| Author |
Message |
|
| Nancy |
 Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 3:00 pm |
 |
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
|
gromit,
Thanks for posting about the Universal pre-code set. I had intended to mention it, but hadn't gotten around to doing it yet. Nice to see another studio putting out a pre-code collection. (The Forbidden Hollywood sets are Warner Bros. BTW, there is a third volume coming out on March 24.) If enough people buy them, maybe the studios will release more pre-code collections. |
_________________
"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."
Isaacism, 2009 |
|
| Back to top |
  
|
| Nancy |
| Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 3:02 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
|
mo_flixx wrote: When I did a search for the Universal Pre-Code box set at amazon.com , 2 books on Pre-Code films came up. They looked interesting. Might be worth checking out.
mo,
I have the Thomas Doherty book, which we used as a reference for the pre-code forum along with Complicated Women and Dangerous Men. I don't have Sin in Soft Focus, but I've heard it's good. |
_________________
"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."
Isaacism, 2009 |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 5:25 pm |
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
|
marantzo wrote: Joe Vitus wrote: I've seen Murder at the Vanities, which isn't as bizarre as its title may sound (the Vanities was a recurring theatre review, along with the Scandals and the Follies; in this movie, a murder takes place backstage). But it does have the number "Marijuana, " a rare drug-related song in a Hollywood studio movie.
Marijuana wasn't outlawed till 1937 so it may not have been that radical at the time. I believe The Reefer Man was also in a movie.
It was. Didn't say radical. I said rare. But marijuana use, though legal, was hardly considered acceptable moral behavior at the time. |
_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Nancy |
| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 11:09 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
|
I'm re-posting this, since it's almost March.
Precodes on TCM in March:
Mar. 2 - Five Star Final (1931) (with Boris Karloff’s creepiest performance!)
The Front Page (1931)
It Happened One Night (1934)
Mar. 3 - Eskimo (1933)
Mar. 7 - Rain (1932)
Mar. 12 - The Squaw Man (1931) (I haven’t seen this version, so I don’t know if it has precode elements)
Mar. 19 - Thirteen Women (1932)
Mar. 23 - Today We Live (1933)
Wild Boys of the Road (1933)
Other Men's Women (1931)
The Purchase Price (1932)
Frisco Jenny (1932)
Heroes For Sale (1933)
Midnight Mary (1933)
Mar. 26 - No Greater Glory (1934)
Mar. 29 - It Happened One Night (1934) |
_________________
"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."
Isaacism, 2009 |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 11:22 pm |
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
I've seen four of those. Five-Star Final is a great movie, as is, obviously, It Happened One Night. Frisco Jenny is well worth seeing as well. Midnight Mary is a Loretta Young film which could have used an edgier actress.
Looks like I can finally return The Front Page to you.
EDIT: Oh, I've seen Rain, too. It's Joan Crawford as Sadie Thompson. Terrible movie, with Crawford and Walter Huston competing to see who can go the farthest over the top. |
Last edited by Syd on Fri Feb 27, 2009 11:34 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Nancy |
| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 11:29 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
|
| I've never actually seen Thirteen Women, which has Irene Dunne, Myrna Loy (in one of her quasi-Asian parts, I believe) and the inevitable Ricardo Cortez. I wonder if he lives through this one. |
_________________
"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."
Isaacism, 2009 |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 6:12 pm |
|
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
Here's an article from Reason a few years ago on another side of the Code: Joe Bob Briggs on the history of the "sexual hygiene" exploitation films, most notably the notorious and successful Mom and Dad.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28934.html |
Last edited by Syd on Thu Mar 12, 2009 8:50 pm; edited 1 time in total
_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Nancy |
| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 8:27 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
|
Syd wrote: Here's an article from Reason a few years ago on another side of the Code: Joe Bob Briggs on the history of the "sexual hygiene" exploitation films, most notably the notorious and successful Mom and Dad.
Syd, I don't think the link came through. |
_________________
"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."
Isaacism, 2009 |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 8:51 pm |
|
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
| There you go. |
_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Nancy |
| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:58 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
|
| Uh, no I don't. |
_________________
"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."
Isaacism, 2009 |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Nancy |
| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:58 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
|
| Never mind. I see it now. |
_________________
"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."
Isaacism, 2009 |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:59 pm |
|
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12890
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
| Okay. I'm glad this sort of movie died out by the time I hit high school. |
_________________
I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
|
| Back to top |
|
| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:19 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 30 May 2004
Posts: 12533
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Nancy |
| Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 1:25 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4607
Location: Norman, OK
|
| Just wanted to mention that TCM will be running seven precodes on Monday (3/23). (See above.) Some of them will also be in the Forbidden Hollywood Collection vol. 3 which is being released on the 24th. |
_________________
"All in all, it's just another feather in the fan."
Isaacism, 2009 |
|
| Back to top |
|
| gromit |
| Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 2:07 pm |
|
|
Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9008
Location: Shanghai
|
Nancy wrote: Just wanted to mention that TCM will be running seven precodes on Monday (3/23). (See above.) Some of them will also be in the Forbidden Hollywood Collection vol. 3 which is being released on the 24th.
Got my Forbidden Hollywood Collection Vol. 3 set a couple days ago. Go Chinese pirates!
Watched The Purchase Price (1932), which has Barbara Stanwyck as a jaded show girl mixed up with a bootlegger/gangster. She tries to leave him for an upper class lad, but when Rich Boy's family finds out about her past, he dumps her. So she reluctantly goes back to the gangster, but then skips out on him for Montreal, eventually taking an arranged marriage to a farmer in North Dakota, where she becomes a hard working, nice farmgirl.
Not that interesting or believable a story. Not that much pre-codery. Stanwyck is in her undergarments once or twice. We get that she was the kept woman of the married gangster, but we never see the love nest or them together outside a public place (mostly her dressing room). They just exchange a key and some jewelry a few times, so we understand the bought-and-paid-for relationship. Things remain pretty chaste between Stanwyck and new Farmer Hubby -- they sleep in separate rooms -- though Babs after a while makes it clear that she's up for more (but they are married). There's also a creepy farmer who is always hitting on his neighbor's wife and tries to sort of rent her out in a business deal.
Not that much to recommend, although Stanwyck does a credible job of morphing from tough city broad to rural girl-next-door. And the drunken party scenes in the sticks are kind of fun, as are some of the hick stereotypes on display.
Wonder if a 1932 audience believed any of the fluff that it was better to live a decent poor farming life rather than a corrupt big city lifestyle. Or that Barbara Stanwyck would swap places with them. |
_________________
Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
