From the Vault: April Streaming '22

Pre-Code Cinema, Udo Kier, Harvey Keitel, and the Stoner Cinema Canon

April 1, 2022

Welcome to April streaming.

Norma Shearer gets tongues wagging by shamelessly getting a divorce in The Divorcee (1930)

But besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show?

Folks — it's been a wild end of the month for Hollywood, which is all a twitter about the events of the 94th Academy Awards. The incident has destabilized the celebrity industrial complex, rocked the Academy in scandal, and drawn lines in the Cultural Discourse battlefield. But if there's anything this newsletter took from the pop culture landscape of the last week, it's that there's no better time to debut our program on Pre-Code Cinema, as it's so closely tied to the humble face slap. Otherwise, we're showcasing two of the all time Great Weird Guys of Cinema (I know I say something like that every month but this time I'm super serious) and touching grass with the Cannabis Cinema Canon. It's finally spring, so let's go outside...as long as there are sidewalks you've got a job:

To the end that vulgarity and suggestiveness may be eliminated and that good taste may be emphasized: the Subversive Allure of Pre-Code Cinema (1929-1934)

Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell doing the kind of stuff you get up to if you’re a night nurse in Night Nurse (1931)

I've talked before about the fascinating period of time in classic cinema before the implementation of the Hays Production Code in: a set of self-censorship guidelines, officially imposed in 1934 to manage depictions of social vices onscreen and dictate how sex and violence could be presented. Films without a certificate of approval from the Production Code Administration, led by moralist tyrant Joseph Breen, could not be released. The brief period between the mainstream incorporation of synchronized sound and the implementation of the Production Code begat a number of films set on tackling the issues of the day: crime, the Great Depression, the sexual revolution of the 1920s, and class exploitation, to name a few. The "Hollywood Studio System," which treated filmmaking like an assembly line, ensured that 60-70 minute films were regularly and frequently released to be shown on full programming bills. Studios began conceiving of increasingly salacious storylines, as well as racy and provocative visuals of sex and violence (including full nudity, realistic gunplay, and scathing cultural critique), that would attract moviegoers. For many in the era, the movies were the only easily accessible form of entertainment: theaters were open late, ran full programs, and cost very little. Studios, particularly Warner Bros., made a concerted effort to address the social issues of the day, often fixating on lurid things like bootlegging and gangsters and fear of the Other. Urban crime dramas actually begat the first true gangster film of the sound era (Little Caesar, followed by Public Enemy, and Scarface), domestic melodramas became the modern "women's pictures," horror films like Dracula and Frankenstein benefitted from the general freedom of the era to depict on screen violence and dark sexual fantasy, and the modern musical comedy film served the female body up on a plate for outright consumption. Pre-Code films from the era cover topics as diverse and sensational as sex work, murder, mail order brides, threesomes and throuples, miscegenation, ambulance chasing, incest, extramarital affairs, genocide, addiction, sexual harassment, fascism... even scantily clad showgirls parachuting from crashing zeppelins (not a social ill per se, but something that does happen in Cecil B. DeMille's sex comedy musical Madam Satan). I love films from this period because they challenge our assumptions about what classic cinema can be. In so many of these films, women are awarded (or at least flirt with) a sexual and personal freedom that was otherwise mostly eradicated in the post-Production Code landscape. In here you'll find classic films with positive depictions of sex work or female sexuality, queer characters, and frank discussion about verboten things like abortion, trauma, abuse, and addiction. You'll also find horrifically exploitative and racist material, which often used the perceived "lawlessness" of the proverbial junglescape to explore fantasies of total sexual liberation and domination of native peoples. What's important to remember about the Code is that it operated on the notion that depiction of any action on screen signified endorsement of those actions by the filmmakers while, of course, outlawing things like nudity, drug use, and profanity. But it's also important to understand that the Code dictated how vices (which can be any number of things, depending on the specific cultural and historical context) were treated in the story of a film. As one example: crime (or infidelity) could not go unpunished by a film's end, or the film would not receive board approval and thus would not be distributed. Films could not show "ridicule of the clergy" (my personal favorite) and they had to "take care" when using the flag, showing sedition, and depicting "attitude toward public characters and institutions." These standards were more than prudish crackdowns: they were an attempt to control the messaging of an entire industry to reinforce American Essentialist ideals reflective of a white, Judeo-Christian ruling class.