Pre Code film Articles and Movie Reviews from the 1920s to 1934 prier to censorship guidelines by the Motion Picture Production Code, also known Hayes Code.
Guest blogger Marsha Collock writes about the exploitation classic Midnight Mary: Meet Mary Martin: Orphaned and sent away to a reformatory at 14 , hooker and gun moll at 17 and a secretary and murderess by 20. She’s a good…
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The Bad Ol’ Days: Warner Archive has gone again to their vaults to bring us the worst—the worst in human behavior in the movies from the pre-Code days. Two collections featuring top stars where behaving badly—committing crimes, getting into trouble,…
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Fredric March was already an Oscar winner and a newly minted Hollywood star when he co-starred with Miriam Hopkins and Gary Cooper in Ernst Lubitsch’s 1933 adaptation of the Noel Coward play Design for Living. In 1929, when all the major…
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Jean Harlow is one of the greatest screen sirens in motion picture history. This post will be about the platinum blonde bombshell who made blonde hair what it is today: Harlean Harlow Carpenter, AKA Jean Harlow. In short, she is…
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Why do we love pre-Code films? Fast pace? Check. Great stories? Check. Great casts? Check again. Oh, come on. Let’s be honest. It’s the sex, depravity and lingerie! I consider all pre-Code films guilty pleasures. Each generation seems to think it is…
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The same year Warner Brothers released 42nd Street (1933), MGM came out with Dancing Lady, a backstage musical complete with a Busby Berkeley style finale. If you had to compare the two, the win would certainly go to 42nd Street,…
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Waterloo Bridge Director: James Whale USA 1931 81 minutes (Available on the Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 1) Unfortunately, this first filmed version of Waterloo Bridge has for a long time stood in the shadows of Mervyn LeRoy‘s more clean-cut 1940…
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