#Pre-code Hollywood

[anitapallenberg]

Jewel Robbery (1932) | Dir. William Dieterle

[precodesoul]

Sylvia Sidney photographed by Eugene Robert Richee for the film Behold My Wife (dir. Mitchell Leisen, 1934)

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Joan Crawford - Dancing Lady (1933)

[forthegothicheroine]

The Scarlet Empress is a fascinatingly strange movie. It's a bawdy fairy tale played on the set of an intricately decorated dollhouse. It's a racy pre-code movie about a heroine who is a bit of a bad girl but come on, she's so cute and a girl's gotta hustle during the great depression, how can you really be mad at her? And it's Catherine the Great. It's a movie about how the Russians are barbarians and Marlene Dietrich should get to have sex with whoever she wants. I'm now convinced the whole first act of Coppola's Marie Antoinette was pulled directly from it.

[wewerealwaysthere]

[luvinaeverdene]

42nd Street (1933) Directed by Lloyd Bacon

[taffetastrology]

The signs as Fern Andra looks

Aries

Taurus

Gemini

Cancer

Leo

Virgo

Libra

Scorpio

Sagittarius

Capricorn

Aquarius

Pisces

[catgopurr]

Clara Bow for Dangerous Curves

german postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4672/4

[unearthly-strange-and-delightful]

Eugene Robert Richee—Smoking Amy, 1930

Here Marlene Dietrich is pictured in white tie and a top hat for her Oscar-nominated role as cabaret singer Amy Jolly in the 1930 film Morocco – a performance that included one of cinema’s first on-screen lesbian kisses.

But don’t get too excited:

The film is famous for a scene in which Dietrich performs a song dressed in a man's tailcoat and kisses another woman (to the embarrassment of the latter), both of which were considered scandalous for the period.

So not a sapphic love story. 😔

More about that scene:

Dietrich's "butch performance" dressed in "top hat, white tie and tails" includes a "mock seduction" of a pretty female cabaret patron, whom Dietrich "outrages with a kiss." Dietrich's costume simultaneously mocks the pretensions of one lover ([Adolphe Jean] Menjou's La Bessière) and serves as an invitation to a handsome soldier-of-fortune ([Gary] Cooper's Tom Brown), the two men being presented by [director Josef von] Sternberg as contrasting conceptions of masculinity.

So, transgressive and subtextually queer by the sound of it (I haven’t seen this film). Sounds interesting, looks gorgeous:

Last pic is from The Criterion Collection website, more images and info there, including essays on Marlene Dietrich and director Josef von Sternberg.

Other images are from IMDb, more pics here.

A brief bio of Dietrich at the UK’s LGBT+ History Month.

And a couple more articles on Marlene Dietrich and queer Hollywood at The Pink News and the British Film Institute:

How ultimate gay icon Marlene Dietrich paved the way for generations of LGBTQ+ Hollywood stars ‘My Best Girlfriend’: Queer Dietrich, on screen and off

And you can watch the film for free at the Internet Archive!

(sources: the first quote I didn’t make a note of 😩; the others are from Wikipedia or as stated.)

[hellostarrynightblr]

Paul Muni in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) dir. Mervyn LeRoy

[anitapallenberg]

Jewel Robbery (1932) | Dir. William Dieterle

[precodesoul]

Johnny Weissmüller and Maureen O'Sullivan photographed by George Hurrell for Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Footlight Parade (1933)

[forthegothicheroine]

New-to-me movies seen in 2025: The Scarlet Empress (1934)

"You need have no fear for me. Now that I've learned how Russia expects me to behave, I like it here. And I intend to stay, grand duke or no grand duke."

The Criterion Challenge: Watch a film that would be your first choice in the Criterion Closet

[cinemaocd]

Judith Wood and Paul Lukas in Working Girls (1931)

[gwydionmisha]

The Scandalous Films of Pre-Code Hollywood