Anyone else like Hollywood Precode movies?

[LizzieMaine]

Interesting information and observations. Did the actual enforcement of the code by the end of '34 cause a drop off in box office?

No, receipts were up in 1934, but that can be laid to the fact that the economy itself was much stronger in 1934 than it was in 1932-33. Also, it was right around the same time that the Code came in that double-features became a fad, along with gimmicks like Screeno and Dish Night. That sort of showmanship made up for the lack of hot stuff in the pictures themselves.

 

[Harp]

I can recall as a kid that, once a year, we'd stand in church and take a pledge that the Catholic Legion of Decency had distributed to all of the churches.

Experiences like that helped to make me into the Protestant that I am today.

Culpa? Pax vobiscum. [angel]

 

[2jakes]

Culpa? Pax vobiscum. [angel]

For me it was the whipping of my hands with a wooden ruler for not remembering the Hail Marys when
I was 6 yrs & English was not my first language. I did learn to memorize it , but had no clue what the
hey I was saying.
Or it could have been when the sweet sisters would use soap to cleanse my mouth for asking questions
that they considered improper.

 

[AdeeC]

Three Precode films worth noting for their unusual subject matter.

MASSACRE. A rich American Indian playboy rodeo star who has a harem of white women at his beck and call decides to save his tribe from greedy land speculators and ranchers. Stars Richard Barthelmess.

GABRIEL OVER THE WHITEHOUSE. A corrupt American president who has a car accident wakes up from a coma and starts ruling like Adolph Hitler. Jews though not named are hinted as targets for deportation. Financed by WR Hearst. Starring Walter Huston.

BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN. A woman goes to China to marry her missionary fiancée. However she falls in love with a brutal Chinese Warlord. Of course she doesn't marry her fiancée in the end. Stars Barbara Stanwyck. This is a trully excellent film.

 

[Harp]

For me it was the whipping of my hands with a wooden....
Or it could have been when the sweet sisters would use soap to cleanse my mouth for asking questions
that they considered improper.

Eight years of the Sisters of Mercy and then another four under the Christian Brothers of Ireland, and the Jesuits afterwards....
but it was worth all of the corporal punishments-the brothers especially severe-and I was a discipline problem.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Eight years of the Sisters of Mercy and then another four under the Christian Brothers of Ireland, and the Jesuits afterwards....
but it was worth all of the corporal punishments-the brothers especially severe-and I was a discipline problem.

I had the penguins in grade school, then the Jesuits. I'm glad that the Jesuits were not of the "do as you're told or we'll pummel the crap outta ya" mentality: it was more an attempt to appeal to the better angels of our nature. I left Catholicism in my senior year, and the Jesuits I spoke with actually respected my decision.

I got a decent education from them and have very little negative to say as to that aspect of my upbringing. Clearly the "Catholic League of Decency" has more common denominators with the fundamentalists of the Moral Majority and their like than the Jesuits and other educated religious orders- such as the Holy Cross Fathers of Notre Dame fame.

 

[AdeeC]

Another couple of interesting Precode Films.

13 WOMEN. A female serial killer murders 12 of her former school mates who bullied her at boarding school. Stars Myrna Loy.

THE MASK OF FU MANCHU. A notable scene is Fu's sadistic daughter Fah Lo See( Myrna Loy again) having an orgasm whilst watching the films hero getting whipped. See this clip. Some later editing was done here to tone down her screams of delight.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s327bW__9pk

 

[Fading Fast]

Three Precode films worth noting for their unusual subject matter.

MASSACRE. A rich American Indian playboy rodeo star who has a harem of white women at his beck and call decides to save his tribe from greedy land speculators and ranchers. Stars Richard Barthelmess.

GABRIEL OVER THE WHITEHOUSE. A corrupt American president who has a car accident wakes up from a coma and starts ruling like Adolph Hitler. Jews though not named are hinted as targets for deportation. Financed by WR Hearst. Starring Walter Huston.

BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN. A woman goes to China to marry her missionary fiancée. However she falls in love with a brutal Chinese Warlord. Of course she doesn't marry her fiancée in the end. Stars Barbara Stanwyck. This is a trully excellent film.

Not familiar with the first two - although, I will definitely keep an eye out for them (the plot of "Gabriel Over the White House" sounds creepy, but historically interesting) - and I love "The Bitter Tea of General Yen." As you noted an excellent film.

 

[AdeeC]

Not familiar with the first two - although, I will definitely keep an eye out for them (the plot of "Gabriel Over the White House" sounds creepy, but historically interesting) - and I love "The Bitter Tea of General Yen." As you noted an excellent film.

Yes GABRIEL OVER THE WHITEHOUSE is creepy because it was made to be a serious film. In the early 30's there was a lot of interest in Fascism as an alternative to democracy because of the pain from the Depression. WR Hearst was a fan at the time. This film was how he idealised the future of the US political system to be. Some aspects of the film are quite disturbing and others quite ridiculous. For example having a quasi military organisation like the SS to hunt out enemies of the state and one scene of gangsters doing a drive by shooting of the Whitehouse.

 

[Zombie_61]

...Frankenstein(Monster throws little girl down the well I think)

It was a lake, actually. The Monster (Boris Karloff) finds "Little Maria" (Marilyn Harris) playing peacefully beside the lake and kneels down to play beside her, tossing flowers into the lake to watch them float. When he runs out of flowers he tosses Maria into the lake expecting her to float, but she drowns instead and the Monster rushes away horrorstruck. Or, at least that's how it was originally edited when it was released. State censorship boards in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, objected to the scene and had it cut just as the Monster reaches for Maria. Many audiences never saw what he actually did with her, so that was left to their imaginations (which were usually far more offensive than the excised footage). Because of the Production Code that took effect in 1934, Universal cut the segment from the master negative and the movie was seen that way by everyone until the 1980s when the footage was rediscovered and the full scene was restored.

Also removed from the movie at that time was a line uttered by Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) just after he realizes his creation has been brought back to life: "It's alive! It's alive! In the name of God, now I know what it feels like to be God!" In the context of the scene, the references to God were deemed blasphemous and the movie's soundtrack was edited to remove the entire line of dialogue after the final "It's alive!" This line was also restored in the 1980s, and modern releases of the movie are edited as the movie was originally released in 1931.

 

[Greyryder]

It was a lake, actually. The Monster (Boris Karloff) finds "Little Maria" (Marilyn Harris) playing peacefully beside the lake and kneels down to play beside her, tossing flowers into the lake to watch them float. When he runs out of flowers he tosses Maria into the lake expecting her to float, but she drowns instead and the Monster rushes away horrorstruck. Or, at least that's how it was originally edited when it was released. State censorship boards in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, objected to the scene and had it cut just as the Monster reaches for Maria. Many audiences never saw what he actually did with her, so that was left to their imaginations (which were usually far more offensive than the excised footage). Because of the Production Code that took effect in 1934, Universal cut the segment from the master negative and the movie was seen that way by everyone until the 1980s when the footage was rediscovered and the full scene was restored.

Now, I can't stop thinking about one of the extras from the Monster Squad DVD. There's an interview with the guy that played Frankenstein's monster, in full makeup and more or less in character as the creature from the book. At one point, he makes the comment, "I didn't know that little girl couldn't swim."

 

[rocketeer]

It was a lake, actually. The Monster (Boris Karloff) finds "Little Maria" (Marilyn Harris) playing peacefully beside the lake and kneels down to play beside her, tossing flowers into the lake to watch them float. When he runs out of flowers he tosses Maria into the lake expecting her to float, but she drowns instead and the Monster rushes away horrorstruck. Or, at least that's how it was originally edited when it was released. State censorship boards in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, objected to the scene and had it cut just as the Monster reaches for Maria. Many audiences never saw what he actually did with her, so that was left to their imaginations (which were usually far more offensive than the excised footage). Because of the Production Code that took effect in 1934, Universal cut the segment from the master negative and the movie was seen that way by everyone until the 1980s when the footage was rediscovered and the full scene was restored.

Also removed from the movie at that time was a line uttered by Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) just after he realizes his creation has been brought back to life: "It's alive! It's alive! In the name of God, now I know what it feels like to be God!" In the context of the scene, the references to God were deemed blasphemous and the movie's soundtrack was edited to remove the entire line of dialogue after the final "It's alive!" This line was also restored in the 1980s, and modern releases of the movie are edited as the movie was originally released in 1931.

Cheers, I knew it was either the well or the lake but I remember the little girl throwing the flowers into the water. Was the boddy girl shown being carried to the vilage?
I would not really consider this a horror film as with todays offerings but the lighting and makeup make the images everlasting in pictures such as these when special effects were minimal.
How long had it been a taboo to show images of dead children in movies? I remember a western, probably 1950s, where the camera panned over an 'Indian' massacre where you saw all the dead adults but only the childs legs.

 

[Zombie_61]

Cheers, I knew it was either the well or the lake but I remember the little girl throwing the flowers into the water...

When Mel Brooks parodied that scene in Young Frankenstein he had the little girl (Anne Beesley) tossing flowers into a well when the Monster (Peter Boyle) finds her, so that might be what you're thinking of.

...Was the boddy girl shown being carried to the vilage?

Yes, there was a scene that showed her father (Micheal Mark) carrying her body into the village after he'd found it. One of her stockings had been rolled down to her ankle, which led some audience members who hadn't seen the original footage to conclude that she had been sexually molested by the Monster as well.

...I would not really consider this a horror film as with todays offerings but the lighting and makeup make the images everlasting in pictures such as these when special effects were minimal...

Frankenstein is really rather tame by comparison to many movies that came after, and these days the image of the Monster is so familiar that it's often difficult for people to understand the kind of impact it had in 1931. In it's day Jack Pierce's makeup was considered so horrific that Karloff had to wear a veil over his head when he walked from the makeup department to the set so that any pregnant women working at Universal at the time wouldn't be frightened into a premature delivery or miscarriage if they saw him. Even his adult co-star Mae Clark (who played Elizabeth in the movie) expressed concerns that she would be so horrified by the Monster's appearance that she wouldn't be able to perform in her scenes with Karloff. Conversely, Pierce's makeup didn't distress Marilyn Harris, who played Little Maria, in the least. When the crew assembled to be transported to the filming location, Harris ran straight to Karloff (who was in full makeup), took his hand, and asked, "May I drive with you?" Karloff replied, "Would you, Darling?", and they rode together with Harris holding the Monster's hand.

...How long had it been a taboo to show images of dead children in movies? I remember a western, probably 1950s, where the camera panned over an 'Indian' massacre where you saw all the dead adults but only the childs legs.

I don't know specifically, but I would guess that was one of the "rules" that came into effect when studios began strictly enforcing the Motion Picture Production Code (a.k.a. the Hays Code) in 1934.

 

[AdeeC]

There was a particulary notorious precode horror fim called ISLAND OF LOST SOULS starring Bela Lugosi and Charles Laughton. Frankenstein is relatively tame compared to it. This film had a lot of trouble with censors for depicting gory medical experiments on animals to make them into grotesque half human monsters and also a sexy panther woman by a mad scientist on a remote Island. The film was banned in many counties. HG Wells who wrote the original novel was disgusted with the way the film turned out. This film still has the power to shock and revolt today.

 

[Zombie_61]

There was a particulary notorious precode horror fim called ISLAND OF LOST SOULS starring Bela Lugosi and Charles Laughton...This film still has the power to shock and revolt today.

I concur. In my opinion it's far more effective than the 1977 and/or 1996 cinematic retellings of the story.

 

[rocketeer]

When Mel Brooks parodied that scene in Young Frankenstein he had the little girl (Anne Beesley) tossing flowers into a well when the Monster (Peter Boyle) finds her, so that might be what you're thinking of.

Yes, I knew I had seen it someplace, just not seen either for many years. Thanks

There was a particulary notorious precode horror fim called ISLAND OF LOST SOULS starring Bela Lugosi and Charles Laughton. Frankenstein is relatively tame compared to it. This film had a lot of trouble with censors for depicting gory medical experiments on animals to make them into grotesque half human monsters and also a sexy panther woman by a mad scientist on a remote Island. The film was banned in many counties. HG Wells who wrote the original novel was disgusted with the way the film turned out. This film still has the power to shock and revolt today.

The novel by H.G.Wells was The 'Island of doctor Moreau' I believe. Was Lost Souls a re-title or another distributors title, maybe a similar film?

 

[AdeeC]

The film had just a different title. The main character played by Charles Laughton was Dr Moreau as in the novel.

 

[Fading Fast]

I saw a pre-code movie once about WWI pilots now living in Paris after the war and the lead male had burnt hands and basically what today we would recognize as PTSD. It was a unvarnished representation of the damage war had done to him and others in in squadron. That said, I can't remember the name of the movie or any of the actors, but thought someone else might have seen it and remembered it?

While we tend (or at least I tend) to think about pre-codes in terms of them being more sexually explicit and honest about abortions, divorces and the other messy realities of life, this one showed an honest portrayal of the effect of war on the servicemen.

 

[2jakes]

I saw a pre-code movie once about WWI pilots now living in Paris after the war and the lead male had burnt hands and basically what today we would recognize as PTSD. It was a unvarnished representation of the damage war had done to him and others in in squadron. That said, I can't remember the name of the movie or any of the actors, but thought someone else might have seen it and remembered it?

While we tend (or at least I tend) to think about pre-codes in terms of them being more sexually explicit and honest about abortions, divorces and the other messy realities of life, this one showed an honest portrayal of the effect of war on the servicemen.

The plot sounds similar to "one of the best forgotten films of the 30s".
This film perfectly captures the Hemingway/Fitzgerald feeling of hopelessness after WWI.
1931

 

[Fading Fast]

The plot sounds similar to "one of the best forgotten films of the 30s".
This film perfectly captures the Hemingway/Fitzgerald feeling of hopelessness after WWI.
1931

That's it - that's the movie. Thank you. Well worth seeing when it comes on as, as you said, very Hemingway/Fitzgerald lost generation.