The Unfaithful vs. The Production Code
In The Unfaithful (1947) Ann Sheridan surprisingly gets away with infidelity and murder.
1947's "The Unfaithful" is a loose retelling of the 1940 Bette Davis classic, "The Letter." The narrative follows Ann Sheridan’s character, the happily married Chris Hunter, who one night kills a man who attacks her outside of her home. Later, it is revealed that the murdered man was Chris’ wartime lover. Released during a period of post-war domestic turmoil, where headlines often sensationalized the intimate lives of soldiers and the women left behind, “The Unfaithful” tackles the very real problem of wartime infidelity and divorce.
However, unlike Davis’ character, the murderous Leslie Crosbie, who meets a violent end after killing her lover, Ann Sheridan’s Chris is acquitted of her crime, and the film ends on an optimistic note of possible reconciliation between Chris and her husband, Bob. While the circumstances and motives behind each killing are different—Leslie Crosbie's driven by jealousy and deceit, Chris Hunter's an act of self-defense—under normal circumstances, Chris, like Leslie, should have paid for committing both murder and infidelity. But ongoing and very public outcry against easy divorce and pushback from Warner Brothers, the director of "The Unfaithful," Vincent Sherman, and producer Jerry Wald allowed for Chris and Bob to actually have the possibility of a happy ending.
The Motion Picture Production Code, the censorship body that determined if a film could be released, mandated that neither adultery nor murder could be rewarded. A murderer must always pay for their crimes, and an adulterer could never find happiness.
In a letter dated November 18, 1946, from Joseph Breen, head of the Production Code office, to Warner Brothers chief Jack Warner, Breen initially rejected "The Unfaithful" script, stating: “We regret to advise that this basic story seems unacceptable under the provisions of the production code in that it appears to be a story of adultery without sufficient compensation and moral values. Under the requirements of the code, of course, adultery must be shown to be wrong, there must be a voice for morality, and there must be sufficient punishment for the sin of adultery itself.”
In the eyes of the Production Code, adultery was considered a grave moral transgression that required explicit condemnation and retribution within the narrative. By failing to adequately address the wrongdoing and impose consequences for the act of adultery, the film risked undermining the code's moral framework, which aimed to uphold and transmit traditional values and standards of decency through cinematic storytelling.
The script underwent a series of revisions and was again submitted for approval. In a February 10 letter, Breen’s office took issue with some of the changes to the script that, “seemed to throw an almost equal blame on Bob, the husband, for Chris’ sin.” They requested that the studio “review this dialogue carefully and point up that Paula is not condoning but rather condemning Chris.”
The objection arises from a conversation between Chris' husband, Bob, and his cousin Paula. While it is unknown how much of Paula's speech was altered after this objection, what does remain in the final film shows that Paula acknowledges Chris' adultery but also suggests to Bob that their marriage, that occurred after just two weeks together, might have been driven by selfish motives and unrealistic expectations. There's a balanced tone in Paula's remarks, which, as the letter notes, "appeared to assign almost equal blame." While this dialogue may represent a mature, realistic, and thoughtful exchange, the concern lies in the MPAA’s commitment to upholding standards that often fail to reflect reality. Their primary concern is that Paula's words seem to diminish the seriousness of Chris' actions.
Paula’s speech remains in the film, and it still manages to convey a sense of “equal blame” and avoids severe condemnation of Chris’ actions. Although Breen's office requested that Paula not appear to cast equal blame on both Chris and Bob, that is indeed what she does.
Breen’s office also raised a similar objection to a speech given by Lew Ayer’s character, divorce attorney Larry Hanneford. A letter dated March 10 takes up the issue, “Larry’s entire speech beginning,”We don't live in a vacuum. . .down to in this court today, seems to us to definitely condone or explain away Christine’s unfaithfulness. We must ask that this entire speech be eliminated in order to get away from such flavor.”
This segment is from Larry’s closing arguments to the jury during Chris’ trial. Similar to Paula’s speech, Larry also tries to contextualize Chris’ infidelity within the upheaval caused by the war. Despite the removal of specific requested lines, Larry still effectively conveys the profound impact of the war on lives and relationships. It’s a plea for understanding the circumstances that might have influenced people to behave differently than they otherwise would have.
Communication went back and forth between Breen’s office and Warner Brothers between November 1946 into the spring of 1947, with Breen's office often objecting strongly not only to the even-handed look at marital infidelity but also to the amount of alcohol consumption in the screenplay and Eve Arden’s subversive double entendre-loaded quips.
It seems that Sherman and Wald were able to find some sympathetic allies in Breen’s office as the script was finally given approval on March 31, 1947, and Vincent Sherman wrote a letter to an Allen Lynch, thanking him for all of his help in shepherding the screenplay to approval.
In the end, both speeches given by Larry and Paula manage to retain to their full flavor, and Chris is not punished as the Production Code and Breen initially demanded because "The Unfaithful" ultimately conveyed the message that divorce was the most undesirable outcome for these people. Ultimately, thanks to some flexibility from the Production Code officials,"The Unfaithful" was able to end on an optimistic note, conveying a message about the significance of understanding human fallibility and the power of forgiveness.
watch my video essay on THE UNFAITHFUL
Read the MPAA files on the THE UNFAITHFUL
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Including documentation as you did here gives a greater context to this business. Being as he was accustomed to stamping out on-screen sin, Joe Breen knew when he saw it in a script...