History MediaNotes / ThePreCodeEra

The Pre-Code Era is the period after the widespread adoption of sound cinema by Hollywood but before the active, total enforcement of UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode. This period stretched from 1928 to 1933, though stragglers continued into 1934 and 1935. This brief, short period is unlike any later period in film history. Imagine seeing old classic films with actors like Creator/ClarkGable or Creator/ClaudetteColbert ([[Film/ItHappenedOneNight or both]])and feeling that the roles they are playing are too conventional and too cute. You wish they played different roles, you wish that the films weren't so bound by censorship that almost all the roles and the entire plot register as a DullSurprise to the viewer since the conventions are so painfully enforced. Basically, you wish to see old-time actors operate with the same freedom as the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood. The good news is that you can, by seeing films from the Pre-Code Era.

The Pre-Code Era is the period after the widespread adoption of sound cinema by Hollywood but before the active, total enforcement of UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode. This period stretched from 1928 to 1933, though stragglers continued into 1934 and 1935. This brief, short period is unlike any later period in film history. Imagine seeing old classic films with actors like Creator/ClarkGable or Creator/ClaudetteColbert and feeling that the roles they are playing are too conventional and too cute. You wish they played different roles, you wish that the films weren't so bound by censorship that almost all the roles and the entire plot register as a DullSurprise to the viewer since the conventions are so painfully enforced. Basically, you wish to see old-time actors operate with the same freedom as the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood. The good news is that you can, by seeing films from the Pre-Code Era.

* ''Film/TarzanTheApeMan'' (1932) -- Creator/JohnnyWeissmuller's films were known for their {{Fanservice}} - male and female - and there was so much {{UST}} with his co-star Maureen O'Sullivan that MGM was forced to add an adopted son to the series to break it up in the Code era.

* ''Film/TheScarletEmpress'' (1934), the second to last Sternberg-Dietrich film and perhaps the boldest. A biopic of UsefulNotes/CatherineTheGreat that totally embraces the ruthlessness and sexual daring of the Queen while boldly admitting that EvilIsCool and EvilIsSexy. None of the preachy moralizing from the Hays period is here.

The Pre-Code Era is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. The period after the widespread adoption of sound cinema by Hollywood but before the active, total enforcement of UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode. This period stretched from 1928 to 1933, though stragglers continued into 1934 and 1935. This brief, short period is unlike any later period in film history. Imagine seeing old classic films with actors like Creator/ClarkGable or Creator/ClaudetteColbert and feeling that the roles they are playing are too conventional and too cute. You wish they played different roles, you wish that the films weren't so bound by censorship that almost all the roles and the entire plot register as a DullSurprise to the viewer since the conventions are so painfully enforced. Basically, you wish to see old-time actors operate with the same freedom as the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood. The good news is that you can, by seeing films from the Pre-Code Era.

* Creator/WilliamAWellman: ''Film/ThePublicEnemy1931'' (which made James Cagney a star), ''Film/WildBoysOfTheRoad'', ''Film/HeroesForSale'', ''Film/ThePurchasePrice'', ''Film/MidnightMary'', The Conquerors, Other Men's Women''. He made 20 films in a four-year period! He later noted that this was partly because he and the writers had the freedom to pretty much do they as they pleased so long as a film was in a certain genre, had a standard runtime, and was made fast and cheaply. After the Code came, screenplays were subject to stricter scrutiny, which delayed the process greatly and as such created more inconveniences and annoyances to deal with.

* ''Quick Millions'' (1931) -- Directed by Rowland Brown. Cited as an influence for ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire'' and it shows. It's pretty brutal in examining the links between politics, labour and crime and features Creator/SpencerTracy in a completely unsentimental role.

This period provided us the Gangster Film, TheMusical and the ScrewballComedy, in addition to some war films like ''Film/AllQuietOnTheWesternFront''. It was also the period of Franchise/UniversalHorror films, titles like Creator/JamesWhale's ''Film/{{Frankenstein|1931}}'' with Creator/BorisKarloff and its sequel ''Film/BrideOfFrankenstein'', Tod Browning's ''Film/{{Dracula|1931}}'', ''Film/TheBlackCat'' as well as MGM's one attempt to cash in on the trend, Tod Browning's ''Film/{{Freaks}}'' which could not be made in any other period but this one. It was also a time of important innovations in special effects, with ''[[Film/KingKong1933 King Kong]]'' released in 1933. All in all, this period of six years, which marked the end of silent cinema and the beginning of sound was a climate of freedom which was [[ShortLivedBigImpact all too brief]] but whose impact reverberated for years to come.

* ''Film/TheLoveParade'' (1929): Creator/JeanetteMacDonald [[MsFanservice takes a bath onscreen]], and Creator/MauriceChevalier sings a song about how he's not getting any (and thus, nobody is enjoying his skills as TheCasanova).
* ''Film/TheDivorcee'' (1930): Jerry, embittered after her husband Ted cheats on her, divorces him, but not before telling him that "you're the only man in the world that my door is closed to." The latter portion of the movie shows Jerry going through a rotating parade of boyfriends.
* ''Film/LooseAnkles'' (1930): In which a socialite hires a guy who's apparently a male prostitute in order to create a fake scandal (ItMakesSenseInContext), and has her maid slice his pants off with scissors.
* ''Film/MadamSatan'' (1930): A society wife realizes that she needs to BeAWhoreToGetYourMan when she finds out her husband is having an affair.
* ''Film/{{Monte Carlo|1930}}'' (1930): The heroine [[MsFanservice (Jeanette [=MacDonald=] again)]] spends about a quarter of the film in her underwear or a negligee. Also, her moans of pleasure at getting a scalp massage sound suspiciously orgasmic.
* ''Film/{{Morocco}}'' (1930) by Creator/JosefVonSternberg features the first lesbian kiss in Sound Cinema and a dark romantic story with Creator/MarleneDietrich and Creator/GaryCooper in a MasochismTango.
* ''Film/SinTakesAHoliday'' (1930) The title alone gives pre-code vibes. Constance Bennett marries her boss, treats the marriage lightly, and flirts around Paris with Creator/BasilRathbone.
* ''Film/BlondeCrazy'' (1931): A raunchy little tale about [[ConMan con men]] Creator/JamesCagney and Creator/JoanBlondell.
* ''Film/TheFrontPage1931'': Includes references to execution by hanging, prostitution, an an implied suicide among other things.
* ''Film/LadiesMan'' (1931): Creator/WilliamPowell is the titular man whose seduction of rich women for money destroys him in the end.
* ''Film/LittleCaesar'' (1931): Flying bullets, "crime pays," and so much HomoeroticSubtext that the author of the novel on which the film was based wrote to the studio to complain.
* ''Film/{{The Maltese Falcon|1931}}'' (1931): Much more overt about the {{Gayngster}} subtext than the better-known 1941 film.
* ''Film/{{Millie}}'' (1931): Creator/JoanBlondell and another woman in bed together, wearing lingerie. And a DirtyOldMan attempting to seduce a 16-year-old girl, and nearly succeeding.
* ''Film/TheMiracleWoman'' (1931): An early Creator/FrankCapra film, starring Creator/BarbaraStanwyck, telling the story about a corrupt evangelical church. Oh, and someone flips the bird.
* ''Film/NightNurse'' (1931): A lot of undressing for Creator/BarbaraStanwyck and Creator/JoanBlondell in a nurse drama where Creator/ClarkGable is the BigBad.
* ''Film/Possessed1931'': Joan Crawford states explicitly that she's going to use her good looks to find a rich man to support her. She becomes Clark Gable's kept woman.
* ''Film/ThePublicEnemy1931'': Creator/JamesCagney plays a young man living in Chicago during Prohibition whose crimes progress from small-time theft to bootlegging and murder.
* ''Quick Millions'' (1931) by Rowland Brown. Cited as an influence for ''Series/BoardwalkEmpire'' and it shows. It's pretty brutal in examining the links between politics, labour and crime and features Creator/SpencerTracy in a completely unsentimental role.
* ''Film/SafeInHell'' (1931) A Creator/WilliamAWellman film where a prostitute kills her rapist and hides out in a tropical island where the men all want her.

* ''Film/{{Scarface|1932}}'' (1932) by Creator/HowardHawks, is the TropeCodifier for the Depression gangster film, the first film to raise issues about "glorifying violence" and gangsters. It was in its day as shocking as the more famous 1983 remake. It was also probably responsible for calls for stricter censorship.

* ''Film/WhatPriceHollywood'' (1932)-- Constance Bennett becomes a big star--at a price.

* ''Film/TheScarletEmpress'' (1934), the second to last Sternberg-Dietrich film and perhaps the boldest. A biopic of UsefulNotes/CatherineTheGreat that totally embraces the ruthlessness and sexual daring of the Queen while boldly admitting that EvilIsCool and EvilIsSexy. None of [[TastesLikeDiabetes the preachy moralizing]] from the Hays period is here.

* Creator/WilliamAWellman: ''Film/ThePublicEnemy'' (which made James Cagney a star), ''Film/WildBoysOfTheRoad'', ''Film/HeroesForSale'', ''Film/ThePurchasePrice'', ''Film/MidnightMary'', The Conquerors, Other Men's Women''. He made 20 films in a four-year period! He later noted that this was partly because he and the writers had the freedom to pretty much do they as they pleased so long as a film was in a certain genre, had a standard runtime, and was made fast and cheaply. After the Code came, screenplays were subject to stricter scrutiny, which delayed the process greatly and as such created more inconveniences and annoyances to deal with.

* ''Film/{{Possessed|1931}}'' (1931): Joan Crawford states explicitly that she's going to use her good looks to find a rich man to support her. She becomes Clark Gable's kept woman.
* ''Film/ThePublicEnemy'' (1931): Creator/JamesCagney plays a young man living in Chicago during Prohibition whose crimes progress from small-time theft to bootlegging and murder.

* ''Film/BlondeVenus,'' (1932) also from von Sternberg and Dietrich, tells the story of an adulteress from a sympathetic standpoint.

* ''Film/LoveMeTonight'' (1932) [[RunningGag Jeanette MacDonald spending large amounts of screentime in her underwear again]], and the doctor giving her a prescription that boils down to YouNeedToGetLaid.

* ''Film/TheSilverCord'' (1933) A mother has an [[ParentalIncest unhealthy relationship]] with her sons, driving away any women that come into their lives.

This period coincided with the end of TheRoaringTwenties and the early years of TheGreatDepression and are incredible portrayals of the time. It shows the level of unrest and uncertainty brought out by mass unemployment, urban violence and the worker's movements and strikes in the same period. Male characters tended to be {{Working Class Hero}}es more often than not. Women are also shown at work, living alone and dating as per their wishes. Crime movies tend to have prostitutes not as cautionary tales but as genuinely conflicted, morally complex characters. There's more GrayAndGrayMorality here and SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome more often than not. Seen today, the contrast between the films made before the censorship and the period after goes a great deal to showing the impact censorship made on American cinema and the kind of films that [[WhatCouldHaveBeen could have been made]] had censorship not been active for the thirty years after the end of the era, dispelling the myth that American cinema were prudish by instinct rather than external factors, showing that they were in fact stifled by an obsolete system that they themselves never set store by.