20 Things You Didn't Know About The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
2. The Film Was One Of The Final Nails In The Coffin For The Hays Code
The Motion Picture Production Code (more commonly known as the Hays Code) blighted and stifled Hollywood expression from the early 1930s all the way to the late 1960s, restricting and censoring anything that was deemed suggestive or encouraging of moral degeneracy. Of course, the code was extremely puritanical and "moral degeneracy" could be anything from alcohol consumption to depictions of pregnancy.
Foreign films were not beholden to such strict regulations however, and as time went on, the code became increasingly difficult to enforce due to competition from foreign markets and a changing social and political climate.
By the late 1960s, the code had to be abandoned with the arrival of several wildly successful and popular foreign productions. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly was one of those works, breaking just about every taboo on the list. Some consider it to be one of the major titles which finally drove the code into obsolescence.