Last night I watched a 1948 film noir movie called He Walked By Night, which some sources seem to be calling one of the defining films of the genre. A while back, I bought this as part of a 10 pack of film noir movies ranging from 1934 to 1951, all of which land squarely within the confines of the Hollywood Production Code (also known as the Hays Code). This code limited what was morally acceptable to show in movies, and was apparently adopted voluntarily by the movie industry as a means of self-regulation in the hopes of preventing government regulation.

The code rested on three basic principles:

1. No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.
2. Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
3. Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

And in watching “He Walked By Night,” along with other film noir examples, you can very readily see how these principles played out on screen. The film is narrated in a sort of quasi-documentary style and is combined with “normal” movie action and dialogue. Somehow though, the juxtaposition of the narration adds a layer to it that almost seems like it is a propaganda film - which in many ways it essentially is.

One of the first things that struck me was a line in the opening narration: “A policeman’s work, like a woman’s is never done.” Something like that would seriously not fly nowadays. But there it was, large as life. Throughout the film after that, the detectives solving a case are consistently portrayed as suave high-class heroes. Literally any time a woman is in the room, she blushes, bats her eyes and smiles demurely at the officer, staring at him longer than she ought. Even subordinate beat cops adopt an atmosphere and physical posture of awe in the presence of the detectives. And then we have a whole host of secondary characters who practically jump up and down to help the police solve the case. What’s the case? Well, they keep reminding everyone that a police officer has been shot - which, in a world where police are the perfect ultimate heroes, is the worst possible crime.

The thing that really got me about the way the narration was done is that whenever it occurred, it almost seemed to be telling you the audience member what to think and how to react to the events of the story. It almost seems instructional, like a helping hand guiding you towards particular conclusions. I would be very interested to track down and watch other films which make use of this narrator-documentary technique from that time period and see what they are like. Part of me wonders whether this narrative technique was eventually abandoned simply because through consistent exposure to it, people had learned to internalize those types of reactions while watching a movie. They no longer needed the explicit narrator, because they had one inside of their heads.

It strikes me also that the thirty-odd year period that the Hays Code lasted (from 1934 onward) was essentially the advent of mass visual media. Talking pictures had only just been invented in 1927, and for the entire movie-going nation, people needed to essentially be “taught” how to understand this new form of media. This theory would make the voice of the narrator make all the more sense. So too, it would make the Hays Code all the more appropriate. If you are already endeavoring to teach people how to interact with a new media, then it only makes sense to simultaneously teach them civic virtues and moral codes through what are essentially “teaching stories.” The net effect is that you are able to normalize moral and social order among what had been, up till then, a very diverse group of Americans: from different regions, with different backgrounds and upbringings. Movies acted to bring everyone together onto more or less the same page culturally - in exactly the same ways as government educational films about hygiene and ettiquette did in the classroom.

Consider this quote from psychologist R.D. Laing when you think about the purpose of mass media:

All those people who seek to control the behavior of large numbers of other people work on the experiences of those other people. Once people can be induced to experience a situation in a similar way, they can be expected to behave in similar ways. Induce people all to want the same thing, hate the same thing, feel the same threat, then their behavior is already captive - you have acquired your consumers or your cannon-fodder.

People suggest that the Hays Code ultimately ended because it became unenforceable and was replaced by the Motion Picture Association of America rating system. But part of me wonders if maybe it’s work was simply done. Maybe they saw the need to indoctrinate the first generation who was exposed to mass media (besides the radio, that is) into how to be proper media consumers and citizens, and once that foundation was laid, they simply moved on to another stage of engagement which on the surface seemed more free, but perhaps is still just as propagandized as it ever was. The main difference being that we have been taught to internalize the voice of the narrator, so that the propaganda is implicit within us at all times.