Movie certificates in the 50's/60's

April 15, 2006 12:40 PM

Nowerdays we have ratings on films (PG, PG-13, 15, 18, etc). In the 50's or 60's what was the certificate for the films?

Im currently doing a creative website for someone who wants to make them look like a movie star in the 50's.

If you know can you show me some examples of what they used to look like.

posted by spinko to Media & Arts (2 answers total)

From 1934 to 1967, in the USA we had the code, which was basically a set of rules about what you could and could not show in movies. In effect, all code movies had the same rating.

this page has one image of a code-certificate card, but I think these changed over time.

Pre-code movies could be surprisingly racy.
posted by adamrice at 12:55 PM on April 15, 2006

The Legion of Decency had a fairly well-known and well-disseminated set of ratings which sought to distinguish among Code-approved films on moral grounds. Decent wikipedia introduction. Might help you find some graphics.
posted by MattD at 5:58 PM on April 15, 2006