Pre-Code Hollywood: No Damsels. No Knights in Shining Armor. Just Dames and Forgotten Men in Chains
I am currently working on a novel set during the Depression of the 1930′s. One of the joyful side effects of my research has been discovering the early “talkie� Hollywood films from 1930-1934, known as the “Pre-Code� period. For those not in the know, “Pre-Code� refers to films that were made and released before the amended Production Code “to govern the making of motion and talking pictures� (aka censorship) took effect on July 1st, 1934. The Code was enforced due, in no small part, to heavy-handed boycotting and mass protests led by the Catholic Legion of Decency. The Catholic Legion of Decency felt that Hollywood films had become a hotbed of sex and vice; they feared that common folk would be led down a rabbit hole of salacious sin and depravity by way of Jean Harlow’s nipples and James Cagney’s knuckles.
When we think of classic Hollywood movies today, we picture gee-whiz wholesomeness, Donna Reid and apple pie. This is certainly true for films made after the Code began to be enforced. Films released prior to the summer of 1934 however were as gritty as they were glamorous. Sexy secretaries, Prohibition-era gangsters, hookers with hearts of silver, heroin addicted and shell shocked WW1 vets, sassy showgirls and convicts on the run: the Pre-Code girls were bad and the boys just *had* it bad.
What impresses me even more than the snappy wise-cracks and sexual innuendo, is how pro-working class and anti-Establishment these films, particularly those released by the Warner Brothers studio, were. To an audience who was struggling with the worst economic downfall that North America has ever seen - a crushing failure of Capitalism which led to mass unemployment, starvation and suicide - these films asked the question: Who is the REAL criminal? Is it James Cagney’s bootlegger in "The Public Enemy" or Paul Muni’s war vet turned escaped convict in "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang"? Is it Marlene Dietrich turning tricks for her supper in "Blonde Venus" or Barbara Stanwyck literally sleeping her way up the corporate ladder in "Baby Face"? Or is it actually the Establishment who is the true criminal: the banks who robbed us, the coppers who beat us, the government who lied to us?
Now try to imagine a mainstream Hollywood film in 2017 poising that same question.
The Pre-Code talkies may be black&white but their message isn’t: when it comes to “right� vs. “wrong�, these films make room for plenty of grey.
- Written by Heather Babcock, 2017
When we think of classic Hollywood movies today, we picture gee-whiz wholesomeness, Donna Reid and apple pie. This is certainly true for films made after the Code began to be enforced. Films released prior to the summer of 1934 however were as gritty as they were glamorous. Sexy secretaries, Prohibition-era gangsters, hookers with hearts of silver, heroin addicted and shell shocked WW1 vets, sassy showgirls and convicts on the run: the Pre-Code girls were bad and the boys just *had* it bad.
What impresses me even more than the snappy wise-cracks and sexual innuendo, is how pro-working class and anti-Establishment these films, particularly those released by the Warner Brothers studio, were. To an audience who was struggling with the worst economic downfall that North America has ever seen - a crushing failure of Capitalism which led to mass unemployment, starvation and suicide - these films asked the question: Who is the REAL criminal? Is it James Cagney’s bootlegger in "The Public Enemy" or Paul Muni’s war vet turned escaped convict in "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang"? Is it Marlene Dietrich turning tricks for her supper in "Blonde Venus" or Barbara Stanwyck literally sleeping her way up the corporate ladder in "Baby Face"? Or is it actually the Establishment who is the true criminal: the banks who robbed us, the coppers who beat us, the government who lied to us?
Now try to imagine a mainstream Hollywood film in 2017 poising that same question.
The Pre-Code talkies may be black&white but their message isn’t: when it comes to “right� vs. “wrong�, these films make room for plenty of grey.
- Written by Heather Babcock, 2017
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