Another Deadly Cin....": Pre-Code Motion Pictures 1929 - 1934 .
Before dotting their I's and crossing their T's, Hollywood in the early '30s was more like Unholywood. Film makers, scripts, et al where given an alarming latitude in their subject matter, frankness, and suggestion. Here's a rough guide through the cheeky jungle.
List activity
25 views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
15 titles
- DirectorLewis MilestoneStarsJoan CrawfordWalter HustonFred HowardA prostitute newly arrived in the South Pacific finds herself at odds with a stern missionary determined to save her soul.
- DirectorClarence BrownStarsNorma ShearerLeslie HowardLionel BarrymoreAn alcoholic lawyer who successfully defended a notorious gambler on a murder charge objects when his free-spirited daughter becomes romantically involved with him.
- DirectorLowell ShermanStarsMae WestCary GrantOwen MooreIn the Gay Nineties, a seductive nightclub singer contends with several suitors, including a jealous escaped convict and a handsome temperance league member.
- DirectorErnst LubitschStarsMaurice ChevalierJeanette MacDonaldEdward Everett HortonWhen a small kingdom's main taxpayer leaves for Paris, its king dispatches a dashing count to win back her allegiance.
- DirectorJacques FeyderStarsGreta GarboTheo ShallHans JunkermannA young woman reunites with her estranged father and falls in love with a sailor, but struggles to tell them about her dark past.
- DirectorJohn Francis DillonStarsHelen TwelvetreesLilyan TashmanRobert AmesMillie's life begins to crumble when she finds out her husband is having an affair.
- DirectorFrank BorzageStarsCharles FarrellRose HobartEstelle TaylorLiliom learns his wife is pregnant and robs a bank. During the getaway, he is killed and given a chance to return to Earth. He quickly learns the only way to make his wife and daughter happy is to leave them with cherished memories.
- DirectorKing VidorStarsSylvia SidneyWilliam Collier Jr.Estelle TaylorTwenty-four hours elapse on the stoop of a Hell's Kitchen tenement as a microcosm of the American melting pot interconnects during a summer heatwave.
- DirectorRouben MamoulianStarsFredric MarchMiriam HopkinsRose HobartDr. Jekyll faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run wild with a potion that transforms him into the animalistic Mr. Hyde.
- DirectorSam WoodStarsJoan CrawfordRobert ArmstrongMarie PrevostMary Turner goes up for three years on a crime she didn't commit. Once out she and former prison mates plan a scam in which old men can be sued for breach of promise - the "heart balm" racket. After plotting verious ways to get back at the men who set her up initially, she softens and settles down.
- DirectorGeorge AbbottStarsTallulah BankheadFredric MarchHarry DavenportAcquitted of murder charges, Carlotta moves to New York to start a new life.
- DirectorHenry KingStarsSpencer TracyKetti GallianNed SparksMarie is kidnapped and taken aboard ship, then thrown off at Yucatan. She winds up singing in a café in the Panama Canal zone. There she gets involved in a plot to destroy the canal and runs into American intelligence officer Crawbett.
- DirectorGeorge CukorStarsMarie DresslerJohn BarrymoreWallace BeeryAffluent Millicent and Oliver Jordan throw a dinner for a handful of wealthy and/or well-born acquaintances, each of whom has much to reveal.
- DirectorWesley RugglesStarsClark GableCarole LombardDorothy MackaillAn on-the-lam New York card shark marries a small-town librarian who thinks he's a businessman.
- DirectorJohn Francis DillonStarsClara BowGilbert RolandThelma ToddSexy Texas gal storms her way through life, brawling and boozing until her luck runs out, forcing her to learn the errors of her ways.Unsophisticated, pulp-centric film with a torridly excitable imagination. Clara Bow (making a healthy, but exiguous return) plays the beleaguered Nasa "Dynamite" Springer, whose character's flaws and the attendant havoc they foment (the writers, of course, leaving few stones unturned), are only slightly suggested by the namesake.
But the film is more Jerry Springer than Nasa Springer, with cat-fights, romantic infidelity, pandrogyny, and even has Bow perusing the red-light district when in a monetary pinch.
But no matter, Bow is still a magnum presence of the highest, most refreshing order. No matter what Dickensian life interim the scenarists throw at her (from diffident teenager, derelict newlywed, mourning mother, high society femme, to declasse drunk), Bow wretches her way around them with the god given gift of a genuine genius .
She may not be perfect-diction-and-deportment a la Shearer or Harding, but that only adds luster to her humane, sparkling grit. Her penultimate scene, inebriated in her hotel room (in which years of male mishandling finally get the better of her) is sensational, stunning.
Bow is given remarkable support by Thelma Todd, who's brilliant spitting out lines like "Ah, I've been around PLENTY of dynamite". Also of good standing is Gilbert Roland, Estelle Taylor, Monroe Owsley, and Anthony Jowitt. John Francis Dillon directs like a man facing the dilemma as to whether to exert any imagination or finesse, or simply let the cameraman press record. Clearly chanced upon the latter.