The movie rating system took a while to catch on. There were a few glitches when it was first rolled out in the late '60s. The reason for its existence was the desire of filmmakers to include more sexuality and violence, as well as to incorporate harsher profanities than had not been allowed before. The Motion Picture Association of America devised the system to self-police, thereby preventing local censorship boards from taking their own scissors to new releases.
Because the ratings themselves weren't entirely defined at first, a number of motion pictures were rated G (meaning suitable for general audiences) despite containing material not fully appropriate for children. Later years saw the G morph into its current status as a signifier that a movie is fine for even the youngest kids. Every once in a while, one still nabs the rating despite not even remotely being aimed at children. The following films all got the G rating, yet are primarily geared toward adults.
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Airport is the Oscar-nominated 1970 adventure that kickstarted the disaster movie craze of that era. Featuring an all-star cast that includes Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Helen Hayes, and Maureen Stapleton, it tells the story of a flight that's jeopardized by a man threatening to blow up the plane with a bomb. An emergency landing isn't entirely an option as a major snowstorm has impacted the runaway. Everyone inside grows anxious, and the pilot attempts to fend off catastrophe by appealing to the bomber's sense of reason.
The plot is suspenseful and potentially enough to scare some viewers off of flying. Airport received a G rating for keeping its blood minimal and its language mild. Plenty of nail-biting moments make it most suitable for adults, particularly a scene where an explosive detonates inside the aircraft. The whole claustrophobic feel of the picture, combined with the terrifying idea of domestic terrorism inside a plane, proves to be fairly chilling, even if parts of it now feel outdated.
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True Grit is one of the all-time classic Westerns. John Wayne plays Rooster Cogburn, a US Marshal tracking down the man who killed a 14-year-old girl's father. The legendary actor won the Academy Award as best actor for his work in the film, which was famously remade by Joel and Ethan Coen in 2010.
In retrospect, it's absolutely insane that True Grit is rated G. The film has violence, including a bloody shot of a man whose fingers have been cut off. Characters are shown shooting guns, drinking whiskey, and swearing. The early days of the ratings system were a little unstable. The more restrictive ratings were given to movies that forged new boundaries in terms of sex, violence, and profanity. Those that presented material as it had traditionally been allowed were able to get away with a G. True Grit received an R rating the first time it went before the board, but was granted the lower rating after the filmmakers excised harsher four-letter words from a few scenes.
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Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey was in the earliest batch of movies to receive a G rating, before the whole system had settled in and found its groove. Surprisingly, it contains a few mild profanities, along with some human casualties. There's no outright violence or gore, and no sex or nudity. That allowed it to squeak by with the least restrictive rating.
It's hard to imagine any child being able to grasp the nuances of the story. 2001 is a trippy adventure centered around a group of astronauts seeking answers about the mysterious monolith that's found on the lunar surface. During the course of their mission, the computer system on their ship inexplicably begins to turn against them. The story ends on an ambiguous note whose meaning adults have been arguing about for decades. For a child, it would be absolutely perplexing.
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Two decades before Jurassic Park became a blockbuster, The Andromeda Strain brought a Michael Crichton novel to the screen. This sci-fi tale is about a group of scientists looking into a tragedy. A mysterious contagion has wiped out the residents of a small Arizona town after a research satellite crashed there. Working from a high-tech lab, the scientists attempt to figure out how to halt the contagion before it spreads further.
The Andromeda Strain deals with the scary issues of disease and death, which automatically gears it more toward adult audiences than toward families and children. Corpses are shown intermittently during the story. Astonishingly, the movie also contains female nudity. Because it isn't shown in a sexual capacity, the G rating was granted. However, the poster and all advertising carried a written warning that, despite the permissive rating, The Andromeda Strain “may be too intense for younger children.”
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Oliver! is a G-rated film and its hero is a young boy, so it would be easy to mistake it for a children's film upon first glance. The material is actually a little trickier than it appears. It's an adaptation of a Broadway musical that was based on Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. The kid, played by Mark Lester, is an orphan who's taught to pick pockets by a criminal. He joins a band of other kids in carrying out petty crimes. Trouble arises when Oliver is offered a nice home and the criminal fears he'll blow the whole operation.
There's lots of singing and dancing in Oliver! and children may indeed enjoy those production numbers. Beyond that, the plot is unexpectedly dark. Aside from the idea of kids committing crimes in order to feed themselves, Oliver is kidnapped and a woman is beaten to death with a cane. The film is very much about poverty and desperation, as seen through the eyes of a minor. Even though the song and dance is entertaining, the story doesn't pull many punches in showing the gritty details of its central character's life.
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Director Peter Bogdanovich had a very simple goal in mind when he made 1972's What's Up, Doc? He wanted to recreate the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. Ryan O'Neal and Barbra Streisand play two visitors to San Francisco who get caught up in an outrageous situation involving stolen jewels and the four identical suitcases that all end up in the wrong hands. The more they try to set things straight, the more hysterically complicated the scenario gets.
The content is pretty tame, because the inspirations came out during a time when you couldn't have overt sex and violence. Nevertheless, children are far less likely to be familiar with Bringing Up Baby and similar films whose tone and pace What's Up, Doc? is trying to emulate. It really helps to have a sense of the very specific style Bogdanovich is aiming for. Anyone who has been exposed to those earlier works can appreciate the effort that has gone into recapturing it, as well as delight in the slapstick shenanigans that O'Neal and Streisand engage in.
G is for Grown-Up?
