Harry Lachman
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Several early films of the silent era and early sound era included nude scenes, presented in a historical or religious context. Cecil B. DeMille, whose later reputation was that of a family entertainment specialist, included several nude scenes in his early epics such as The Sign of the Cross (1932). Other filmmakers followed suit. Harry Lachman's Dante's Inferno featured many naked women suffering in the bowels of hell. The early Tarzan films with Johnny Weismuller featured at least partial nudity justified by the natural surroundings in which the characters lived. Nudity of natives was also portrayed in jungle epics.
In response to objections voiced by several groups – and at least partly due to the notorious 1933 Czech film Ecstasy, which featured a nude scene by Hedy Lamarr – scenes of nudity were forbidden in films from the major American studios from 1934 until the late 1960s under the Motion Picture Production Code, also known as the Hays Code. During this time, the only acceptable cinematic displays of nudity in the U.S. were in naturist quasi-documentary films and in foreign films. Other portrayals were in early pornographic films which, due to limited means of distribution, were not widely seen.
