..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

As Jack Valenti prepares to ride off into the sunset -- or whatever passes for one in the nation’s capital -- the outgoing president of the MPAA apparently has some spare time on his hands. To keep from nodding off at his soon-to-be-empty desk, the movie industry’s lame-duck mouthpiece has kept busy granting valedictory interviews and writing op-ed pieces in which he can’t help but laud himself for a job well done.

Old lobbyists never die, they just run out of people willing to listen to their sales pitch.

That said, however, it would have been difficult to find anyone else who could have walked the tightrope between Hollywood and Congress for as long as Valenti did, without losing all credibility with the public … or their minds. The silver-haired, silver-tongued Texan is leaving some awfully big boots to fill. Odds are, by this time next year, his replacement -- ol’ what’shisname -- will be as instantly recognizable as most members of the extras guild, and maybe that’s just as well.

In his commentary for Monday’s Los Angeles Times, Valenti asked himself, “Which of my accomplishments will last?” His answer, “Probably the 36-year-old (come November) movie-rating system, which not only frees filmmakers from arbitrary rules, but, more important, helps parents guide their movie-going children.”

Hard to argue with that observation. The board has been in business for some 36 years, and no one knows anyone who’s actually worked there. It’s a miracle the proceedings aren’t taped and licensed for viewing on E!

Then, too, outside of a handful of directors, indie distributors and critics, very few people are clamoring for reform in that particular arena. That’s especially true now that the NC-17 stigma appears to be disappearing. So, it’s highly unlikely that Valenti’s successor, Dan Glickman (who may not even have been among the top 20 candidates for the job), will mess with Jack’s legacy any time soon.

I wonder if the same can be said for the studios’ commitment to those same parents of America, and artists threatened by the “arbitrary rules” Valenti mentions in his article. One gets the impression that the former adviser to presidents could be as tough on his employers as he was with the pinheads in Congress.

Valenti was hired to run the MPAA in 1966, the year Blow-Up introduced pubic hair to American audiences. His primary assignment was to keep the censorial jackals of Washington from nipping at the heels of the studios, which finally were beginning to feel the economic benefits of the collapse of the Production Code, Legion of Decency and local censorship boards. Fearing the politicians were about to start playing to the cheap seats by legislating against any further loosening of standards governing sex, language and violence in movies, Valenti created a ratings system that served both to calm the congressional storm and put the burden of protecting American youth directly on the shoulders of their parents.

It was a stroke of genius, as both the politicians and studio execs were free to claim some form of victory. The same thing had happened, of course, in 1922, when Will Hays was put in charge of the newly formed Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association (the precursor to the Motion Picture Association of America), and, again, in 1930, with the introduction of the draconian Production Code. By comparison, Valenti’s ratings system could be seen as benevolent.

The ratings, alone, couldn’t prevent the occasional eruption of outrage from nervous clergy and conservative politicians over one perceived evil or another, but Valenti’s rhetorical brilliance added a needed sense of decorum and logic to the proceedings. Naturally, the loudest whining tended to correspond with re-election campaigns and coverage of murders committed by teenagers with easy access to the weapons of mass destruction defended in Congress with NRA money. To lower the volume of the debate even further, MPAA brass occasionally would tinker with the ratings, throw some money of its own at the politicians or suggest to the organization’s studio sponsors that they delay the release of their next multimillion-dollar bloodbath.

By contrast, there was no similar enthusiasm shown by the MPAA for such significant issues as the migration of jobs from Hollywood to Canada and Down Under, and the ability of mall owners to de facto curb the distribution of NC-17 pictures. In his annual state-of-the-industry addresses, at ShoWest, Valenti was reliably quick when it came to defending the rise in ticket prices, even while he criticized the studios reluctance to cut production and marketing costs.

Valenti’s pride over the success of the ratings system was genuine and, for the most part, justified. Every so often, though, evidence surfaced that begged the question as to how interested the studios really were in standing behind their chief lobbyist’s commitment to the parents of America.

Obviously, the studios weren’t too terribly concerned about the ratings board’s traditional and rather bizarre reluctance to grade on-screen violence as harshly as it did sexual content. Nor did they complain when a big-budget film was allowed to get away with a flash of flesh -- Diane Keaton’s PG-13 gift to the editors of Celebrity Skin magazine, for example -- when an indie effort would have been branded with an R for less exposure.

Then, there’s this nit that’s begging to be picked:

If the MPAA and studio bosses are, indeed, truly committed to alerting parents to content that might be inappropriate for tender eyes and ears, why aren’t videos of movies released before 1968, or before the introduction of PG-13 and NC-17 ratings, re-appraised before they return to the marketplace? Even as standards change, one way or the other, the ratings of catalogue titles almost always stay the same.

I was reminded of this last week by a feature that appeared on the premium Mr. Skin website, which provides its subscribers with tens of thousands of images of naked and nearly naked actors, lifted from movies, videos and television. The site, which updates its inventory daily, also provides its customers with naughty bits of industry news and gossip, as well as commentary. Only a very expensive lawyer could adequately explain the difference between the “fair use” of copyrighted material and outright theft, but, at the moment, at least, no one seems to be willing to test the legality of the site.

In addition to discovering revealing clips of actresses before they stopped appearing nude, the editors of Mr. Skin love to compile lists of exotic cinema esoterica. Among recent entries are "Natural Redheads Who Prove It," "Naked Kates", "‘80s TV Stars who Got Naked" and the ever-popular "Underwater Full-Frontals."

More to the point of this article, though, there’s last week’s entry, “The Best PG Nude Scenes.” Is this a great country, or what?

In descending order, the top 10 specimens were: Elizabeth MacRae, in The Conversation (1974); Gilda Texter, in Vanishing Point (1971); Rosalind Cash, in The Omega Man (1971); Stella Stevens, in Monster in the Closet (1986); Beverly D’Angelo, in Hair (1979); Sheree North, in Lawman (1971); Elizabeth McGovern, in Ragtime (1981); Barbara Williams, in Oh, What a Night (1992); Julie Warner, in Doc Hollywood (1991); and, numero uno, Kelly LeBrock, in The Woman in Red (1984). Of these 10 breast-baring films, judging from a perusal of Amazon and imdb.com, only Vanishing Point appears to have been re-rated R since its original release.

There probably were a hundred more examples from which to choose, including the PG-rated The Graduate. Meanwhile, such classic titles as Last Tango in Paris, Midnight Cowboy and Blow-Up are described as being “unrated” on Amazon, while, on imdb.com, anyway, Midnight Cowboy now carries an R, and Tango is NC-17. Blow-Up got a pass because it was released in 1966, and apparently no one considered it necessary to go to the trouble of evaluating it for 2004 audiences.

On the other end of the ratings scale, I was fascinated to see that of the half-dozen new Elvis Presley titles going out on DVD this week, the only two that carried ratings were Speedway (1968) and The Trouble With Girls (1969), and both are G. As harmless as they were -- and are -- I’m guessing all of the King’s mid-period action-musicals would go out PG, if only for the fistfights, smooching and swimsuits. Even Disney can’t count on a G every time it screens a picture for the board, anymore.

This inconsistency is of interest primarily as a source of amusement. I’m certainly not in favor of having all catalogue titles re-appraised before they’re allowed to enter the DVD marketplace … not that DVD revenues aren’t sufficient to cover the expense, because they most assuredly are. It’s just that no one seems particularly interested in contemporizing the system, and making it relevant for consumers whose memories extend to back to the Pleistocene Age of home entertainment.

Nevertheless, if the preservation of the integrity of the ratings board is as crucial to the image and well-being of the industry as Valenti suggests, why not spend the dough necessary to evaluate all its products? Shouldn’t today’s parents be alerted to the possibility they’ll encounter a pair of gratuitous nipples, while, say, enjoying the antics of cute and cuddly Michael J. Fox in the PG-13 Doc Hollywood?

Maybe, maybe not. Until someone addresses this discrepancy, though (and the MPAA routinely ignores my annual calls on the subject), let’s cut the crap about how much of a godsend the ratings board has been for America’s moms and dads, especially those too busy or lazy to police the electronic babysitter for themselves. If nothing else, maybe the MPAA should think about hiring Mr. Skin to do the heavy lifting.

- by Gary Dretzka

August 5, 2004