The Golden Age of the American B-Movie Title Sequence – Part 2: The End of the Production Code. “The ’60s were a time of change, not only in politics and social norms, but also the arts, and cinema in particular. Hitchcock’s Psycho, released in 1960, became the first box office blockbuster to be distributed without official approval from the Motion Pictures Distributors Association of America (MPDAA), which set rigid guidelines for sex and violence in American film. … Thus began a decade-long game of chicken between Hollywood and its patrons, each prodding the other to their limits. The censorship goalposts were pushed so far back as to be lost in the fog of America’s ongoing free speech debate. The censors became so marginalized by this cinematic machismo, and so overwhelmed by the explosion of art house films and venues, that they could simply no longer hold the line. In…