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Admin moved page The Hays Code, Gangsters, and Prohibition: How did 1934 change Hollywood? to The Hays Code, Gangsters, and Prohibition: How did 1934 change Hollywood
[[File:bogiecagneyroaring.jpg|thumbnail|left|300px250px|James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart in ''The Roaring Twenties'', 1939]]
1934 was a pivotal year for the United States. Americans were enduring the fifth year of the Great Depression and the rural population was in an extreme state of suffering that had begun prior to the stock market crash in October 1929. Urban citizens fared little better, yet those who had a nickel to spare spent it at the moves. Particularly popular throughout the decade were gangster films. The films of this genre criticized many aspects of society and portrayed the gangster as a victim of the system. Moviegoers were able to identify with film gangsters as they too were stressed by the task of financial survival.<ref>Nicole Rafter, ''Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society''(New York: Oxford University Press, 200), 21</ref> Audiences were enthralled by the characters on screen that were living freely and without responsibility. Due to the great success of these films, primarily shot at Warner Brothers Studios, actors such as James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, and newcomer Humphrey Bogart became movie stars.
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== Real Life Gangsters ==
[[File:dillinger wanted.jpg|thumbnail|350px250px|left|John Dillinger "Wanted" Poster]]
Until the summer of 1934, shortly after enforcement of the Code, bank robbers and gangsters moved freely throughout the American Heartland. Newspapers and radios unabashedly publicized the inept efforts of the police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in their attempts to capture America’s Public Enemy Number One, John Dillinger. After Dillinger and many of his peers were captured or killed in 1934, the FBI was suddenly respected while the gangster and outlaw were no longer seen as folk heroes.
== The End of Prohibition ==
[[File:repealday.jpg|thumbnail|350px250px|left|Repeal Day, December 5, 1933]]The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on January 16, 1919 , and put into effect on January 17, 1920. Section One of the Amendment states “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposed is hereby prohibited.” The Amendment was passed over the protest and veto of President Woodrow Wilson, who believed the law could not be enforced. He was correct. By 1927 in New York City alone, 32,000 speakeasies were operating. In the eyes of the public, rum runners and bootleggers were accepted, if not applauded, as heroes.
Americans wanted alcohol; therefore, since they “refused to give up their drinking habits, rum runners were regarded with open sympathy.”<ref>John Toland, ''The Dillinger Days''(1963; repr.,New York: Da Capo Press, 1995), 36.</ref> Al Capone, perhaps the most notorious of all bootleggers, received standing ovations when he entered his favorite race tracks. Since this ilk of society was admired by the public, movie studios wasted no time in juxtaposing the likes of Al Capone and James Cagney on screen. Unfortunately for Hollywood, when Prohibition ended, so too did the need for bootleggers. The 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was repealed on December 5, 1933. As the decade progressed, Prohibition and the decade that “roared” were fond and distant memories to most moviegoers. Without mobsters and bootleggers, the gangster genre may have been little more than a minor footnote in Hollywood’s history, for “crime itself helped make the 1930s a golden decade for the crime film.”<ref>Rafter, 19</ref>
== Conclusion ==
