Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930–1934
- ISBN-10
- 0231500122
- ISBN-13
- 9780231500128
- Category
- Performing Arts
- Pages
- 400
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1999-08-27
- Publisher
- Columbia University Press
- Author
- Thomas Doherty
Description
Pre-Code Hollywood explores the fascinating period in American motion picture history from 1930 to 1934 when the commandments of the Production Code Administration were violated with impunity in a series of wildly unconventional films—a time when censorship was lax and Hollywood made the most of it. Though more unbridled, salacious, subversive, and just plain bizarre than what came afterwards, the films of the period do indeed have the look of Hollywood cinema—but the moral terrain is so off-kilter that they seem imported from a parallel universe. In a sense, Doherty avers, the films of pre-Code Hollywood are from another universe. They lay bare what Hollywood under the Production Code attempted to cover up and push offscreen: sexual liaisons unsanctified by the laws of God or man, marriage ridiculed and redefined, ethnic lines crossed and racial barriers ignored, economic injustice exposed and political corruption assumed, vice unpunished and virtue unrewarded—in sum, pretty much the raw stuff of American culture, unvarnished and unveiled. No other book has yet sought to interpret the films and film-related meanings of the pre-Code era—what defined the period, why it ended, and what its relationship was to the country as a whole during the darkest years of the Great Depression... and afterward.
Get the book
Similar books
-
The Business of American Theatre
By William GrangeScheurer, Timothy E. The Nineteenth Century and Tin Pan Alley. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green ... Timberlake, Craig. The Bishop of Broadway: The Life ...
-
Shooting Action Sports: The Ultimate Guide to Extreme Filmmaking
By Todd GrossmanDeal. with. Them. There«s one constant in the world of action sports, and that«sthe recurring issue with authority figures. The concernis justifiable when ...
-
Mycommunicationkit Student Access Code Card
By Bryan A Pearson, Pearson Education, Inc., Prentice Hall PearsonMycommunicationkit Student Access Code Card
-
Reframing Culture: The Case of the Vitagraph Quality Films
By William Uricchio, Roberta E. Pearson... Rare Books Room, and Ruth Senior and the staff, interlibrary loan, Pattee Library, Penn State; Elaine Burrows, Jackie Morris, Roger Holman, Markku Salmi ...
-
Star Trek and American Television
By Roberta Pearson, Máire Messenger DaviesWith the exception of the actors, the majority of the Star Trek production staff were male, except for the wardrobe staff whom we've mentioned.
-
Leadership in the Performing Arts
By Tobie S. SteinTodd of course has been leading the Roundabout since 1983 and, after many years at the helm, ... Notes 1 Terrence E. Deal and Allan A. Kennedy, Corporate.
-
The Complete Films of Alfred Hitchcock
By Robert A. Harris, Michael S. Lasky... and it took eight years to complete his four - picture deal . ... Money was no object Valli , Ann Todd , and Hitchcock during filming of The Paradine ...
-
Broadway Plays and Musicals: Descriptions and Essential Facts of More Than 14,000 Shows through 2007
By Thomas S. HischakMichael Todd's Peep Show [28 June 1950] musical revue by Bobby Clark, ... an emergency and the crew has to deal with the two women on board for some time, ...
-
Timberlake Wertenbaker Plays 1: New Anatomies; Grace of Mary Traverse; Our Country's Good; Love of a Nightingale; Three Birds Alighting...
By Timberlake WertenbakerNew Anatomies, Grace of Mary Traverse, Our Country's Good, Love of a Nightingale & Three Birds Alighting on a Field
-
The Ash Girl
By Timberlake WertenbakerIn this wondrous drama Timberlake Wertenbaker explores the beauty and terror inherent in growing up. The Ash Girl premiered at Birmingham Rep in 2001.