#Pre-Code Film

[oh-sewing-circle]

“The Barbara Stanwyck vehicle Ladies They Talk About (1933) seemed, on the surface, to be in the vein of tough Warner exposés and crime dramas, with Stanwyck as a bank robber doing time at the women’s wing of San Quentin. However, after an opening sequence so realistically recreating a robbery that censors feared it could be a how-to-primer, the movie lapsed into Midnight Romance fantasy. Instead of grim prison conditions, Stanwyck’s jail time resembled a stay at a health spa, with glamorous inmates, beauty treatments on demand, and a laid-back air. The only grittier touches (besides Stanwyck’s ingrained Brooklyn moxie) were incidental, such as the inmates yelling ‘New fish!’ when Stanwyck first arrives, and a black inmate talking back ferociously to an imperious white prisoner. Another jailbird in this glossy clink is a muscular woman with close-cropped hair and a cigar clamped in her mouth. ’She likes to wrestle!’ Like the other inmates, this one is spared the dreariness of prison grooming, being permitted instead to wear the standard Hollywood Dyke getup of a tailored outfit and little bowtie. ‘Mmmmm . . . . hmmmm!’ air. Later, less expectedly, we see this butch prisoner’s femme other half. The camera pans across the cells to take in after-hours vignettes that never occurred in any real-life jail, including a slumber party in lingerie, an inmate cuddling a Pekingese, and the butch woman doing an exhibition round of calisthenics. Wearing a pair of man’s pajamas and with the cigar still in her mouth, she goes through her paces to the delight of a frilly girlfriend sitting in the bed next to her. ‘You’re just always exercising!’ the femme marvels. Ladies They Talk About received numerous complaints through the Studio Relations Committee about the robbery scene, about the violence and discussion of prostitution. Only in strict Ohio, however, did the lesbianism cause any problem; Roth’s ‘wrestle’ line was cut. So it remained over the succeeding decades, when women’s prison movies were one of the few places onscreen where lesbians were allowed to exist openly. This one is one of the first."

-From Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall by Richard Barrios

[cinenthusiast]

The Big House (1930, Hill)

[friendlessghoul]

The Illusion in Sherlock Jr. explained in Movie Magic & Mysteries: The Making of Sherlock Jr.

[secretceremonies]

Facial studies for Mae West and Greta Garbo

[diana-andraste]

Gold Diggers of 1933

[hauntedbystorytelling]

Lilyan Tashman costume by Erté

Lilyan Tashman in the perfume bottle costume designed by Erté in the now lost silent film Bright Lights (Robert Z. Leonard, 1925) | src Grapefruitmoon gallery on eBay view more on wordPress

Publicity still for the American romantic comedy film Bright Lights (Robert Z. Leonard, 1925)

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[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

February: Coeli's Monochrome Picks

I'm No Angel / Mae West as Tira

Coeli's comment: "Wowza!"

The pre-code era strikes again, with Travis Banton as the designer. The slinky, low-cut gown with spiderweb wrap in the bottom photo looks positively demure next to the costume she's almost wearing in the other photos. In Tira's defense, she is a circus sideshow performer. However, it's not too hard to see why this movie was cited as one of the factors leading to the implementation of the Hays Code.

Classic lines:

"Oh, Beulah, peel me a grape!"

"Well, it's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men."

"When I'm good I'm very good. But when I'm bad I'm better."

[retropopcult]

Groucho Marx and Thelma Todd in Monkey Business (1931)

[littlehorrorshop]

Intolerance (1916)

[we-dersuuzala-things]

Carole Lombard

[allweknewisdead]

Dishonored (1931) - Josef von Sternberg

- What makes you think of death? - Was I thinking of death?

[friendlessghoul]

Buster Keaton & Phyllis Barry What-No Beer? - 1933

[secretceremonies]

Movie mirror. (Vol. 1, Nov. 1931-Apr. 1932)

[diana-andraste]

Delores del Rio in Bird of Paradise, 1932

[roomtemperaturesuperconductor]

Thinking about pre-code Hollywood director and lesbian style icon Dorothy Arzner

edit: i guess the terfs found this one. look i don’t care about online arguments and have no intention of relitigating michfest for the third consecutive decade, but I do think you guys should google Baedelism cuz terfs knowing what that is will probably make the discourse even dumber and more toxic and that sounds funny