Perhaps the Stork was a Duck...

I have frequently spoken about the infamous Hays Office censorship code that was imposed on Hollywood in 1934, because it was to have an enormous impact on the way films were made for the next few decades.

Most of the specifics of the production code came from ultra-conservative pressure groups who wanted to enforce their own conception of decency and "acceptable behaviour".

The self-proclaimed Legion of Decency (originally called the Catholic Legion of Decency) was founded in 1934 by John T. McNicholas, the Archbishop of Cincinnati. There was surely no one more qualified to enforce the moral standards of the nation than a Catholic Archbishop from Cincinnati.

Unsurprisingly, many of the restrictions that found their way into the production code were explicitly Catholic; especially when it came to the subject of sex. The Legion of Decency had very strong opinions about the notion of pregnancy out of wedlock, and so that of course became one of the most notably taboo plot devices in Hollywood for the duration of the Hays Office era.

Which is why it is all the more astonishing that Ginger Rogers appeared in 1939 as an unwed single mother trying to raise her young child while working full time and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life.

In Bachelor Mother, Ginger Rogers plays Polly Parrish, a (single) young woman who has a temp job as a sales assistant at John B. Merlin & Son department store in New York city. David Merlin (the "& Son" of J. B. Merlin & Son) takes a personal interest in her case when he is informed that she has abandoned her infant child to a foundling home on the very day that her employment at the store was terminated.

It wasn't just the Catholics who took a very dim view of unwed motherhood in the 1930s, which is one of the reasons why Bachelor Mother is such a remarkable film. Far from being a heavy-handed morality tale, Bachelor Mother is a light comedy that proved to be enormously popular with critics and audiences alike. The Hays Office-unfriendly subject matter is very deftly sidestepped using a narrative device that Hollywood film-makers were getting to know very well by 1939 (more about that on Thursday) but far more interesting is the attitude displayed by other characters in the film.

Far from judging her or condemning her for having a child out of wedlock, everyone in the film is more interested in helping her; giving her the support she needs so that she isn't forced to choose between raising a child and earning a living.

Of course complications ensue (this is a screwball comedy after all) but, like so many light-hearted films of the decade, Bachelor Mother doesn't turn away from the very real issues that were affecting society at the time.

A moralistic story about the evils of extra-marital sex would have been box-office poison (and would never have made it past the Hays Office anyway) but Bachelor Mother is a comedy, and everyone loves a comedy! Plus it has Ginger Rogers and David Niven.

And ducks. Lots and lots of ducks.

We will screen Bachelor Mother at 7.30pm on Thursday, the 14th of March at the Victoria Park Baptist Church.