Anatomy of 'The Code': Why I Walked Away from My Dream TV Project
Screenwriters can learn a lot from this breakdown of my take on Greta Garbo’s war over the Hays Code—and what went wrong with the project thanks to my reps
Back in 2021, I wrote a feature spec that got a little attention around Hollywood. It turned out to be director bait, which didn’t exactly surprise me as I suspected it would be. I met several of my filmmaking heroes as a result of it, including two Aussie giants, John Hillcoat and the legendary Philip Noyce – who was as impressive as I hoped.
This spec I wrote also rekindled several producer relationships and kicked off a few others that led to some exciting creative opportunities. You can read about what happened with one of those here. Today, I’m going to tell you about the other that stands out in my memory — a prestige (as we like to call them) — eight-part TV mini-series. An international coproduction between the US and Sweden about one of the biggest movie stars in both American and Swedish history. And like everything else I touched in 2021, it somehow, miraculously attracted some giant names – in fact, it did more than that. Another legend, Lasse Hallström – director of such classics as My Life as a Dog, The Cider House Rules, and Chocolat – attached himself to direct the series.
But before I go on, I want to tell you what you should expect out of this piece, because I think it’s a mix of cinema history (at least in part), an infuriating cautionary tale for screenwriters in general, and a chance to study a sales document that attracted Lasse but also had a certain (shall remain unnamed) Swedish-English superstar circling the project before things went south.
THE DREAM PROJECT
The project in question was called “The Code”. This was in reference to the Hays Code, a strict, self-imposed set of moral guidelines that were enforced in American film from 1934 to 1968 – until its architect died or the American New Wave blew it up, depending on your point of view. Bit of a chicken and the egg scenario, I think.
In the next section, I’m going to get more into what the Hays Code meant for Hollywood and, more importantly, America. But first, you should know that, while “The Code” was ostensibly about the origin of the Hays Code, it was really about the rivalry between Swedish movie star Greta Garbo (nicknamed the Divine) and Joseph Breen (the moral crusader behind the Code).
This rivalry would lead Garbo to star in a romantic drama called Queen Christina (1933) about a Swedish queen who abdicates her thrown in order to live her life on her own terms rather than the dictates of her court. The film was an allegory for Garbo’s own struggles to live her best life in a town that wanted to control her to such a degree that she couldn’t be with the man she really loved.
Fun fact for those who don’t understand how adventurous pre-Code Hollywood was: Queen Christina features Garbo cross-dressing and sharing a same-sex kiss — in 1933!
Before Shakespeare in Love and other similar stories that reimagined the origins of great works of art from the artist’s secret personal lives, there was Queen Christina.
The film was a smash hit, too, as you’ll learn, but it had disastrous consequences for Garbo, America, and, arguably, the world.
What else should know about “The Code”?
At the time, I jumped at the opportunity because it was everything I could hope for in a project.
As a cinephile, it allowed me to play around in the Silent and early Talkie period of Hollywood and reveal the incredibly complicated, exciting, bold, fuck you-hard-because-I’m-going-to-do-it-my-way woman Garbo was.
It was a character-driven drama with no genre elements that came to me from the US market, which had only allowed me a few scant opportunities to do something like this before. Remember, I’d had to move to London to get the chance to write projects this character-focused rather than concept-driven. I know it’s easy to say high-concepts are also character-driven, but I’ve always found that a project that starts with people more excited about the concept than the character inevitably produces a concept-driven script by the time all the producer and studio notes are integrated.
Lastly, this was a project that allowed me to talk about the culture wars that were tearing America apart. Yes, Joe Biden was in the White House at the time – but unlike everyone else around me, I didn’t buy that his election had fixed anything. I mean, electing Barack Obama didn’t fix anything. It exacerbated the culture war, if anything. Even if Trump didn’t make it back in 2024, I knew there was a lot of introspection America would have to do about how it elected the pumpkin-colored fascist in the first place and, most horrifically at the time, had elected a man who stocked the Supreme Court with justices who had thrown Roe v. Wade out.
In short: “The Code” was a dream project for me.
My then-managers assured me there was even money in it for me. No developing for free, at least not once the producers were satisfied we were all on the same page – which happened.
So, what went wrong?
Well, I’ll tell you in just a moment.
First, let me share the sales doc for “The Code” with you. Because formatting is different here at Substack, I can tell you it’s an economical six pages long in Word. Not remotely a giant. I worked my ass off on it, too. Weeks of research and interviews went into it. But also, I wanted to bring everything I’d learned about screen storytelling to bear on it. I wanted something so tight and engaging, it would be impossible to say no to.
As it turned out, the effort wasn’t wasted either.
As mentioned already, Lasse Hallström attached himself after reading it – and a wonderful hour chat with me that left this cinephile floating for at least a month. The producers followed this up by promptly making a financial offer for my future work.
If you’re an aspiring screenwriter and have any questions about the execution of this document, please don’t hesitate to jump into the comments and hurl them at me. My hope in sharing this is that I’m able to provide you a way to interrogate a sales doc that was successful and then take whatever you learn from that to apply to your own work.
Oh, and remember, this was written and developed in 2021. It has not been modified to reflect political changes in the US or the world.
THE SALES DOCUMENT
“THE CODE”
Created by Cole Haddon
The true story of Greta Garbo’s fight against Joseph Breen’s moral crusade to establish the Hays Code on Hollywood - the strictest censorship rules in 20th century America - which changed the course of the country’s history and still impacts women’s rights today.
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Hollywood, 1929. The advent of sound brings with it a sudden and socially explosive change in the content of motion picture productions.
Almost overnight, the film industry begins to push every moral boundary it can. Violence, especially the daring new gangster picture trend, becomes the norm. People of color are given roles with dimensions that defy their previous on-screen stereotypes. And most shockingly, women are elevated to the role of equals and often superiors to men in society and, very often, the bedroom.
As a result, actresses like Marlene Dietrich, Norma Shearer, and Swedish émigré Greta Garbo — arguably the biggest female star in the world — see their fame and influence begin to overshadow their male rivals. World culture reacts, too; many of the women in their audiences begin to demand more and more in their personal and professional lives.
By 1934, their cinematic feminist revolution is over.
Due to the concerted efforts of various moral crusaders across the United States, spearheaded by Catholic zealot Joseph Breen, the Hays Code is imposed on Hollywood – a strict set of censorship rules that would go on to govern American moviemaking for decades. Female characters are immediately ordered back to their kitchens and forbidden from questioning their husbands.
“THE CODE”, an eight-episode limited series, is the true story of the war that was fought for the soul of Hollywood and America, which became for Greta Garbo and Joseph Breen a destructive personal battle over who controls a woman’s identity and freedoms onscreen and in the home.
Almost a century later, we’re still having this debate, in Hollywood, in legislatures around the country, and in the Supreme Court. “The Code” not only acts as a mirror to our current society, but shows us how we got here today.
THE STORY
Greta Garbo is arguably the biggest movie star in the world at only 25. She’s also its most reclusive, refusing to do publicity and shunning the typical benefits of celebrity. She prefers instead to enjoy her success in private, where she engages in casual sexual relationships with men and women and even participates in sex parties. Life is to be lived on her terms, which regularly puts her at odds with MGM’s studio chief Louis B. Mayer, who controls her exclusive contract.
Meanwhile, Hollywood’s sudden explosion of violent and sexual risqué films, often dominated by powerful, sexually uninhibited women played by the likes of Norma Shearer, Joan Blondell, and Marlene Dietrich (a cross-dresser on screen and off, as well as friend and occasional lover of Garbo’s), prompts a panicked response from Christian conservatives across America. They demand Hollywood changes, and William H. Hays, the first chairman of the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributers of America, but his moral taskmasters find him weak and ineffectual.
Enter Joseph Breen, an Irish Catholic and cinephile with a keen political mind and a brutal willingness to do whatever it takes to protect the morality of America from the Hollywood studios debasing an artform he loves so much. He’s specifically called to action by the promiscuity of female characters who, for the first time in film history, have sex outside of marriage, take multiple lovers (sometimes at the same time), receive abortions, and even engage in sexual relationships with — gasp! — Black people.
While the violence that pervades Pre-Code Hollywood, such as in films like the James Cagney-starrer Scarface, contribute to Breen’s fervor, it is the freedom that actresses and their characters exhibit that infuriate him the most – and nobody infuriates him more than Greta Garbo. She is every bit as defiant, socially progressive, and, if the stories are true, sexually deviant as the characters she played.
Garbo sets herself on a collision course with Breen when she attacks him in the press, deftly using the media she typically shuns to her advantage. Breen increasingly and fanatically views her as a personal nemesis that must be destroyed at all costs. His wife, Mary — the mother of his six children — suspects his desire to tame Garbo is more than decent in intention, which only drives Breen more.
Garbo’s war with Breen lasts almost five years and involves issues of free speech, women’s rights, racism and homophobia, and Christian nationalism. It is eventually decided over the difficult production and release of Garbo’s greatest passion project, Queen Christina, an epic romance — and true story — about a Swedish queen who couldn’t be controlled by the men around her and who ultimately walked away from her throne to live a life of personal happiness.
In Shakespeare in Love-fashion, Queen Christina is an allegory for Garbo’s own struggle with celebrity and the patriarchy. This is what terrifies Breen so much about it and why he sets out to prevent its release without dramatic reworking.
The film also serves as a vehicle for Garbo to explore her own missed chance at happiness with co-star John Gilbert. Its heart-breaking ending parallels their own relationship’s fate, as Gilbert would end up in the grave largely due to the trauma Breen’s crusade causes him.
Garbo ultimately wins the battle over Queen Christina’s release, producing the film her way to critical and commercial successful – but it’s a false victory. This battle is a turning point in the war that results in the establishment of the Production Code Administration in 1934, the elevation of Breen to a censorship role over all of Hollywood, and decades of morally constrained, anti-women’s rights, anti-equality films that would damage American and world culture.
