiously influential film censor Joseph Breen. Anyway, if you watch the short you can see Hays’s smoldering sex appeal and naturalistic speaking style.

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