20.05.12

Among many other adventurous explorations of the studio's vast catalogue, the manufacture-on-demand  Warner Archive Collection has been particularly active in making available on DVD so-called "pre-code'' titles -- those sex-and-innuendo drenched early talkies that the studios pumped out to entice Depression-era audience into theaters until rigorous enforcement of the Production Code beginning on July 1, 1934 brought an end to the fun. There are ten (!) more especially rare ones coming next month (see below), but first I want to review two old favorites that came out recently -- "Hollywood Party'' and "Fashions of 1934'' -- as well as one I'd never seen before, William Wellman's notorious, eye-popping "Safe in Hell'' (1934).

Safe in Hell (1931)

Cited as the pre-code to end all pre-codes in several books and documentaries in recent years, "Safe in Hell'' doesn't offer anything extraordinary in the way of skin or innuendo, but it's chockablock with the kind of situations and characters that would be verboten on screen for nearly three decades commencing in mid-1934. Dorothy Mackaill, an undeservedly forgotten star of early talkies (her 1932 "Love Affair'' with Humphrey Bogart also turned up on DVD this month from the TCM Vault Collection) plays a prostitute who flees New Orleans with the help of her boyfriend (Donald Cook) after killing a john (Ralf Harole). Or at least so she thinks.

Source: New York Post (blog)