The Production and Display of the Closet: Making Minnelli's "Tea and Sympathy"

Abstract

o make Robert Anderson's play Tea and Sympathy into a film,' MGM had to convince the Motion Picture Association of America (M.P.A.A.), the Production Code Administration (P.C.A.), and even the Catholic Legion of Decency that the film would clearly punish the sexual transgression of the married woman, and that it would not overtly or covertly make any reference to homosexuality. In effect, the centerpieces of the play had to be removed. No matter how MGM attempted to rewrite the narrative to satisfy the Code, Tea and Sympathy would either be the play it was on Broadway or it would be morally objectionable. In his memo summarizing the making of the film, Geoffrey Shurlock (Joseph Breen's successor as the director of the P.C.A.) pointed out to M.P.A.A. President Eric Johnston that Any proposed treatment removing these two unacceptable basic elements of the play would make it necessary to write an entirely new story and hence would seem to make pointless the purchase of the particular play.2