Hollywood Codebreakers: A ‘Two-Faced Woman’ Causes Catholic Controversy
The year was 1941, and Greta Garbo was public enemy number one. Or at least, that’s the way Francis J. Spellman was spinning it. The New York archbishop circulated a letter to the priests in his dioceses, asking them to deliver a special homily ahead of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. It had little to do with the Virgin Mary, and everything to do with Garbo’s latest comedy, Two-Faced Woman. The pastors, Spellman wrote, should warn their congregations that the movie was “dangerous to public morals” and “an occasion of sin.” The Legion of Decency had issued a dreaded “C” rating, marking the film “condemned.” Spellman ended his letter with clear instructions: “The pastors are requested to inform the faithful on Sunday next of this specific condemnation of this film and to prepare for the renewal of the pledge of the Legion of Decency.”
The Legion of Decency rarely disagreed with Joseph Breen. Part of the reason Breen earned his position at the PCA was because he could communicate with the Catholic clergy and parishioners who made up the Legion so effectively. He watched out for content that Catholics would conceivably “condemn,” eliminating it before it hit theaters. But this time, the Legion was railing against a movie that earned approval from the PCA. How did this happen under Breen’s watch? Simple: Breen wasn’t there.
In the spring of 1941, Breen decided to leave his job. He was “punch drunk” from all those sternly worded letters, and concluded that seven years at the PCA was long enough. Breen quickly moved from censoring movies to making movies himself. He accepted a position at RKO, as the studio’s new head of production. When Will Hays formally announced Breen’s departure in June, he bid the censor a fond farewell. “The entire industry is under great obligation to him,” Hays said in a statement. “All wish him the greatest success in his new connection.” Geoffrey Shurlock, the statement clarified, would serve as acting director of the PCA.
Shurlock was a much friendlier censor than Breen. He was more inclined to pass questionable material in the name of art, and less inclined to strike fear into the hearts of Hollywood producers. So when Two-Faced Woman arrived in his screening room, Shurlock issued a certificate of approval despite the movie’s plot, which hinged entirely on adultery.
Two-Faced Woman, originally titled Twins, is a tale of whirlwind romance with some messed-up ideas about what constitutes “romance.” After one ski lesson from Karin (Greta Garbo), Larry (Melvyn Douglas) is smitten. The pair gets hastily hitched offscreen, arriving back at the lodge to a very irritated business type from New York. He’s Larry’s colleague O.O. Miller, and he wants his partner back in the city the next morning. But Larry is done with all that — he and Karin are going to stay at the ski lodge and lead a simpler life. That’s what Larry promised his new wife, but he didn’t mean it. Within minutes, he’s barking at her to pack up and move. She won’t leave her job or home, so she stays behind. Larry promises to return soon to visit, but telegram after telegram arrives with some new work emergency preventing his trip back. So Karin decides to surprise him in New York. Unfortunately, she spies him flirting with Griselda, a pretty playwright who quite obviously wants Larry for herself. Karin flees the scene, humiliated, but bumps into Miller on her way out. She pretends to be Karin’s twin sister, Katherine, who’s never met Larry. It’s initially just a cover, but Karin soon has a dumb idea: she’ll use glamorous, gold-digging Katherine to win Larry back. She shows up at Larry’s favorite haunts, playing a wild, wanton party girl. If he’s into women like Griselda, she reasons, he must be into Katherine. Larry takes the bait and soon begins wooing Katherine, who’s actually his wife Karin. Somehow, they live happily ever after.
Reportedly, MGM producer Bernie Hyman told Breen a synopsis of this story before the censor’s departure. Breen rejected it. But Shurlock did not share his predecessor’s reservations. He approved the movie for a fall release. The Legion of Decency and Archbishop Spellman swiftly responded with their condemnations, as did several others. The movie was banned in Boston, Providence, and Sydney, Australia. Catholic protests in St. Louis and Denver spurred movie theaters to cancel their bookings. As the trade papers noted at the time, the controversy actually helped Two-Faced Woman in some cities. “Archbishop Francis J. Spellman’s blast and subsequent publicity is pushing the feature to the top picture gross in Philadelphia,” Variety reported. “[In] Baltimore, where the picture took a lacing from the Catholic Review, it was hitting a better than average clip.” But this was cold comfort to MGM, which frantically hauled Garbo and Douglas back in for reshoots. The original movie would play out its bookings by December, at which point MGM would yank that print. An updated version would be submitted to the Legion of Decency before another round of release. This new Two-Faced Woman would make it clear that Larry knows Katherine is really Karin. He’s just torturing his wife for his own amusement, because Larry truly sucks.
Two-Faced Woman 2.0 earned a “B” rating from the Legion of Decency, meaning it was only objectionable in part. But it was too late for MGM to recoup its losses. Two-Faced Woman would go down in history as the bomb that sank Greta Garbo’s career. She never made another film, entering early retirement at the age of 36.
The PCA didn’t fare well in the fallout, either. Many years later, when someone asked Shurlock about Two-Faced Woman, he responded candidly. “Do I remember it? I nearly got fired over [that] film.” His tenure would be short-lived, as the PCA managed to woo Breen back by 1942. He returned in time to oversee the next movie on our list, Casablanca. Breen was no fan of the lecherous Captain Renault, who quite obviously trades visas for sexual favors. But he was also concerned about Rick and Ilsa’s late night encounter, which reveals a lot about how Hollywood coded sex scenes at the time. We’ll discuss what exactly Rick and Ilsa did in that apartment next week on Hollywood Codebreakers.
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