ABSTRACT
The first case study chapter considers women producers and proposed film projects that aimed to represent women on screen. In analysing the Production Code Administration (PCA) records, it is clear how women that are either referred to or involved in correspondence are subject to patriarchal values and attitudes symbolic of the cultural conditions of the era. This chapter explores the patriarchal forces at work in both the PCA and the wider film industry to consider the ways in which sexism contributed to the unmade. There are extended case studies provided of the All Flags Flying, Case History, and Ships in the River records, among others. All Flags Flying recounts the history of Edna Riley and the sexist attitudes she encountered in attempting to get her film about an illegitimate child produced. The latter two files consider the way in which the subject of rape was approached by producers during the 1940s and 1950s. The archival evidence from the 1930s to the 1950s shows how the unmade was, in part, determined by the male desire to control women.
