I don’t think I’ll be watching much in the next couple of months expressly for this list, but here are a few notes I made for pre-coders watched and re-watched throughout the year.
Night After Night (1932, Archie Mayo)
This film is mostly noted today for being Mae West’s first movie, although she only has a supporting role. George Raft plays the lead as a gangster running a swanky speakeasy while trying to affect class and culture in order to hang with the upper crust and impress socialite Constance Cummings. This is all fairly bland, but where the movie comes alive is in the social milieu depicted in the speakeasy, with lots of great character turns. Wynne Gibson plays a jealous hussy constantly giving Raft trouble, and Roscoe Karns is Raft’s devoted butler/partner in crime who has to deal with her. Best of all is Mae West, who absolutely steals the film as good-time-gal Maudie, for whom goodness had nothing to do with her diamonds. From the moment she sashays in, it’s clear that she is a STAR. In her debut role, West firmly establishes the persona she would be known for, from her irreverent one-liners to her motherly nurturing of outcasts. The relationship she starts up with Raft’s prim grammar coach Alison Skipworth is pure pre-code delight, with Skipworth eventually kicking off her heels (and quite a bit more) and the two women, no joke, ending up in bed together! Back to the main story, I was actually surprised that this doesn’t go the way of other gangster pictures of the era and essentially condones Raft’s lifestyle, or at least does not actively condemn him. In other news, Raft flashes a little booty as he steps into the bathtub (above).
She Done Him Wrong (1933, Lowell Sherman)
For a film that's barely over an hour long, there's a
lot going on storywise, and unfortunately it all becomes pretty muddled. Cary Grant plays the mannequin West invites to come up some time and see her, and she mentally undresses smoldering Gilbert Roland more than once. There's also a brief cat fight between West and Rafaela Ottiano's cleavages. Suffice it to say that while this may be West's most famous movie by name and a Best Picture nominee to boot, it's mainly of interest to see her in action and hear her brazen innuendo. Otherwise, the story and supporting characters are barely serviceable.
I’m No Angel (1933, Wesley Ruggles)
A definite upgrade over
She Done Him Wrong, with a more tightly controlled story and more interesting supporting characters. Mae West is, of course, still the main attraction, tossing off some of her raciest lines and sporting chic fashions (seriously, she must have as many costume changes as Elizabeth Taylor in
Cleopatra). Since Cary Grant gets to play something approaching a character this time around, it's fun to watch them canoodling. It's even more fun, however, to see her sassing it up with her black maids, including an all-too-brief showing by Hattie McDaniel.
Alice in Wonderland (1933, Norman Z. McLeod)
There is nothing salacious about this ostensibly family-oriented film that couldn’t be shown in a Hollywood movie just two years later. However, there is a freakishness to it that does seem fairly unthinkable later in the decade, more in line with the WTF finale of
Doctor X. The stars of yesteryear don grotesque masks as Lewis Carroll’s creations. While Paramount may have touted their stellar cast, the real star is the oppressive visual design, combining oversized costumes, papier mache masks, matte paintings, process screens, fast motion, slow motion, wire work, and virtually every special effect known to movies at the time. Clocking in at just 75 minutes, this is nevertheless a grueling exercise in style that verges on the nightmarish. We might hear the familiar voice of Cary Grant, but it's blubbering forlornly from the frozen-faced calf's head of the mock turtle. Miss American Pie Charlotte Henry surely makes for the bravest of Alices, remaining unphased in the face of such freakshow horrors as Alison Skipworth's ugly duchess and Louise Fazenda's white queen, who comes blowing onto the screen from out of nowhere. The whole thing culminates in a vision of hell breaking loose like no other, with shadow figures dancing ominously, dishes taking flight like birds, the white queen vanishing into a tea cup, and our heroine being strangled out of her slumber. This gives both Disney and Svankmajer's versions a run for their money in the insanity department.
The Mummy (1932, Karl Freund)
This film's status as a horror classic is easily justified by its opening setpiece alone, in which young Bramwell Fletcher's sanity is instantly destroyed by the sight of Karloff's mummy coming to life. It's a beautifully shot and designed sequence, approaching the mythic with Fletcher literally opening a Pandora's box of horror. Jack Pierce's iconic mummy makeup is limited to only seconds of screen time, but it's enough to haunt the rest of the movie. After this brilliant opening, the film settles into a curious retread of Universal's
Dracula, with its undead villain setting his sights on a nubile young woman while Edward Van Sloan's wise doctor tries to convince skeptical David Manners that there are supernatural horrors afoot (the opening credits even play out over the same excerpt from "Swan Lake" as
Dracula!). As in the earlier film, Van Sloan is right, Manners is useless, and the villain uses hypnosis to lure his object of desire to her doom. The most interesting thing about the story is the way it anticipates the reincarnated love interest angle that would find its way into later Dracula adaptations, most notably Coppola's. As the exotic heroine, Zita Johann is fashioned in a very revealing outfit toward the end. Another pre-code aspect that is noticeably missing from Universal’s later mummy pictures is the lingering sense of necrophilia. Where the 1940s movies are content to just have the mummy shuffle about in wraps and throttle people, Karloff’s urbane villain is a more clearly defined sexual threat.
The Invisible Man (1933, James Whale)
A fun take on H.G. Wells' semi-comic horror novella, made more comical still by James Whale's knack for morbid humor. There's some confusion in the way the movie tries to draw more sympathy for our invisible villain than Wells did while at the same time upping his body count from just a handful in the book to a whopping 124! Overall, this feels slight compared to the triumphs of Whale's other Universal horrors, but what stands out are the visual effects and Claude Rains' theatrical performance. It's really amazing that we don't see Rains' face on screen for 99.99% of the film, and yet he truly owns every minute of it. He can be quite funny at times ("Here we go gathering nuts in may!"), and he can be tender with Gloria Stuart, but he is perhaps the most violently menacing of all the Universal monsters. As far as pre-code qualities go, certainly this movie has an incredibly high body count, although we don’t see most of those deaths onscreen. Rains’ character is also nude through most of it, which we also technically don’t see.
Applause (1929, Rouben Mamoulian)
Mamoulian breaks free of early talkie limitations with a film that is alive with innovation and movement, ironically in the service of plunging us into the mire of such a sordid melodrama. It's almost hard to believe this was a Hollywood production as it's absolutely free of glitz and glamour. The burlesque backdrop is appropriately seedy, with leering old geezers getting their kicks watching overweight, toothless grannies gyrate in costumes that threaten to break loose at any moment. Helen Morgan is achingly tragic as the washed-up performer who wants the best for her child but can't get past her own misguided desire for success. She provides a real human element in a film that is nearly overwhelmed (though charmingly so) by technique. Never judgmental, the film establishes a supportive unit amongst the burlesque dancers in the early scene in which they form a bee line to see Morgan's new baby. It all ends on a note of bitter irony that is refreshingly not moralizing. Lots of exposed flesh throughout and a couple of pre-
Gone with the Wind “damns” for those keeping note.
The Maltese Falcon (1931, Roy Del Ruth)
I consciously made the effort not to compare this film to the more famous 1941 version and instead judge it on its own merits. The problem is, there are few merits here. For a movie in which people are brutally murdered and our main characters are constantly in danger of being snuffed out themselves, there is no gravity to the looming threat of violence. Characters brandish guns and go through the motions, but there is no conviction. Perhaps the actors play it too lightly. Ricardo Cortez plays Sam Spade as a rakish womanizer, more of a Don Juan type who leers at and kisses every woman in sight. This provides some nice pre-code chuckles, but it doesn't lend itself to what is apparently supposed to be a tense film. Likewise, Del Ruth's direction is not bad, but he keeps us at a slight remove from everything, denying us the chance to truly feel the tension. The gay undertones are refreshingly strong in the relationship between Gutman and Wilmer (Dwight Frye!), with Gutman frequently stroking the younger man's cheek. Bebe Daniels takes a revealing bath, and her subsequent donning of a robe belonging to Spade’s
other mistress provided the title for the essential Production Code book
The Dame in the Kimono. This isn't terrible, but it's easy to see why it has been completely overshadowed by John Huston's classic.
Three-Cornered Moon (1933, Elliott Nugent)
A truly miserable "comedy" about a frivolous family that discovers they are wiped out by the market crash (four years after it happened) and must deign to get jobs. Elliott Nugent's direction is dire, showing no sense of comedy pacing or setup. The story's theatrical roots are glaring. Mary Boland plays a character that is meant to be flighty in that wonderful Billie Burke manner, but instead she's just downright stupid. Scenes that are played for straight drama work a little better, but the surrounding attempts at comedy are head-smacking failures. The worst offender is a Swedish maid who doesn't speak English. She refers to the oven as "she" and thinks the English word for flowers is "George." Hardy har. It's not funny at the beginning of the movie, and it becomes progressively less funny as the movie plays out. A good cast led by a game Claudette Colbert can't save this. In pre-code news, Colbert walks off a job rather than perform favors for the boss.