The Pre-Code era, running roughly between 1930 and 1934, saw American filmmaking venture into frank and sometimes scurrilous examinations of the shadier side of life. They pushed the envelope, a bit too far in fact, causing the Hays Office to finally begin enforcing the Code Hollywood had thus far managed to evade.
Turner Classic Movies sheds light on this fascinating era of film history with 'Forbidden Hollywood," a series of DVD sets collecting some of the best films of the period.
Forbidden Hollywood 1
Red-Headed Woman (1932) is a fairly wild tale, featuring Jean Harlow as a ruthless gold digger and home-wrecker who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. The film would likely go over well today in a theater with a live audience, but on video it seems to lack what many films of the early 1930s lack: a sophisticated use of sound. Without effective music and rhythmic editing, long silences between lines of dialogue appear awkward and strained.
Also included on the set is director James Whale’s version of Waterloo Bridge (1931), the story of a down-and-out showgirl in war-torn France who is forced to turn to prostitution to make ends meet. It’s a sympathetic portrayal of a prostitute, a plotline the Code would later render impossible on the screen, even if she does come to a tragic end.
The film features Mae Clark and Douglass Montgomery as star-crossed lovers who find each other amid the air raids and destruction of World War I. The performances are strong and the special effects, though rudimentary, manage to lend an element of stirring if surreal tragedy to the proceedings despite the transparency of the techniques.
But the real value of this set is the inclusion of not one but two versions of Baby Face (1933), probably the most notorious and best of the Pre-Code classics. The film was released just as the Code came into full effect, and thus it was heavily edited, and for 70 years the original, uncensored version was thought lost. However, a print was finally discovered a few years ago and toured the country in theatrical release (see review, Daily Planet, May 26, 2006).
The film is one of the most gleefully salacious of the era, following Barbara Stanwyck as Lilly Powers as she sleeps her way to the top, literally floor by floor up the ranks of a New York bank.
The Turner release allows viewers to see both versions side by side, revealing that the attempts to tone down the film were more varied, more numerous and more hilariously inept than previously thought. The print that circulated last year was accompanied by a few additional scenes after the closing credits to give a sense of some of the changes made to the film, but the DVD release reveals much more. There must be more than a dozen edits in the first 20 minutes alone: excised words and lines, trimmed shots that jump awkwardly from one to the next, clumsy inserts covering other deletions. It’s like trimming every other word from a Lenny Bruce monologue, or removing all the innuendo from a Groucho Marx routine—take out a few pieces and the whole structure falls apart.
The cover labels this as the just the first volume in a series of Pre-Code releases from Turner, though no word yet as to what lies in store. The project promises to shed much-needed light on one the most fascinating eras of American filmmaking, when an industry found that its morals and mores were greatly at odds with a puritan government.
Forbidden Hollywood 2
Volume 2 starts off with two Shearer vehicles. The first, The Divorceé (1930), tells the story of a woman who responds to her husband’s infidelity with a pledge to live as a man lives, and thus begins a string of extramarital dalliances that the enforcement of the Code would crack down on in just a few years. Not for decades would women on screen be able to live and love as freely. Also featured is Shearer’s follow-up, A Free Soul (1931).
Ruth Chatterton runs an automobile factory in Female (1933), taking and casting aside lovers from her stable of employees at will and transferring them to a Canadian subsidiary if they get too attached. Eventually she meets her match, and from there things go down hill a bit in the feminism department until finally crashlanding in the end with a severe cop-out in which she transfers control of the firm to her husband while setting out on her new goal of producing as many as nine children.
Three on a Match (1933) shows Bette Davis, Joan Blondell and Ann Dvorak as they grow from children to adults, Dvorak along the way slipping into a life of drug addiction. Humphrey Bogart plays a small role as a gangster thug.
Last is Night Nurse (1931), a strange story in which Barbara Stanwyck and Blondell do battle with an evil chauffeur (Clark Gable) in an effort to prevent a case of child abuse. The film is a mix of brash comedy, torrid melodrama and frolicking cheesecake as numerous pretenses are found for Stanwyck and Blondell to repeatedly strip off their clothing.
Also included is a documentary, Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood, that puts these films in historical context, sketching out the scandals that led to Hollywood’s first tepid and later strident efforts at self-censorship.
Forbidden Hollywood 1
Red-Headed Woman (1932).
Waterloo Bridge (1931).
Baby Face (1933).
Forbidden Hollywood 2
The Divorceé (1930).
A Free Soul (1931).
Female (1933).
Three on a Match (1933).
Night Nurse (1931)
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