Changes

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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== Conditions and Attitudes of the U.S. in the Early 1930s ==

[[File:caponesoupkitchen.jpg|thumbnail|350px|left|Soup Kitchen in Chicago funded by Al Capone, circa 1933]]

At the theaters, moviegoers vicariously lived out the feelings they shared with gangsters. Those fortunate enough to have a few coins in their pockets to spend at the movies were not immune to the dire suffering of those in their community. People were angry and shared a common enemy with Dillinger and the like: banks and the government. Lorena Hickcock, who traveled throughout the country as chief investigator for the head of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), Harry Hopkins, reported via letters on the horrific living conditions many Americans were forced to endure. In a letter dated August 6, 1933 from Pennsylvania she wrote that those with whom she had spoken did not “see any let-up” of the Depression. The following day she witnessed a man “re-soling shoes for his family with pieces of automobile tire.”<ref>Lorena Hickock, ''One Third of a Nation: Lorena Hickock Reports on the Great Depression,'' edited by Richard Lowitt and Maureen Beasly (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981), 7-11.</ref>October found Hickock in New York City where she reported that 1.25 million people were on relief. More importantly, she noted that another one million needed but were not receiving relief. She witnessed some of those one million who were “barely existing, undernourished, in rags, constantly threatened with eviction from their homes, utterly wretched and hopeless, their nerves taut, their morale breaking down.” The impoverished of New York City were a diverse group represented by “business and professional men, immigrants, uneducated, and intelligent and educated.”<ref>Hickock, 44-45</ref>With poverty on every street in every neighborhood, no one remained ignorant to the plight of his neighbor. People wanted an escape, and they found it in the theaters.

On July 1, 1934 Breen replaced the ineffective SRC with the Production Code Administration (PCA). The PCA not only reviewed scripts prior to filming, it also scrutinized the final production of the film and either issued a “Seal of Approval” or returned the film to the studios to make the recommended changes. If the film was released without the approval of the PCA, the studio was fined $25,000. More importantly, without the PCA’s Seal, major urban theaters did not show a film, thus leaving the studios with no other choice but to adhere to the regulations stipulated under the Code.<ref>Jewell, 133.</ref>The new “morality” stipulated by the Code had dramatic consequences for the gangster genre. The ability of the gangster to evade capture and enjoy a brief period of luxury, sin, and excitement was stifled by the first general principle of the Code, which stated that “the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing or sin.”<ref>Jewell, 117.</ref>Additionally, the Code forbade the ridicule of law enforcement and sex was off limits.

== Real Life Gangsters ==

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 ==

== Conclusion ==