TCM Schedule for Friday, September 5, 2014 -- Friday Night Spotlight - Classic Pre-Code

Today TCM is featuring films from the days before the "Code". From Wikipedia's entry on the Motion Picture Production Code -- "The Motion Picture Production Code was the set of industry moral censorship guidelines that governed the production of most United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Hollywood's chief censor of the time, Will H. Hays. The Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), which later became the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), adopted the code in 1930, began enforcing it in 1934, and abandoned it in 1968, in favor of the subsequent MPAA film rating system. The Production Code spelled out what was acceptable and what was unacceptable content for motion pictures produced for a public audience in the United States. The office enforcing it was popularly called the Hays Office in reference to Hays, inaccurately so after 1934 when Joseph Breen took over from Hays, creating the Breen Office, which was far more rigid in censoring films than Hays had been. Hollywood followed the guidelines set about by the code well into the late 1950s, but the code was eventually abandoned due to the combined impact of television, influence from foreign films, bold directors (such as Otto Preminger) pushing the envelope, and intervention from the courts, including the Supreme Court. By the 1960s the code had been entirely abandoned." Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- The Big Shakedown (1934)
A racketeer breaks into black-market medicine.
Dir: John Francis Dillon
Cast: Charles Farrell, Bette Davis, Ricardo Cortez
BW-61 mins, CC,

Based on the story Cut Rate by Samuel G. Engel and Niven Bush.


7:15 AM -- Parachute Jumper (1933)
A gangster victimizes three friends trying to get jobs.
Dir: Alfred E. Green
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Bette Davis, Frank McHugh
BW-72 mins,

In 1962, producer-director Robert Aldrich was preparing the prologue to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). He chose a scene from this film and Ex-Lady (1933) to document the fact that the young Jane was a flop as a movie star.


8:30 AM -- Ex-Lady (1933)
A female artist is torn between her belief in free love and the constraints of romance.
Dir: Robert Florey
Cast: Bette Davis, Gene Raymond, Frank McHugh
BW-67 mins, CC,

Remake of the 1931 film, Illicit, starring Barbara Stanwyck.


9:45 AM -- Virtue (1932)
A taxi driver falls for a sassy New York con girl.
Dir: Edward Buzzell
Cast: Carole Lombard, Pat O'Brien, Ward Bond
BW-69 mins,

One of the last films to feature prostitution as a major theme before the rigid enforcement of the Hayes Code.


11:00 AM -- Wild Boys of the Road (1933)
An impoverished girl masquerades as a boy to run with a gang of young hobos.
Dir: William A. Wellman
Cast: Frankie Darro, Edwin Phillips, Rochelle Hudson
BW-68 mins, CC,

Alan Hale Jr. (later known as The Skipper on Gilligan's Island (1964)) was originally cast in the film, but in the final version he appears only as the child whose photograph the judge looks at fondly near the end of the film.


12:15 PM -- Safe In Hell (1931)
On the run from the police, a New Orleans prostitute gets stranded in a tropical haven for outlaws
Dir: William A. Wellman
Cast: Dorothy Mackaill, Donald Cook, Ralf Harolde
BW-73 mins, CC,

At a time when most African-Americans were stereotyped, both Nina Mae McKinney and Clarence Muse were the two most reputable characters in the movie. Although their parts in the script are written in dialect, both spoke normally.


1:30 PM -- Frisco Jenny (1932)
A district attorney prosecutes his own mother for murder.
Dir: William A. Wellman
Cast: Ruth Chatterton, Louis Calhern, Helen Jerome Eddy
BW-71 mins, CC,

George Brent was originally cast opposite Ruth Chatterton but withdrew to star in 42nd Street (1933).


2:45 PM -- Female (1933)
A female CEO who's used to buying love meets her match in an independent young executive.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, Lois Wilson
BW-60 mins, CC,

In December 10, 2013, the American car company General Motors announced that it had appointed its first female CEO, Mary Barra, scheduled to assume the role in January, 2014. This announcement marked the first time in history a woman was appointed to head an automobile company anywhere in the world, eighty years after the release of this film.


4:00 PM -- Illicit (1931)
Young free-thinkers turn conventionally jealous when they marry.
Dir: Archie Mayo
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, James Rennie, Charles Butterworth
BW-79 mins, CC,

The play that's referred to, "Fifty Million Frenchmen" was a musical comedy written by Cole Porter and opened on Broadway in 1929.


5:30 PM -- Night Nurse (1931)
A nurse discovers that the children she's caring for are murder targets.
Dir: William A. Wellman
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Ben Lyon, Joan Blondell
BW-72 mins, CC,

James Cagney was originally supposed to play Nick, but when The Public Enemy (1931) became a big hit, it was decided that he should no longer be relegated to supporting roles, allowing the relatively unknown Clark Gable to step in instead.


6:45 PM -- Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood (2008)
This documentary looks at how the social, financial and moral forces all helped shape one of the most intriguing periods in Hollywood history.
C-68 mins, CC,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT: CLASSIC PRE-CODE



8:00 PM -- Baby Face (1933)
A beautiful schemer sleeps her way to the top of a banking empire.
Dir: Alfred E. Green
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Donald Cook
BW-76 mins, CC,

In spring of 1933 this film was submitted to the New York State Board of Censors, who rejected it, demanding a number of cuts and changes. Warner Brothers made these changes prior to the film's release in July 1933. In 2004, a "dupe negative" copy of the film as it existed prior to being censored was located at the Library of Congress. This uncensored version received its public premiere at the London Film Festival in November 2004, more than 70 years after it was made.


9:30 PM -- The Divorcee (1930)
The double standard destroys a liberal couple's marriage.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Norma Shearer, Chester Morris, Conrad Nagel
BW-82 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Norma Shearer

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Robert Z. Leonard, Best Writing, Achievement -- John Meehan, and Best Picture

Prior to this film, Norma Shearer had primarily played very "proper," ladylike roles. She was eager to change her image and do parts that were more sensuous, so she launched a campaign to get the part of Jerry. MGM producers were skeptical - none more so than Irving Thalberg, who was also Shearer's husband. To convince him that she could handle a more "sexy" role, Shearer did a photo shoot with her posing provocatively in lingerie, and after seeing the pictures, Thalberg agreed to cast her. The decision paid off, as Shearer won Best Actress at the Academy Awards that year.


11:00 PM -- Footlight Parade (1933)
A producer fights labor problems, financiers and his greedy ex-wife to put on a show.
Dir: Lloyd Bacon
Cast: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler
BW-104 mins, CC,

Film debut of Dorothy Lamour.


1:00 AM -- Gold Diggers Of 1933 (1933)
Three chorus girls fight to keep their show going and find rich husbands.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon
BW-98 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (sound director)

At 5:55 PM PST on March 10, 1933, the Long Beach earthquake hit southern California, measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale. When the earthquake hit, Busby Berkeley was filming the "Shadow Waltz" dance sequence on a sound stage on the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank. The earthquake caused a blackout on the sound stage and short-circuited some of the neon-tubed violins. Berkeley was almost thrown from a camera boom, and dangled by one hand until he could pull himself back up. Since many of the chorus girls in the dance number were on a 30-foot-high scaffold, Berkeley yelled for them to sit down and wait until the stage hands and technicians could open the sound stage doors and let in some light. (My dad was a nine-year-old kid living in southern California at that time. He used to tell us stories about living through that earthquake -- it made a big impression on him!)


2:45 AM -- Search For Beauty (1934)
Three con artists dupe two Olympians into serving as editors of a new magazine which is a front for salacious stories and pictures.
Dir: Erle C. Kenton
Cast: Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Ida Lupino, Robert Armstrong
BW-78 mins,

Buster Crabbe plays an Olympic swimmer in the film. Before entering acting, Crabbe was a two-time Olympian, a bronze medalist in 1928 and a gold medal winner in 1932.


4:15 AM -- Taxi! (1932)
A feisty independent cab driver fights off a crooked syndicate.
Dir: Roy Del Ruth
Cast: James Cagney, Loretta Young, George E. Stone
BW-69 mins, CC,

This movie is the source of James Cagney's most famous misquoted line, "You dirty rat!" In the film, Cagney actually says, "Come out and take it, you dirty, yellow-bellied rat, or I'll give it to you through the door!"


5:30 AM -- MGM Parade Show #31 (1956)
Walter Pidgeon discusses Greta Garbo's later career with director George Cukor.
BW-26 mins,