The Earrings of Madame de... (1953)
If someone asked me what was, in my opinion, one of the most damaging things to have ever happened to the movie industry, I would have replied, with no margin for doubt, the creation of the Hays Code in the US, in 1930, which laid out rules to which movies had to abide in order to be deemed "acceptable". In any other point in history, this code would have been quickly dismissed as the Puritan daydream it was; right after the Great Depression, however, movie executives were much more inclined to accept it, fearing boycotts to all "unacceptable" movies organized by e.g. the National Legion of Decency . As a result, during the 30 years that followed, movies in the US were required to uphold the sanctity of marriage, the rightness of the law and the sanctity of religion, aiming thus at "rebuilding human beings exhausted with the realities of life". There was no crime without punishment, nor a good deed without reward, and anything that could be construe...