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Most baseball fans know what links Fred Merkle, Fred Snodgrass,
Mickey Owen and Bill Buckner. It's a pantheon of public failure.
They would be harder put to say what links Eric Byrnes, Tony
Fernandez, and Babe Ruth, though these players made misplays every
bit as egregious. In this smart, highly readable history of
scapegoating, John Billheimer identifies the elements that combine
to condemn one player to a life sentence while another gets a wrist
slap for the same offense. As it turns out, the difference between
a lower-case e in some forgotten box score and a lifetime of
ignominy can hinge on a number of factors, including timing,
geography, reputation, misunderstanding, media bias, and just plain
bad luck.
Throughout his career, Alfred Hitchcock had to deal with a wide
variety of censors attuned to the slightest suggestion of sexual
innuendo, undue violence, toilet humor, religious disrespect, and
all forms of indecency, real or imagined. From 1934 to 1968, the
Motion Picture Production Code Office controlled the content and
final cut on all films made and distributed in the United States.
Code officials protected sensitive ears from standard four-letter
words, as well as a few five-letter words like tramp and six-letter
words like cripes. They also scrubbed "excessively lustful" kissing
from the screen and ensured that no criminal went unpunished.
During their review of Hitchcock's films, the censors demanded an
average of 22.5 changes, ranging from the mundane to the
mind-boggling, on each of his American films. Code reviewers
dictated the ending of Rebecca (1940), absolved Cary Grant of guilt
in Suspicion (1941), edited Cole Porter's lyrics in Stage Fright
(1950), decided which shades should be drawn in Rear Window (1954),
and shortened the shower scene in Psycho (1960). In Hitchcock and
the Censors, author John Billheimer traces the forces that led to
the Production Code and describes Hitchcock's interactions with
code officials on a film-by-film basis as he fought to protect his
creations, bargaining with code reviewers and sidestepping
censorship to produce a lifetime of memorable films. Despite the
often-arbitrary decisions of the code board, Hitchcock still
managed to push the boundaries of sex and violence permitted in
films by charming - and occasionally tricking - the censors and by
swapping off bits of dialogue, plot points, and individual shots
(some of which had been deliberately inserted as trading chips) to
protect cherished scenes and images. By examining Hitchcock's
priorities in dealing with the censors, this work highlights the
director's theories of suspense as well as his magician-like touch
when negotiating with code officials.
Throughout his career, Alfred Hitchcock had to deal with a wide
variety of censors attuned to the slightest suggestion of sexual
innuendo, undue violence, toilet humor, religious disrespect, and
all forms of indecency, real or imagined. From 1934 to 1968, the
Motion Picture Production Code Office controlled the content and
final cut on all films made and distributed in the United States.
Code officials protected sensitive ears from standard four-letter
words, as well as a few five-letter words like tramp and six-letter
words like cripes. They also scrubbed "excessively lustful" kissing
from the screen and ensured that no criminal went unpunished.
During their review of Hitchcock's films, the censors demanded an
average of 22.5 changes, ranging from the mundane to the
mind-boggling, on each of his American films. Code reviewers
dictated the ending of Rebecca (1940), absolved Cary Grant of guilt
in Suspicion (1941), edited Cole Porter's lyrics in Stage Fright
(1950), decided which shades should be drawn in Rear Window (1954),
and shortened the shower scene in Psycho (1960). In Hitchcock and
the Censors, author John Billheimer traces the forces that led to
the Production Code and describes Hitchcock's interactions with
code officials on a film-by-film basis as he fought to protect his
creations, bargaining with code reviewers and sidestepping
censorship to produce a lifetime of memorable films. Despite the
often-arbitrary decisions of the code board, Hitchcock still
managed to push the boundaries of sex and violence permitted in
films by charming - and occasionally tricking - the censors and by
swapping off bits of dialogue, plot points, and individual shots
(some of which had been deliberately inserted as trading chips) to
protect cherished scenes and images. By examining Hitchcock's
priorities in dealing with the censors, this work highlights the
director's theories of suspense as well as his magician-like touch
when negotiating with code officials.
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