Ann Vickers is a 1933 novel by Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis

Harry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...

.

It is also a 1933 drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 directed by John Cromwell

John Cromwell (director)

Elwood Dager Cromwell , known as John Cromwell, was an American film actor, director and producer.-Biography:...

, adapted by Jane Murfin

Jane Murfin

Jane Murfin was an American playwright and screenwriter.Born in Quincy, Michigan, Murfin began her career with the play Lilac Time, which she co-wrote with Jane Cowl. The Broadway production opened on February 6, 1917 and ran for 176 performances...

 from Lewis's novel, and starring Irene Dunne

Irene Dunne

Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...

, Bruce Cabot

Bruce Cabot

Bruce Cabot was an American film actor, best remembered as Jack Driscoll in King Kong . He is also known for his roles in films such as the sixth version of Last of the Mohicans, Fritz Lang's Fury and the western Dodge City.-Early life:Cabot was born Etienne Pelissier Jacques de Bujac in Carlsbad,...

, Walter Huston

Walter Huston

Walter Thomas Huston was a Canadian-born American actor. He was the father of actor and director John Huston and the grandfather of actress Anjelica Huston and actor Danny Huston.-Life and career:...

, and Conrad Nagel

Conrad Nagel

Conrad Nagel was an American screen actor and matinee idol of the silent film era and beyond. He was also a well-known television actor and radio performer.-Biography:...

. The estimated budget was US$303,000.

Plot

Social worker/prison reformer looks for love with men who abuse her, finds herself attracted to a controversial judge.

Film version censorship

In the novel by Lewis, Ann Vickers is a birth control

Birth control

Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...

 advocate and reformer who has an extramarital affair

Extramarital sex

Extramarital sex occurs when a married person engages in sexual activity with someone other than his or her marriage partner.Where extramarital sexual relations breach a sexual norm it may also be referred to as adultery, fornication, philandery, or infidelity...

. The screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 for the 1933 film was only approved by the Production Code

Production Code

The Motion Picture Production Code was the set of industry moral censorship guidelines that governed the production of the vast majority of United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Hollywood's chief censor of the...

 when RKO Radio Pictures agreed to make Vickers an unmarried woman at the time of her affair, thus eliminating the issue of adultery

Adultery

Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...

.

Catholic Legion of Decency

The reaction of the Catholic Church in the United States to the content in this film and in The Sign of the Cross

The Sign of the Cross (film)

The Sign of the Cross is a pre-Code epic film released by Paramount Pictures, produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille from a screenplay by Waldemar Young and Sidney Buchman, and based on the original 1895 play by Wilson Barrett....

led to the formation in 1934 of the Catholic Legion of Decency

National Legion of Decency

The National Legion of Decency was an organization dedicated to identifying and combating objectionable content, from the point of view of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, in motion pictures...

, an organization dedicated to identifying and combating objectionable content, from the point of view of the church, in motion pictures.

External links

• Reviews of Ann Vickers http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/sinclairlewis_annvickers.html