Screwball Comedies of the 1930's and 40's and What They Had to Hide

The only place on TV nowadays you can see the wonderful old screwball comedies of the 1930's and 40's with stars such as Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). And parents introducing their kids to that network might automatically assume kids can watch these films in good faith they'll see nothing offensive. But if they studied these films thoroughly in a film class, the professor would likely surprise them by telling them these films were riddled with numerous sexual metaphors--among other symbolism that took on similar taboos of the time. These metaphors were done because the then Motion Pictures Producers and Distributor's Association (later the MPAA) elected William Hays (former U.S. Postmaster General no less) to try to regulate things. His Hays Code was implemented starting in 1930, and it provided non-government-mandated suggestions for the film industry in keeping their films clean. It already more or less existed starting in 1922 (without any direct guidelines)--yet Hollywood just ignored it by slipping in nudity and other vices people of today may not know about because most of those movies have never been shown on TV. But when the code was more heavily enforced starting in 1934 by Joseph Breen and the Production Code Administration, it was just when the screwball comedy genre was getting started with Frank Capra's "It Happened One Night." Had screwball comedies been made at any time prior to this time, the themes seen in films of this type would have really turned heads...and possibly changed the moral code of movies much, much sooner than when the tide turned in the late 1960's.