Lots to pick from. My faves would include
Baby Face (1933)
Directed by Alfred E. Green. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent,
Donald Cook, Alphonse Ethier, Henry Kolker, Theresa Harris, Margaret
Lindsay, Arthur Hohl, John Wayne. It's the age-old story of the girl
so mistreated by men that she's determined to get revenge. Lilly (Baby
Face) sleeps her way from basement speakeasy bartender, literally
floor by floor, to the top floor of a New York office building. Bank
submanager Jimmy McCoy finds her a job in the bank only to be cast
aside as she hooks up with the bank's president. "The Hays office
recommended that the picture be pulled from the theaters for its
violations of the production code. ...There was extensive
correspondence between officials of the AMPP and Warner Bros.
executives Darryl Zanuck and Jack L. Warner regarding various changes
which were intended to make the film more acceptable to censor boards
across the country. The main thrust of the changes was to attach an
ending which showed Lily losing everything she had gained and
returning to her hometown in order that viewers would not be tempted
to believe that vice was rewarded. Originally the character of the
cobbler professed a Nietzchian philosophy which was unacceptable under
the production code. The character was changed to become instead the
moral voice of the film, and was used to indicate that the character
of Lily had been wrong to advance in the by using her body. Also cut
were the most blantant references to the fact that Lily was being kept
by men." [AFI Catalog]
Blonde Venus (1932)
Directed by Josef von Sternberg. Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Herbert
Marshall, Cary Grant, Hattie McDaniel. The story of a woman who is
torn between two men, her successful stage career and her child. Helen
Faraday is a nightclub singer turned housewife, but when her husband
needs money to have a life-saving operation, she decides to resume her
career as a singer to raise money. She undergoes a chain of events
that separate her from her husband and force her to make a choice
between her lucrative singing career, and her role as a wife and
mother. "Herbert Marshall's glimpse of Marlene Dietrich's skinny-dip
leads to marriage and toddler Dickie Moore, their happiness derailed
when she must hit the streets to pay for hubbie?s radium poisoning
treatments. The most outlandish of the Dietrich/von Sternberg
pictures, highlighted by her gorilla-suited "Hot Voodoo" number, plus
a lucrative affair with young Cary Grant."
Bombshell(1933)
Directed by Victor Fleming. Cast: Jean Harlow, Lee Tracy, Frank
Morgan, Franchot Tone, Pat O'Brien, Una Merkel, Ted Healy. Screen
siren Lola Burns is fed up with the scandalous stories her publicist,
Space Hanlon puts out, the endless arguments on the sets of her films
and her family's constant drain on her money and peace of mind. Her
attempts to get married, adopt a baby and quit the business altogether
are constantly thwarted, unbeknownst to her, by Space, who is secretly
in love with her. 96 min.
The Divorcee (1930)
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard. Cast: Norma Shearer, Chester Morris,
Conrad Nagel, Robert Montgomery Based on Ursula Parrott's spicy 1929
novel "Ex-wife," the highly controversial The Divorcee was nominated
for four Academy Awards including Best Picture. Norma Shearer won for
Best Actress as a woman who confronts the hypocrisy of the double
standard after catching her husband in a compromising position and
forcing him to confess his infidelities. Her solution to the problem:
try to match him tryst for tryst. 82 min.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
Directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Cast: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins.
Famous version of the Stevenson masterpiece about a scientist who
concocts a potion that releases the animal side of man. Restored
version contains 17 minutes of previously censored material. "Jason
Joy (Production Code enforcer) wrote to Will Hays: 'Frankenstein is
staying for four weeks and taking in big money at theatres which were
about on the rocks . . . resentment is surely being built up. How
could it be otherwise if children go to these pictures and have the
jitters, followed by nightmares? I, for one, would hate to have my
children see FRANKENSTEIN, JEKYLL, or the others and you probably feel
the same way about Bill [Will Hays, Jr.]. Not only is there a future
economic consideration, but maybe there is a real moral responsibility
involved to which I wonder if we as individuals ought to lend our
support.'" [as quoted in Vieira, Mark. Sin in soft focus : pre-code
Hollywood New York : Harry N. Abrams, 1999 [MAIN: PN1995.62 .V54
1999]. Still, as Thomas Doherty has contended, "Horror films also
offer insights into what filmmakers would do if given nearly total
freedom. Censors were so concerned with limiting sex, crime and
violence, that they completely neglected the horror genre. "As long as
monsters refrained from illicit sexual activity, respected the clergy,
and maintained silence on controversial political matters." ..."they
might walk with impunity where bad girls, gangsters, and radicals
feared to tread" [Pre-code Hollywood : sex, immorality, and
insurrection in American cinema, 1930-1934 New York : Columbia
University Press, c1999. p. 297
Ecstasy (Ekstase)(Czechoslovakia / Austria, 1933)
Directed by Gustav Machatý. Cast: Hedy Lamarr, Aribert Moog, Leopold
Kramer, Jaromir Rogoz. Eva has just gotten married to an older
gentleman, but discovers that he is obsessed with order in his life
and doesn't have much room for passion. She becomes despondent and
leaves him, returning to her father's house. One day while bathing in
the lake she meets a young man and they fall in love. The husband has
become grief stricken at the loss of his young bride, and fate brings
him together with the young lover that has taken Eva from him. The
film was highly controversial in its time largely because of a nude
swimming scene. It is also perhaps the first non-pornographic movie to
portray sexual intercourse, although never showing more than the
actors' faces. It has also been called the first on-screen depiction
of a female orgasm. Based on a story by Samuel Cummins 79 min. DVD
X781
Female (1933)
Directed by Michael Curtiz. Cast: Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, Lois
Wilson, Johnny Mack Brown, Ruth Donnelly. In director Michael Curtiz's
romantic comedy Female, Ruth Chatterton plays Alison Drake, the
iron-fisted president of a motorcar company. Alison oversees the daily
operations of her male employees with a predatory gaze and frequently
exercises her right to engage with them in any way she deems fit. She
meets her match in an equally strong-minded new employee, Jim Thorne
(George Brent), and the two engage in a smoldering, contentious,
sexually charged duel. The action of the film--one of the first to
depict a female character turning a man's world to her
advantage--feeds on the novelty of presenting a woman as a corporate
shark and bedroom hound. Though it's obvious the filmmakers thought
they were creating a scenario that would never actually happen,
Alison's world-smashing exploits make the bulk of the film (before she
begins to question her nontraditional lifestyle) a protofeminist romp.
Brent and Chatterton were married at the time they made the film, and
the natural chemistry between them is abundantly evident. Curtiz packs
the screen with extravagant set design and period detail
Freaks (1932)
Directed by Tod Browning. The side-show freaks have created their own
unified community within the carnival. When the beautiful trapeze
artist marries one of the freaks for his money, and then plots to kill
him, the enraged freaks defend their friend and take gruesome revenge
on their betrayers, transforming the aerialist into the most hideous
side-show attraction of all. "According to Monthly Film Bulletin,
Freaks was banned in Great Britain until Aug 1963, when it was finally
released with an "X" certificate. Modern sources note that the picture
was banned in other countries as well." [AFI Catalog]
Gabriel Over the White House (1933)
Directed by Gregory LaCava. Cast: Walter Huston, Karen Morley,
Franchot Tone, Arthur Byron, Dickie Moore. United States President
Judson Hammond, a corrupt politician, is visited by the Angel Gabriel
during recuperation from a near-fatal automobile accident. President
Hammond miraculously becomes virtuous, although his zeal for reform is
as misguided as his previous indifference was destructive.
"Unsatisfied with status quo politics, filmmakers looked to
authoritarian leadership on the left and the right for possible
solutions. Dubbed by the trade press as the "dictator craze," these
films presented "strong tyrannical personalities who, whatever their
flaws as human beings and citizens, at least knew how to take strong
action" ... Movies allowed Americans to fantasize about embracing
revolutionary leadership, whether left or right, that could take the
nation out of hard times. Inspired by events such as the government's
brutal attack of peaceful Bonus Army marchers in July 1932, films like
The Power and the Glory (1933) and Gabriel Over the White House (1933)
dealt with strikes, massive gatherings of the unemployed, massacres by
private police or government forces, and dictators who presided over
these events, allegedly for the benefit of the nation." [Ross, Steven.
"The Seen, the Unseen, and the Obscene: Pre-Code Hollywood." Reviews
in American History 28.2 (2000) 270-277) 78 min.
I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Cast: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen
Vinson, Noel Francis, Preston Foster, Allen Jenkins. An itinerant
ex-soldier is sentenced to a chain gang after he is wrongly implicated
in a hold-up. An early social protest film based on a true story, the
film helped initiate reform of the prison system.
I'm No Angel (1933)
Directed by Wesley Ruggles. Cast: Mae West, Cary Grant, Edward Arnold,
Gregory Ratoff. The bold Tira works as a dancing beauty and lion tamer
at a fair. Out of an urgent need of money, she agrees to a risky new
number: she'll put her head into the lion's mouth! With this
attraction the circus makes it to New York and Tira can persue her
dearest occupation: flirting with rich men. Among the guys she
searches for the love of her life, from whom she only knows from a
fortune-teller that he'll be rich and have black hair. When she
finally meets him, she becomes a victim of intrigue. "West, more
imposing than coquettish as Tira the Lion Tamer, wields physical
presence like a boxer and sexuality like a gunslinger throughout the
film. From her opening scene, where she's introduced to a carnival
crowd as "the girl who discovered you don't need feet to be a dancer,"
until the end, when she gets her man (Cary Grant, 29 years old and
looking about 14, as upstanding society fellow Jack Clayton), Tira
owns the screen. It's not hard to imagine either why I'm No Angel,
often considered the last film of pre-code Hollywood, was the breaking
straw for the Hays Office, or why Depression-era audiences loved it so
much. Tira violates conventions of race, class, and (of course) sex,
and she goes entirely unpunished by the plot of the film. Instead,
West, who took sole credit for the story, screenplay and dialogue, is
careful to give herself the last laugh--the real currency of a film
like this one--in every scene. In the climactic trial, she
cross-examines much of her romantic history to prove, to a judge and
jury with whom she flirts hilariously, that she's "no angel" but that
she is, indisputably, a heroine. Here at SFist, we are hard pressed to
think of a recent studio film in which a hypersexual female lead gets
away with so much." [SFist site]
Heroes for Sale (1933)
Directed by William A. Wellman. Cast: Richard Barthelmess, Aline
MacMahon, Loretta Young, Gordon Westcott, Robert Barrat. Host, Leonard
Maltin. One of the "social conscience" films of the 1930s, this tells
the story of Tom Holmes whose return home as a wounded
morphine-addicted World War I doughboy is just the beginning of a
chain of woes involving joblessness, the building and loss of a
successful business and unjust imprisonment. But no matter how many
times he's knocked down, he always gets back up ... a tough hero for a
tough time. DVD special features: Commentary on "Heroes for sale" by
historian John Gallagher; commentary on "Wild boys of the road" by
William Wellman, Jr. and historian Frank Thompson; S.S. Van Dine
detective short "The trans-Atlantic mystery;" 2 classic cartoons "One
step ahead of my shadow" and "Sittin' on a backyard fence;" theatrical
trailers.71 min.
Island of Lost Souls (1932)
Directed by Erle C. Kenton. Cast: Charles Laughton, Bela Lugosi,
Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams, the Panther woman. Charles Laughton plays
Dr. Moreau, the benign-looking doctor who lives and works on his own
private South Seas island. When a shipwreck leaves Edward Parker
stranded on the island, he learns of the hideous experiments that the
doctor has been conducting in an area of the island known as "the
House of Pain". When Parker encounters the beautiful creature Lota,
the panther woman, Dr. Moreau gets the idea to create the first
human-animal child through the two of them. "Island of Lost Souls and
Freaks present images of revolution in which "downtrodden masses,
tribes of the misshapen and mutated" overthrow "a hierarchy not merely
of power but of beauty." Many Depression-era Americans may well have
identified with the tragic animalmen of Island as they revolted
against their evil sovereign. [Pre-code Hollywood : sex, immorality,
and insurrection in American cinema, 1930-1934 New York : Columbia
University Press, c1999. p. 308 (MAIN: PN1995.62 .D65 1999)]. All this
is not to mention the unsavory sexual tension between Parker and the
panther woman, and the spectacle of a scientist dangerously
overstepping his bounds (Moreau: "Mr. Parker, do you know what it
means to feel like God?") Based on the novel "The island of Dr.
Moreau" by H.G. Wells. 71 min.
Merrily We Go to Hell (1932)
Directed by Dorothy Arzner. Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Fredric March,
Adrianne Allen, Richard Gallagher, George Irving, Cary Grant. Jerry
Corbett finally meets and marries Joan Prentiss, the right girl.
Unfortunately their wedded bliss is interrupted when Jerry's play
becomes a hit and he hooks up with the wrong woman from his past. Joan
decides that turn-about is fair play and she picks Charlie to escort
her to various parties around New York. Eventually Jerry quits
drinking and sends his girlfriend packing, just in time for Joan to
take him back. Merrily we go to Hell violated the Production Codes
strictures against scenes of drunken parties, clinging Travis Banton
gowns and Art Deco settings. 84 min.
Platinum Blonde (1931)
Directed by Frank Capra. Cast: Loretta Young, Robert Williams, Jean
Harlow, Louise Closser Hale, Halliwell Hobbes, Reginald Owen, Edmund
Breese, Don Dillaway, Walter Catlett. "Reporter 'Stew' Smith meets
beautiful Ann Schuyler, a rich socialite, while covering the story of
a scandal involving Ann's family. Ann takes a liking to the
wisecracking Smith and the couple eventually elope. Stew's roots as a
street smart reporter don't prepare him well for mixing with Ann's
high society friends and he starts spending more time with his 'pal',
female reporter Gallagher. Everything comes to a head when Ann and her
family return home to their mansion one evening and find that Stew has
invited all his 'pals' over for an impromptu drinking party." [IMDB]
90 min.
Rain (1932)
Directed by Lewis Milestone. Cast: Joan Crawford, Walter Huston,
William Gargan, Guy Kibbee, Walter Catlett, Beulah Bondi, Matt Moore,
Kendall Lee, Ben Hendricks, Frederick Howard. When a fanatical
missionary and his wife are marooned in a hut with a former prostitute
during a week-long tropical storm in Pago Pago, the conflict swells to
explosive proportions in this early talkie version of a much filmed
story. Other versions include: Sadie Thompson (1928) and Miss Sadie
Thompson (1953). Original story by W. Somerset Maugham. 76 min
Red-headed Woman (1932)
Directed by Jack Conway. Cast: Jean Harlow, Chester Morris, Lewis
Stone, Leila Hyams, Una Merkel. Precensorship story of gold-digging
secretary Lil who works for the Legendre Company and causes Bill to
divorce Irene and marry her. She has an affair with businessman
Gaerste and uses him to force society to pay attention to her. She has
another affair with the chauffeur Albert. Screen play by Anita Loos;
produced by Albert Lewin, Irving Thalberg; additional writing by F.
Scott Fitzgerald.
Shanghai Express (1932)
Directed by Josef von Sternberg. Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook,
Anna May Wong, Warner Oland, Eugene Pallette. After being jilted by
Clive Brook, Marlene Dietrich becomes known as Shanghai Lily, a
notorious adventuress. During the Chinese civil war, the couple meet
on a train which is attacked by Chinese rebels. Dietrich becomes
involved with a rebel leader in order to save the man she still loves.
"It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily.' Aboard
the title train, befeathered Marlene Dietrich meets mysterious Anna
May Wong and stoic ex-amour Clive Brook, but Chinese rebel leader
Warner Oland demands an unscheduled stop, barking, 'The white woman
stays with me!"
Sign of the Cross (1932)
Directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Cast: Fredric March, Elissa Landi,
Claudette Colbert, Charles Laughton, Ian Keith, Vivian Tobin, Nat
Pendleton, Arthur Hohl. "Cecil B. DeMille pulls out all the stops in
this tale of early Christians persecuted in ancient Rome. Charles
Laughton stars as a leering, lascivious Nero, complete with spit
curls. In the words of Paramount's publicity, "Rome burns again! The
sets are marvelous and the costumes spell sex. There's Claudette
Colbert in a milk bath. And Fredric March using the sensuous Joyzelle
[as a dancing slave] to break down the resistance of Elissa Landi [as
a virtuous young Christian]? mentally, and how!"" [Harvard Film
Archive] 90 min.
Wild Boys of the Road (1933)
Directed by William A. Wellman. Cast: Frankie Darro, Rochelle Hudson,
Dorothy Coonan, Sterling Holloway, Arthur Hohl, Grant Mitchell, Claire
McDowell. At the bottom of the depression, Tom's mother has been out
of work for months when Ed's father loses his job. Not to burden their
parents, the two high school sophomore's decide to hop the freights
and look for work. Wherever they go, there are many other kids just
like them, so Tom, Ed and now Sally stick together. They camp in
places like 'Sewer City' as long as they can until the local
authorities run them off. Lots of events happen to them including a
rape by a train brakeman (pre-code stuff.) They travel all over the
Midwest and when they finally reach New York they've become hardened
and weary, and are no longer kids. 69 min.
> If you were going to introduce an audience to Pre-Code films, which titles
> would you select? Our library is considering a Pre-Code film screening
> series in a few months, and we want to select titles that are good
> representatives of the period (and available on DVD or Blu-ray).
>
> So which titles would you pick? And, optionally, why?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Michael Logan
> Acquisitions and Technical Services
> Humboldt County Library
> (707) 269-1962
>
>
>
> VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of
> issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic
> control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in
> libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve
> as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of
> communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video
> producers and distributors.
>
> VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of
> issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic
> control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in
> libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve
> as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of
> communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video
> producers and distributors.
>
Gary Handman
Director
Media Resources Center
Moffitt Library
UC Berkeley
510-643-8566
ghand...@library.berkeley.edu
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC
"I have always preferred the reflection of life to life itself."
--Francois Truffaut
VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues
relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control,
preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and
related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective
working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication
between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and
distributors.
