Breen was a Catholic Legion of Decency type who was put in charge of an office though which the movie scripts went and it enforced the Hays Code. The Code was set up in 1930 and the Breen office began work in mid-1934. So often they call the 1930-34 movies "pre-Code" when in fact the Code did exist, it was simply not vigourously enforced. Maniac from 1934 is an example of a movie that went outside the distribution and production system of the major studios and was not subject to the Code or the Breen office. That studios ran the theatres made it difficult to show it, though, and was usually shown in carnivals. This was self-censorship to avoid government censorship though there was state censorship - thus, when nudie movies were being made in the 1950s these challenged the state laws. The nudist colony movie was invented when the New York courts declared that nudity depicted in nudist colonies to be educational and thus allowed.
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The Internet Archive, www.achive.org, features many old movies including Detour and other film noir, and most of the old Alfred Hitchcocks like The 39 Steps, Secret Agent, The Man Who Knew Too Much...