Summary
- The Hays Code in the United States led to the ban of many films that depicted lustful kissing, nudity, and ridicule of religion, among other things.
- Babe Comes Home (1927) was banned in Chicago because it showed real-life baseball legend Babe Ruth chewing tobacco and spitting, despite the fact that it wasn't known at the time that chewing tobacco could cause cancer.
- Brewster's Millions (1945) was banned in Memphis, Tennessee for having "too much social equality and racial mixture," making it an unusual case where a film was banned for not being racist enough.
There are plenty of movies that have been banned across the world, usually because of one or more elements within them that are deemed offensive, but there are some cases in the United States where movies were banned for surprising, and sometimes even silly, reasons. From 1934 to 1968, films released by major studios in the United States were subject to the Motion Picture Production Code, more commonly known as the Hays Code. Under the Code, films were not allowed to depict lustful kissing, nudity or silhouettes of it, ridicule of religion, and so much more, often leading to bans or preventions of release.
Under the strict enforcement of the Hays Code, many films with subject matter that today would seem normal, necessary to storytelling, or even trivial were under surveillance, excluded, and banned. Unfortunately, over 50 years since the Code was replaced by the “Bury Your Gays” trope. Both through the Code and the work of local and state governments, many films have been banned in the United States, but here are 10 that were banned for some interesting reasons.
10 Babe Comes Home (1927)
In 1927, the silent sports comedy film, Babe Comes Home, based on a short story by Gerald Beaumont about a fictional baseball player named Babe Dugan was released. In 1927, it was also briefly banned in parts of Chicago because of scenes in Babe Comes Home where Dugan, played by real-life baseball legend Babe Ruth, chewed tobacco and spit. Chewing tobacco had long been used by players in Major League Baseball, and was especially popular for players of Ruth’s generation. In fact, despite knowledge of its carcinogenic potential, it wasn’t banned from the league until 2016.
Chewing tobacco is prevalent throughout Babe Comes Home and an essential part of the story of Dugan and his burgeoning relationship with laundress Vernie (Anna Q. Nilsson), who tries to clean up his act. This ban preceded the discovery of the link between tobacco and cancer, which means that it was simply banned because chewing tobacco, and the spit involved in it, was deemed to be gross and inappropriate. Ruth appeared in numerous films, usually as himself, before his death at age 53 in 1948, but Babe Comes Home has been deemed a lost film.
9 Scarface (1932)
Today, Scarface (1932) and its 1983 remake are seen as classics in the gangster/crime film canon. However, when the original was first released, it was banned in five states (Ohio, Virginia Maryland, and Kansas) and five other major cities (Detroit, Seattle, Portland, and Chicago). The now-classic was banned because of the “glorification of crime.” Scarface was released pre-Code, so it wasn’t subject to the same censorship and likely wouldn’t have even been made during that time. Luckily, the ban didn’t hold for too long and was able to inspire the 1983 Al Pacino-led cult classic.
8 Ecstasy (1933-1937)
Due to the Hays Code only being in effect in the United States and the idea of traditional American values at the time, foreign films were often far ahead when it came to the inclusion of adult themes such as sexuality. Hedy Lamarr was born in Austria-Hungary and became a major film star during Hollywood’s Golden Age through a 1937 contract with MGM. Before this, Lamarr, credited as Hedy Kiesler, starred in the 1933 Czech erotic romantic drama film Ecstasy.
Ecstasy was Lamarr’s final film before heading to Hollywood, and it was certainly a controversial one, being banned in the United States from 1933 to 1937. The most shocking, most bannable offense in the film was the portrayal of sexual intercourse and female orgasm, despite the camera never moving from the actors’ faces. Though the depiction of this is pretty commonplace in film today and would simply earn it a more mature MPAA rating, Ecstasy is regarded as the first film in history to do so, causing outrage not just in the United States but around the world.
7 G-Men (1935)
In 1935, G-Men, another major crime film, received a ban despite following the Hays Code guidelines it was subjected to. Like Scarface, the film was violent and featured many deaths, though it was able to the production code because the hero (James Cagney) was a lawyer-turned-FBI agent. Warner Bros. made G-Men to counteract the trend of the glorification of crime that was seen in many popular films of the time. It succeeded in becoming a major hit for the studio, but it still managed to be banned in 1935 in Chicago as the censor felt it might make children “too excited.”
6 Two-Faced Woman (1941)
There have been many great movies about cheating and infidelity, having now become a common plot point in films whether they are romantic-focused or not. In 1941, when MGM’s romantic comedy Two-Faced Woman, starring Greta Garbo in her final film role, was released, this was not the case. The box office flop told the story of a woman (Garbo) whose estranged husband (Melvyn Douglas) left her for a former girlfriend (Constance Bennett). In order to try and win her husband back, Garbo’s character pretends to be her own fictitious twin sister.
In 2023, this might have made for an entertaining romantic comedy, but in 1941, it was seen as the film that ended Garbo’s illustrious film career. Two-Faced Woman was banned in New York City and other cities due to the theme of adultery, and Garbo and MGM mutually terminated her contract shortly after the film’s release. Garbo was just 36 at the time and had made only about 30 movies during her career, but this and the ban on Two-Faced Woman didn’t prevent her from becoming one of the most famous and celebrated actresses in film history.
5 Brewster’s Millions (1945)
Many of the rules of the Hays Code were rooted in racism, including rules that prevented the depiction of “white slavery” and miscegenation, or interracial relationships. Prior to the Code, the first film banned in the United States in 1915 was The Birth of a Nation for its extremely racist content and portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). On the flipside, in 1945, Brewster’s Millions was banned in Memphis, Tennessee for not being racist enough.
The film featured African American actor Eddie “Rochester” Anderson as one of the lead character’s servants, but apparently, he was treated too well, at least according to The Memphis Board of Motion Picture Censors. They claimed it had “too much social equality and racial mixture,” fearing that it would “encourage” racial problems. Fortunately, this was the only city that had such a problem with Brewster’s Millions, and Rochester had a successful career in film, television, and radio.
4 Bicycle Thieves (1950)
Bicycle Thieves was released in 1948, but in 1950, it was banned all over the United States by the MPAA. Bicycle Thieves is an Italian neorealist drama about a poor father searching for his stolen bicycle in post-War World II Rome so he can keep his job. It won the Academy Honorary Award (now Best International Feature Film), but a scene in which a young boy urinates and scenes from inside a brothel led to the ban. In the 1999 Adam Sandler movie, Big Daddy, a famous comedic scene also features a young boy urinating, but it would be unthinkable for it to have been banned at that time.
3 The Vanishing Prairie (1954)
In 1954, Disney released The Vanishing Prairie, a documentary exploring the American prairie from Mississippi to Colorado. Director James Algar focused on the endangered species at the time, including the buffalo. It was this decision that would lead to the film being banned in New York in 1954. A clip in the documentary demonstrated a buffalo giving birth, which was the source of the ban, but it was lifted when the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a complaint against the censorship.
2 The Thorn/The Divine Mr. J. (1974, 1980, 1984)
Bette Midler is well recognized today as not just an iconic singer, but a successful actress as well with two Academy Award nominations for acting. Before reaching this status, Midler was cast for her first credited role in a film, 1971’s The Thorn, in which she played the Virgin Mary. Around that time, Midler was releasing her debut studio album, The Divine Miss M, which inspired National Entertainment Corp to release it in 1974 as The Divine Mr. J. This didn’t go over well with Midler and led to the film being banned multiple times.
The Thorn–renamed The Divine Mr. J–closed just a few days after its opening in New York City due to its misleading marketing that Midler and her team claimed exploited her fame. In 1980, after Midler’s Academy-nominated performance in The Rose, Rochelle Films re-released The Divine Mr. J, only to be blocked from opening in the United States and receive poor reviews overseas. In 1984, Magnum Entertainment tried to release the film again, this time on VHS, but the courts kept it from reaching homes, making it a colossal and shocking failure.
1 Return to Oz (1985)
Perhaps the most bizarre United States film ban took place for a short time in 1985 in Ingham County, Michigan, when Return to Oz was banned. The dark fantasy Disney film served as an unofficial sequel to The Wizard of Oz where an insomniac Dorothy returns to Oz only to learn that it’s been conquered and needs restoration with the help of a group of new friends. Due to its darker themes, it received a PG rating, meaning it wasn’t in compliance with the school board’s rules that said only G-rated films were allowed to be shown at the library. After protests over its restriction, the ban was quickly lifted.
