Anyone else like Hollywood Precode movies?

[AdeeC]

Before the middle of 1934, American film before the enactment of the Breen Code enjoyed a period of minimal censorship and freedom for filmmakers to be daring and innovative. These are my favourite all time Golden Era films. This was a period when women could be tough, liberated, bad or all three. Crime often did pay. Murderers got away with murder. Plenty of scantily clad ladies around. A man and woman could share a bed. Sexual innuendo and adultery was everywhere. Mixed race casts were common. Politicians, judges and priests could be good or rotten. Vices were openly flounted. It was not a crime to be poor and hungry. The vast majority of these films were canned and never to be seen for decades giving later viewers a distorted image of Golden Era films.

A few of my favourites include Safe in Hell, 42nd Sreet, Murder at the Vanities, Jewel Robbery, Employees Entrance, Red Headed Women, Baby Face, etc. The list goes on and on. Would anyone else like to discuss?

 

[rocketeer]

Well I have just watched the original 'Scarface'(put in in the "What have you watched" topic) Yes there were all the things you mention in it glamourising gangsters etc but Paul Muni's character still gets it in the end.
Some of my favourites would be:-
Hells Angels(Jean Harlow in her scanties)
King Kong(semi naked ladies)
Scarface
Little Caesar
Public Enemy
Frankenstein(Monster throws little girl down the well I think)

 

[AdeeC]

All those films you mentioned were not locked up in the vault because they had redeemable features or could be edited to make them adhere to the code in parts. Many other great precode films were too far compromised to be rehabilitated. If you are a Jean Harlow fan, you should watch Red Headed Woman. She plays a real shocker in that one. This film was banned for decades.

 

[2jakes]

A favorite pre-code movie :eusa_clap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPrWCCPADNs

 

[AdeeC]

Here is a clip from the musical MURDER AT THE VANITIES 1934. One of the most outraegous and entertaining politically incorrect precode films. This film was locked away for decades after 1934
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnySJxE_XQA

 

[Trapped in T-wilight Zone]

Above, I see "Frankenstein" (1931, first and best of Mary Shelley's monster), "Little Caesar" (the best gangster movie ever), "Public Enemy" (love the hoofer James Cagney in a bad guy role), and "42nd Street" (one of the earlier and best of Busby Berkeley). The other two Busby Berkeley early musical films I always love to see are "Footlight Parade" and "Gold Diggers of 1933". For me, and this is a personal preference, I prefer the still jazzy music of the late '20s and early '30s, after 1934 the music and the filming became too polished and bland to be nearly as enjoyable. At least for me.
I feel the same way about the Marx Brothers. "The Coconuts" (1929) is far and away my favorite! "Horsefeathers" (1932) is wonderful. "Animal Crackers" was locked away under a copyright dispute for a couple decades. After hearing and reading about it for years, when I finally got to see the movie I found it disappointing. I felt "Monkey Business" was a bit contrived and just didn't work well, but 1933's "Duck Soup" was again quite good. Although I am always a fan of the brothers Marx and have seen many of their later appearances, I don't really care a lot for their later movies. Again, this is personal preference, and I like the earlier stuff better.

I have never seen "Hells Angels" or "Red headed Woman", but have heard of them both. I would like to see them some day.
And how about some silent era movies? There is a rather risque shot of Clara Bow in "Wings" (1927). Quite a few of the great classic silent films would have one or two such scenes. Then again, Erich Von Stroheim became famous as a producer and director for his rather lavish productions (putting it very politely). He also acted in a few movies. In fitting with the theme of this thread, his "The Great Gabbo" (1929) is not bad at all (although it could be a bit disturbing to some people).

So many wonderful kinds of movies from so many great eras in movie making! They need to be seen, viewed in context of their eras, without judgement against a lack of newer technology. The reality is, that movie making has gone through numerous times where the art of story telling was lost for a short time because of the introduction of those new technologies. Producers, directors, and writers would have to figure it out all over again so it could work with those technologies. Several of the best movies I have ever seen were black and white, and silent with live music accompaniment. MM-MM that's good.

 

[Fading Fast]

I love these movies and know and enjoy most of the ones listed above. They are a brief window that shows us how much life then was like it is now / how constant human nature is. I will try to produce a larger list later, but off the top of my head, some of my favorites are:

"The Animal Kingdom"
"Double Harness"
"Christopher Strong"
"Employee's Entrance"
"Female"
"The Divorcee"

 

[AdeeC]

Above, I see "Frankenstein" (1931, first and best of Mary Shelley's monster), "Little Caesar" (the best gangster movie ever), "Public Enemy" (love the hoofer James Cagney in a bad guy role), and "42nd Street" (one of the earlier and best of Busby Berkeley). The other two Busby Berkeley early musical films I always love to see are "Footlight Parade" and "Gold Diggers of 1933". For me, and this is a personal preference, I prefer the still jazzy music of the late '20s and early '30s, after 1934 the music and the filming became too polished and bland to be nearly as enjoyable. At least for me.
I feel the same way about the Marx Brothers. "The Coconuts" (1929) is far and away my favorite! "Horsefeathers" (1932) is wonderful. "Animal Crackers" was locked away under a copyright dispute for a couple decades. After hearing and reading about it for years, when I finally got to see the movie I found it disappointing. I felt "Monkey Business" was a bit contrived and just didn't work well, but 1933's "Duck Soup" was again quite good. Although I am always a fan of the brothers Marx and have seen many of their later appearances, I don't really care a lot for their later movies. Again, this is personal preference, and I like the earlier stuff better.

I have never seen "Hells Angels" or "Red headed Woman", but have heard of them both. I would like to see them some day.
And how about some silent era movies? There is a rather risque shot of Clara Bow in "Wings" (1927). Quite a few of the great classic silent films would have one or two such scenes. Then again, Erich Von Stroheim became famous as a producer and director for his rather lavish productions (putting it very politely). He also acted in a few movies. In fitting with the theme of this thread, his "The Great Gabbo" (1929) is not bad at all (although it could be a bit disturbing to some people).

So many wonderful kinds of movies from so many great eras in movie making! They need to be seen, viewed in context of their eras, without judgement against a lack of newer technology. The reality is, that movie making has gone through numerous times where the art of story telling was lost for a short time because of the introduction of those new technologies. Producers, directors, and writers would have to figure it out all over again so it could work with those technologies. Several of the best movies I have ever seen were black and white, and silent with live music accompaniment. MM-MM that's good.

Two very interesting and quite wild silent precodes that are a real hoot starred Phyliss Haver who was almost a dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe are CHICAGO and BATTLE OF THE SEXES. Just as sexy but badder and far more realistic in the sex bomb role. She retired quite young at the peak of her career and married a millionaire.

 

[Doctor Strange]

An older thread on the same topic worth a look:

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?8812-Pre-1934-Films

 

[LizzieMaine]

The ultimate pre-code movie is Wheeler and Woolsey's "So This Is Africa." It had the thickest censorship file in the Hays Office cabinet, and was never reissued. It's hard to find now, and when you do find it, you'll see why. There are so many cuts and edits that parts of the film are incoherent -- and that's *before* the Code was fully enforced. The National Board of Review called the film "an outrage to common decency."

 

[emigran]

Think Kay Francis in a silk nightgown...

 

[Fading Fast]

I love the post-code movies as I grew up watching them on the local TV channels on Saturday and Sunday afternoons in the '70s, but when TCM started showing pre-code (I'm guessing in the '90s), I was amazed. It is as if the rule-bound world the movies of the '30s, '40s and (most of) the '50s had been undone for about five years, '29 -'34.

People had premarital sex, women got pregnant from it, women held jobs, supported men, people had affairs, homosexuals existed and all weren't portrayed as deviants, war veterans were traumatized, threesomes occurred and the participants weren't unhappy or ostracized, criminals stole and didn't always go to jail, fathers abused their daughters and single mothers might keep their babies or have an abortion, oh, and women actually wanted to have sex. Basically, real life happened.

And the best part, many of these are simply good, enjoyable movies. From my list above:

"The Animal Kingdom" - Leslie Howard lives with his lover but is forced by his family / society to marry a women he doesn't love whom he eventually leaves to go back to his lover (the wonderful Ann Harding)

"Double Harness" - Ann Harding uses social pressures to force William Powell to marry her and, then, realizes her mistake and blames herself and not him - wonderful moment of a person taking responsibility for her own actions and not blaming others

"Christopher Strong" - Katherine Hepburn plays an aviatrix - a strong career / fame driven women - with a strong bi-sexual vibe. Very, very ahead of its time

"Employee's Entrance" - Loretta Young works in a department door, sleeps with the boss, falls in love with a salesman and balances it all - with ups and down - with a nuanced view that we wouldn't see again in movies until the '60s

"Female" - Ruth Chatterton (love her - shame she's not known even to a lot of old movie buffs) owns an auto company and uses her position of power (our modern word for it) to have sex with her young good looking male employees and, then, ships them off to out of town divisions if they try to get too close to her. Pause on that for a moment and think how ahead of its time it was as that plot couldn't even be made with a man in her role for several decades.

"The Divorcee" - Norma Shearer plays a divorce woman who sleeps her way through Europe 'cause she's angry that her former husband had cheated on her when they were married and he wanted her to abide by a double standard. They weren't holding their punches in these movies.

and a few more:

"Queen Christina" - Greta Garbo as queen of Sweden kisses women with passion and spends a good part of the movie having an out-of-marriage affair with John Gilbert - they weren't making this one in 1935

"Design for Living" - Gary Cooper Marian Hopkins and Fredrick March basically walk the edge of and cross over a bit into a menage a trios.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Or even Bert Wheeler in a silk nightgown.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I do know that the Hays Code ruined Betty Boop. Turned her from a slightly naughty flapper into a mundane housewife without a husband.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Betty's role as a flapper was already a bit outdated even before the Code hit, and her schtick was getting a bit redundant by 1934 - though the cartoons were brilliantly bizarre. At least the Fleischers' need to create new supporting characters for her after retiring Bimbo and KoKo gave us the beloved Grampy and his nutty inventions. (The less said about her lunkhead boyfriend Freddie and Pudgy the Pup, the better.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Code was actually put into place in 1930 -- the gaminess of many early talkies caused a lot of controversy, but the Depression hit exhibitors hard. Most had gone into debt or made other onerous contractural committments in order to wire for sound, and controversial pictures tended to draw attention at the box office. This led the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association of America to essentially look the other way on code enforcement. A crackdown during 1931-32, when the Depression was at its worst, could have broken the entire industry.

It was a threatened boycott of the entire industry by the Catholic Legion of Decency in 1934 that finally brought enforcement to the code. Will Hays had nothing to do with enforcement -- he hired Joseph I. Breen to do that. Breen was an influential Catholic layman with very strong views, and he brought them to full bear in mid-1934 when the "Breen Office" was established. He, not Hays, was Hollywoods "Chief Censor."

The MPPDA had no *legal* authority to do anything -- they weren't any sort of government agency, but rather, a trade association representing the production and distribution end of the business. But as such they could withhold distribution for any picture that Breen deemed unworthy of a Code certificate -- and that meant, essentially, no distribution for that picture. There were a few independent exploitation producers who operated outside the MPPDA, and distributed their films on a states'-rights basis, but these were usually fly-by-night operators who couldn't get a legitimate film exchange to handle their prints, and usually ended up broke.

Breen's personal beliefs were key to how he enforced the Code -- it wasn't just a general 1930s middle-class morality that he insisted upon, but a very rigorous, *Catholic* 1930s middle-class morality.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Betty's role as a flapper was already a bit outdated even before the Code hit, and her schtick was getting a bit redundant by 1934 - though the cartoons were brilliantly bizarre. At least the Fleischers' need to create new supporting characters for her after retiring Bimbo and KoKo gave us the beloved Grampy and his nutty inventions. (The less said about her lunkhead boyfriend Freddie and Pudgy the Pup, the better.)

The Fleischers' real interest had moved on to Popeye by that point. Betty was a second-class citizen at the studio before Code enforcement was a year old.

 

[ChiTownScion]

It was a threatened boycott of the entire industry by the Catholic Legion of Decency in 1934 that finally brought enforcement to the code. Will Hays had nothing to do with enforcement -- he hired Joseph I. Breen to do that. Breen was an influential Catholic layman with very strong views, and he brought them to full bear in mid-1934 when the "Breen Office" was established. He, not Hays, was Hollywoods "Chief Censor."


****


Breen's personal beliefs were key to how he enforced the Code -- it wasn't just a general 1930s middle-class morality that he insisted upon, but a very rigorous, *Catholic* 1930s middle-class morality.

I can recall as a kid that, once a year, we'd stand in church and take a pledge that the Catholic Legion of Decency had distributed to all of the churches. Essentially, promising not to view movies that were lewd or obscene. It was supposedly voluntary, but obviously if you chose to sit in your pew you'd single yourself out for peer harassment.

Experiences like that helped to make me into the Protestant that I am today.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Code was actually put into place in 1930 -- the gaminess of many early talkies caused a lot of controversy, but the Depression hit exhibitors hard. Most had gone into debt or made other onerous contractural committments in order to wire for sound, and controversial pictures tended to draw attention at the box office. This led the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association of America to essentially look the other way on code enforcement. A crackdown during 1931-32, when the Depression was at its worst, could have broken the entire industry.

Interesting information and observations. Did the actual enforcement of the code by the end of '34 cause a drop off in box office?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I can recall as a kid that, once a year, we'd stand in church and take a pledge that the Catholic Legion of Decency had distributed to all of the churches. Essentially, promising not to view movies that were lewd or obscene. It was supposedly voluntary, but obviously if you chose to sit in your pew you'd single yourself out for peer harassment.

Experiences like that helped to make me into the Protestant that I am today.

A workmate used to tell stories like that. He'd say they'd look over the list of "condemned" movies and make a point of going to see them, figuring that they'd see some hot stuff -- but there'd be some character being disrespectful to a bishop, and that was it.