The ratings system came in 1968, not 1967
The system of G, M, R and X ratings that replaced Hollywood’s old censorship rules was introduced in November 1968, not in 1967. The year 1967 was the period in which the old arrangement visibly stopped working. This article covers that erosion and the arguments that led to the change.
How the old code worked
From the mid-1930s, major American studios followed the Production Code, often called the Hays Code after Will Hays, the industry’s first chief. After 1934 a film needed a seal of approval from the code’s administration to be shown in most major cinemas, and studios rarely risked releasing a film without it.
The Code set out what could not be shown or implied: certain kinds of sexuality, nudity, drug use, ridicule of religion, and sympathetic treatment of crime. It also required that wrongdoers not be shown to profit. Its authority rested less on law than on the industry’s fear of boycotts and of government censorship.
Cracks before 1967
The system had been weakening for years. In 1952 the Supreme Court, in a case about the Italian film The Miracle, ruled that films were protected as speech, which reduced the legal basis for local censors. Foreign imports were often shown without the seal, and some American films were released unapproved with little commercial damage. The Code had also been softened over time. For example, its ban on depicting interracial relationships had been dropped in 1956.
In 1966 the industry’s trade body, the Motion Picture Association of America, got a new president, Jack Valenti. That year the Code was revised and shortened, and a “Suggested for Mature Audiences” label was introduced for films dealing with adult subjects. It was an attempt to keep control while giving studios more room.
Why 1967 was the turning point
Several films in or near 1967 showed how far the system had moved. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1966 had been approved despite strong language, with the new advisory label. Blow-Up was released by MGM through a subsidiary without a Code seal, with a brief nude scene, and still found a large audience. This was a major studio effectively stepping outside its own industry’s rules.
Bonnie and Clyde, released in August 1967, raised a different issue: violence. Its famous ending, in which the outlaws are shot in slow motion, drew a lot of protest and a lot of praise. The old Code had more detailed rules about sex than about violence, and the film’s success showed that audiences, and many critics, wanted something more direct.
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner showed the other side of the change. A film about an interracial romance would not have fit comfortably within earlier industry practice, yet it came from a mainstream studio and reached a mainstream audience. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia in June 1967 had made such marriages legal everywhere.
From a seal to a ratings system
By 1968 the existing structure looked unsustainable. A Code that told filmmakers what they could not do, with approval as an all-or-nothing question, made little sense when many films were released without it. Valenti and the industry moved to a different principle: films would no longer be judged acceptable or unacceptable, but labelled according to their suitability for different ages.
The new ratings were announced in the autumn of 1968 and began on 1 November 1968. They originally ran from G for general audiences to M, R and X, and the categories were revised in the following years. The system is voluntary and run by the industry, and it did not remove debate about how to classify films, but it did end the older idea of a single seal of approval.
What changed in practice
The effect was not an immediate flood of explicit films. It was a change in how risk was managed. Studios could now make films aimed at adults, label them accordingly and accept a smaller audience. That helped create the space in which the New Hollywood directors of the early 1970s worked. The underground film movement, outside the system entirely, had already shown that audiences existed for films the Code would never have allowed.
The change was also a sign of generational change in the audience. A younger, more urban public, more willing to see sex and violence, was by now central to the film business. The 1967 films discussed above were less the cause of this shift than its clearest evidence.