MPAA, The Best Days of Our Lives, and The 39 Steps

This week, we discussed the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), which later, around turned into the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The MPAA is a set of guidelines placed on films starting around the year 1930, censoring the movies to rid them of violence, promiscuity, etc. They were working from the idea that these things being showed in films caused people to act out in the ways that they saw in the films. After this topic was discussed, we begin the screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps”, which was filmed in 1935. These two things relate as it is known that Alfred Hitchcock was very good at keeping the movies that he directs in compliance with set guidelines, while also still insinuating the things that were not allowed to be showed in films.

    On wednesday, group one gave its presentation on the movie “The Best Years of our lives”. I have never seen this film, but the group did a very nice job at explaining each of their parts to help us understand the movie. The group members seemed very informed and excited to talk about the film and gave great insights. They also were able to conduct a lot of conversation during their presentation. I liked that the group played the trailer of the film, which showed how differently movies are advertised today than they used to be. The film being about men returning home from the war, seemed to be made into a love story for the trailer, excluding important characters and including unimportant characters. It seems that the way people viewed films in the past was different, like the majority wanted to see these love stories, and not anything having to do with the war or violence, so the trailers were altered in order to make them appeal more to the general public.

After group one presented, we continued to watch the film, “The 39 Steps”, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. I have seen this movie before, but have always found it difficult to fully keep up with the story line and know exactly what was going on. In my opinion, the film seems messy and hard to follow, with the main story line being all over the place with things happening very quickly and then not being talked about again. This movie is low on my list of Alfred Hitchcock films, nowhere near comparing to films like, “psycho” or “The Birds”. Something that is done well in the film however, is the way Hitchcock is able to the let the audience know that something violent has happened without actually showing them the violent action. If any sort of violent contact is made, the camera is not showing it, but the way that Hitchcock directs, makes the reactions of the actors and the music in the background send a clear message of the violence that has happened. This is something to respect about Hitchcock, the way he walked around the guidelines that were being placed on his films.