In the 1940’s the Breen Office rejected initial scripts (amongst many other films) for The Maltese Falcon (1941), Laura (1944), and Murder, My Sweet (aka Farewell, My Lovely 1944):
The Maltese Falcon… required the… following revisions: Joel Cairo should not be characterized as a ‘pansy type’; the ‘suggestion of illicit sex between Spade and Brigid’ should be eliminated; there should be less drinking; there should be no physical contact between Iva and Spade ‘other than that of decent sympathy’; Gutman should say ‘By Gad!’ less often; and ‘Spade’s speech about District Attorneys should be rewritten to get away from characterizing [them] as men who will do anything to further their careers.’ A similar pattern of objections can be seen in the Breen Office reports on other celebrated films noirs. A… review of Laura insisted that Waldo Lydecker must be portrayed as a ‘wit and debonair man-about-town’ and that ‘there can never be any suggestion that [he] and Laura have been more than friends’; meanwhile, scenes of police brutality had to be downplayed, along with the drinking at Laura’s apartment… [A] report on Farewell, My Lovely informed the producers that ‘there must, of course, be nothing of the ‘pansy’ characterization about Marriott’; by the same token, Mr. Grayle could not ‘escape punishment’ by committing suicide, and the scenes of pistol-whipping, drinking, and illicit sex would have to be reduced or treated indirectly.
– James Naremore, More Than Night – Film Noir In Its Contexts (UCLA Press 1998)
FilmsNoir.Net 