This should be fascinating. Turner Classic Movies has a new documentary premiering Monday, March 4, exploring Hollywood movies in the days before the infamous production code was put in place, when movies were as provocative, erotic, dark and violent as they dared to be.
TCM is accompanying Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood with several examples of the breed, including 1930's The Divorcee with Norma Shearer, 1931's Night Nurse with Barbara Stanwyck and Three on a Match with Bette Davis.
Hollywood censorship began after a few sensational scandals in 1922, and the official code was put in place in 1930. Yet the studios largely ignored most restraints during the early '30s, the better to lure Depression-era audiences with sensational, escapist fare.
It wasn't until 1934 that the rise of the Legion of Decency helped bring about strict adherence to the production code, also known as the Hays Code. The code barred frank depictions of nudity and dark topics like prostitution, and insisted that evil characters never be allowed to triumph in the end and that the law and order would not be mocked. It was a creative straitjacket that lasted 30 years, and spawned a lot of clever work-arounds until the movie rating system was put in place in 1968.
I'm setting the TiVo for this one.
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