Forbidden Images: Movie Montage Of Censored Images From 1920s And 30s

[Hemingway Jones]

I was watching The Third Man a few months ago and was quite surprised to see a scene with Joseph Cotton that featured an exotic dancer clearly wearing only tassles and flimsy skirt. I'm not sure if this was in the original cut that showed in the cinema though....

I agree. It's very racy. I believe it was shown in the UK version.

It's almost as risqué as "Metropolis."

 

[Nick D]

Some pre-Code movies even make *me* blush and think "that's so wrong!" (but that only makes me love them more! ) Coke use, bloody, gorey violence, violence against women, cheating, jealousy, heroine use, opium use, nudity, kidnapping, drinking (which was ILLEGAL at the time)....I've seen these all in pre-Code movies.

I've seen things in pre-Code movies (and cartoons) that I doubt would be allowed today in mainstream cinema. Or at least would shock and offend.

 

[Spitfire]

This quite sexy part is from a danish movie from 1910 - it never got censored in Denmark, but I seriously doubt it could be shown in other countries at that time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=criEcLXgUQ0

 

[Tiller]

The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse (1921) has prominent bare breasts in it. Valentino is an artist and these are the women he is painting.

You can see Jean Harlow's bare breast for a split second in Red Headed Woman (1932)

There's a topless woman in Maniac (1934)

Some pre-Code movies even make *me* blush and think "that's so wrong!" (but that only makes me love them more! ) Coke use, bloody, gorey violence, violence against women, cheating, jealousy, heroine use, opium use, nudity, kidnapping, drinking (which was ILLEGAL at the time)....I've seen these all in pre-Code movies.

When people bemoan the movies of today compared to yesterday I often wonder if they know about the pre-Code era....

...or Exploitation Films. Child Bride (1938 -- which shows a NUDE 12 year old swimming in a lake being ogled by a pervy old "hillbilly") still gives me shivers.

I think their is a bit of arrogance in our culture (atleast in America). The general vibe is before the counter culture of the 60's sex, and violence hardly existed and people were "liberated" by the parading hippies. And that before that everyone was dainty, and no one knew the truth about such things.

Which is of course ridiculous since American had just gotten out of the old west, then went into the first World War, followed by the gang wars of Prohibition, then the bank robbers of the Depression, followed by the second World War, and then Korea in the 50's. Is it any wonder that the Jude Cleaver stereotypes just wanted a simple white picket fenced house to raise their families in after being around so much death? My Grandmother still won't talk much about the second World War and the death of her brother and other family members.

And as far as sex goes... well it wasn't those hippies that our culture identifies as being the liberators that invented ummm it. Let's just keep it at that lol.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well said. Today's boomer-driven sense of cultural history is completely oblivious to anything before 1950, *unless* it somehow relates to the development of rock music. Otherwise, the general cultural ignorance of the pre-boomer era is really pathetic.

The pre-code movies didn't exist in a cultural vacuum. What went on on the respectable Broadway revue stage in the twenties makes pre-code Hollywood look like a Sunday School picnic -- topless chorus girls were not uncommon, all sorts of smutty comedy routines, you name it. You wouldn't find this stuff in a small town, granted, and it was far from being something everybody approved, but if you were a "sophisticated" type living in a big city, it was never too far away.

 

[Widebrim]

This quite sexy part is from a danish movie from 1910 - it never got censored in Denmark, but I seriously doubt it could be shown in other countries at that time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=criEcLXgUQ0

That was quite...ummm...