The Production code
	A code to Govern the Making of Talking, Synchronized and Silent Motion Pictures. Formulated and formally adopted by The Association of Motion Picture Producers, Inc. and The Motion Picture 	Producers and Distributors of America, Inc. in March 1930.

Motion picture producers recognize the high trust and confidence which have been placed in them by the people of the world and which have made motion pictures a universal form of entertainment.

During the rapid transition from silent to talking pictures they have realized the necessity and the opportunity of subscribing to a Code to govern the production of talking pictures and of re-acknowledging this responsibility.

	General Principles
1.	No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.
3.	Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

	Particular Applications
	I. 	Crimes against the Law
1.	Murder
	a. The technique of murder must be presented in a way that will not inspire imitation.
	c. Revenge in modern times shall not be justified.
2.	Methods of Crime should not be explicitly presented.
	a. Theft, robbery, safe-cracking, and dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, etc., should not be detailed in method.
	b. Arson must subject to the same safeguards.
	
	II.	Sex
1.	adultery, sometimes necessary plot material, must not be explicitly treated, or justified, or presented 	attractively.
2.	Scenes of Passion
 	b. Excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embraces, suggestive postures and gestures, are not to be shown.
3.	Seduction or Rape
	a. They should never be more than suggested, and only when essential for the plot, and even then never 	shown by explicit method.

	III.	Vulgarity
The treatment of low, disgusting, unpleasant, though not necessarily evil, subjects should always be subject to the dictates of good taste and a regard for the sensibilities of the audience.

	IV.	Obscenity
Obscenity in word, gesture, reference, song, joke, or by suggestion (even when likely to be understood only by part of the audience) is forbidden.

	VI.	Costume
1.	Complete nudity is never permitted. This includes nudity in fact or in silhouette, or any lecherous licentious 	notice thereof by other characters in the picture.
4.	Dancing or costumes intended to permit undue exposure or indecent movements in the dance are forbidden.

	VII.	Dances
2.	Dances which emphasize indecent movements are to be regarded as obscene.

	XII.	Repellent Subjects
The following subjects must be treated within the careful limits of good taste:
1.	Actual hanging or electrocutions as legal punishments for crime.
2.	Third degree methods.
3.	Brutality and possible gruesomeness.
7.	Surgical operations.

Art can be morally evil in its effects. This is the case clearly enough with unclean art, indecent books, suggestive drama. The effect on the lives of men and women are obvious.

Note: It has often been argued that art itself is unmoral, neither good nor bad. This is true of the THING which is music, painting, poetry, etc. But the THING is the PRODUCT of some person's mind, and the intention of that mind was either good or bad morally when it produced the thing. Besides, the thing has its EFFECT upon those who come into contact with it. In both these ways, that is, as a product of a mind and as the cause of definite effects, it has a deep moral significance and unmistakable moral quality. 

E.	This is also true when comparing the film with the newspaper.
	a. Newspapers present by description, films by actual presentation.
	b. Newspapers are after the fact and present things as having taken place; the film gives the events in the process of enactment and with apparent reality of life.
F.	Everything possible in a play is not possible in a film:
	a. Because of the larger audience of the film, and its consequential mixed character. Psychologically, the larger the audience, the lower the moral mass resistance to suggestion.
H.	The grandeur of mass settings, large action, spectacular features, etc., affects and arouses more intensely the emotional side of the audience.

Note: Sympathy with a person who sins is not the same as sympathy with the sin or crime of which he is guilty. We may feel sorry for the plight of the murderer or even understand the circumstances which led him to his crime: we may not feel sympathy with the wrong which he has done. The presentation of evil is often essential for art or fiction or drama. This in itself is not wrong provided:
a.	That evil is not presented alluringly. Even if later in the film the evil is condemned or punished, it must not be allowed to appear so attractive that the audience's emotions are drawn to desire or 	approve so strongly that later the condemnation is forgotten and only the apparent joy of sin is remembered.

	III.	Vulgarity;	
	IV.	Obscenity;	
	V.	Profanity
Hardly need further explanation than is contained in the Code.

	XII.	Repellent Subjects.
Such subjects are occasionally necessary for the plot. Their treatment must never offend good taste nor injure the sensibilities of an audience.