TCM Schedule for Friday, September 19, 2014 -- Friday Night Spotlight - Classic Pre-Code

[Staph]

It's another day of pre-code films, with the documentary, Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood (2008), discussing the history of the Hollywood Production Code. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Parole Girl (1933)
A wrongly convicted woman tries to make amends after getting out of prison.
Dir: Edward Cline
Cast: Mae Clarke, Ralph Bellamy, Marie Prevost
BW-68 mins,

Third screenplay by Norman Krasna, who won an Oscar in 1944 for the screenplay for Princess O'Rourke.


7:19 AM -- Claude Hopkins And Band In "Barber Shop Blues" (1933)
In this short film, a barber shop owner wins a sweepstake and hires an orchestra to play for his customers. Vitaphone Release 1551.
Dir: Joseph Henabery
Cast: Claude Hopkins & Orchestra, Four Step Brothers, Orlando Roberson
BW-10 mins,


7:30 AM -- Three Wise Girls (1932)
Three models try to snag husband's but the ones they find are already married.
Dir: William Beaudine
Cast: Jean Harlow, Mae Clarke, Walter Byron
BW-69 mins,

The second of two films starring two great stars of pre-code Hollywood, Jean Harlow and Mae Clarke. Their other film was The Public Enemy (1931), the film in which James Cagney famously pushes a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face over the breakfast table.


8:45 AM -- Lady Killer (1933)
A criminal on the run becomes a Hollywood movie star.
Dir: Roy Del Ruth
Cast: James Cagney, Mae Clarke, Margaret Lindsay
BW-76 mins, CC,

After James Cagney, dressed as a native American, dismounts a mechanical horse, he finds it painful to sit down in Lois' dressing room. When she enters and asks him what he's made up for, Cagney, who was fluent in Yiddish, responds "Big Chief Es Tut Mir Veh im Tuchas," which delicately translated means "Big Chief It Hurts My Rear End."


10:15 AM -- Possessed (1931)
A factory girl rises to the top as mistress of a tycoon, then falls in love.
Dir: Clarence Brown
Cast: Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Wallace Ford
BW-76 mins, CC,

Edgar Selwyn's play, "The Mirage", opened in New York on 30 September 1920.


11:45 AM -- Two Seconds (1932)
In the last moments of his life, a criminal reviews the circumstances that led him to death row.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Vivienne Osborne, Guy Kibbee
BW-67 mins,

The premise behind this film was previously used in The Last Moment (1928).


1:00 PM -- The Little Giant (1933)
When Prohibition ends, a bootlegger tries to break into high society.
Dir: Roy Del Ruth
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Mary Astor, Helen Vinson
BW-76 mins, CC,

A bit of the film's dialogue -- dialogue that couldn't have been filmed a few years later:
Bugs (Edward G. Robinson): [Pointing at a Cubist painting] You ever see anything like that before?

Al (Russell Hopton): Not since I been off cocaine.

Bugs: No, dumb head! I suppose you think that's a cat havin' a fit in a bucket of tomato ketchup. Well, it ain't! That's art!


2:16 PM -- That's The Spirit (1933)
In this musical short film, two night watchmen hear music performed in a haunted pawn shop. Vitaphone Release 1491.
Dir: Roy Mack
Cast: F. E. Miller, Cora La Redd, Mantan Moreland
BW-11 mins,


2:30 PM -- The Mind Reader (1933)
A fake mentalist tries to go straight, only to end up in jail.
Dir: Roy Del Ruth
Cast: Warren William, Constance Cummings, Allen Jenkins
BW-70 mins, CC,

Stephen Sondheim picked this movie as the initial film on his special night as the Turner Classic Movies programmer, March 22, 2005. The cable network TCM was honoring him on his 75th birthday.


3:45 PM -- Beauty And The Boss (1932)
After being distracted by a string of pretty secretaries, a banker hires a plain Jane, only to fall in love with her.
Dir: Roy Del Ruth
Cast: Marian Marsh, David Manners, Warren William
BW-65 mins,

The original play opened in Budapest, Hungary, on December 2, 1927. An English-language adaptation of the play by Benn W. Levy, entitled "A Church Mouse", opened in London in early May, 1931. Another English-language adaptation by Frederic Hatton and Fanny Hatton, also called "A Church Mouse", opened in New York on October 12, 1931.


5:00 PM -- Waterloo Bridge (1931)
A ballerina sinks into prostitution when her husband is reported killed in World War I.
Dir: James Whale
Cast: Mae Clarke, Kent Douglass, Doris Lloyd
BW-81 mins,

This film was remade in 1940, with Vivian Leigh in the starring role, and the time moved from the Great War to World War II. Rita Carlyle played (uncredited) the Old Woman on Bridge in BOTH Waterloo Bridge (1931) & Waterloo Bridge (1940). She was the woman who dropped her basket of potatoes and cabbage in the earlier version and the flower lady in the later version. Ethel Griffies played (uncredited) the Landlady in BOTH Waterloo Bridge (1931) & Waterloo Bridge (1940). She was Mrs. Hobley in the earlier version and Mrs. Clark in the later version.


6:30 PM -- Hot Saturday (1932)
A virtuous small-town clerk becomes the victim of a scandalous rumor from an unsuccessful suitor.
Dir: William Seiter
Cast: Cary Grant, Nancy Carroll, Randolph Scott
BW-73 mins,

Carole Lombard was mentioned for the role eventually played by Nancy Carroll.


7:44 PM -- Sport Slants #218 (1931)
This short entry in Ted Husing's "Sport Slants" series covers wrestling, hockey, gymnastics, and basketball. Vitaphone Release 1218.
BW-10 mins,



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



8:00 PM -- Blonde Venus (1932)
A nightclub singer gives in to a rich playboy to finance her husband's medical treatment.
Dir: Josef von Sternberg
Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant
BW-94 mins, CC,

Cary Grant said that Josef von Sternberg directed him not really much during the filming, but taught him the most important thing. On the first day Grant came on the set, von Sternberg looked at him and said, "Your hair is parted on the wrong side." So Grant parted it on the other side and kept it that way the rest of his career.


9:45 PM -- I'm No Angel (1933)
A carnival dancer evades the law and invades high society.
Dir: Wesley Ruggles
Cast: Mae West, Cary Grant, Gregory Ratoff
BW-88 mins, CC,

Considerable problems arose with the censors, mostly about the suggestive lines in some of the songs. The song "Nobody Loves Me Like a Dallas Man" was originally "Nobody Does It Like a Dallas Man". After the songs were toned down, the Hays office approved the film, and it was passed by the National Board of Review. In 1935 and 1949, the production code was more rigorously enforced, and the film was not approved for re-release.


11:18 PM -- Handlebars (1933)
This short film provides a humorous history of the bicycle since 1819.
Dir: Jules White
Cast: Bess Flowers, Bill Elliott,
BW-10 mins,


11:30 PM -- She Done Him Wrong (1933)
A saloon singer fights off smugglers, an escaped con and a Salvation Army officer out to reform her.
Dir: Lowell Sherman
Cast: Mae West, Cary Grant, Owen Moore
BW-65 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture

Mae West was signed by Paramount in 1931 to make a film adaptation of her stage success 'Diamond Lil'. They then spent the next two years trying to figure out a way of getting the material past the censors. The battle over 'Diamond Lil' led to the head of the Production Board, James Wingate, quitting and being replaced by the much more hardline Joseph Breen who was prompted to set up a fairly stringent and moral Production Code. In the meantime, 'Diamond Lil' transformed into the slightly watered down "She Done Him Wrong" and was one of the last films to be made before the introduction of the Production Code.


12:45 AM -- Blonde Crazy (1931)
A con-man bellhop and his chambermaid girlfriend set out to fleece hotel guests.
Dir: Roy Del Ruth
Cast: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Louis Calhern
BW-79 mins, CC,

This is the film that everyone remembers for Jimmy Cagney saying "You dirty rat!". As usual, the quote is wrong -- it's "Mmm, that dirty double-crossin' rat!".


2:15 AM -- 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,

Features clips from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925), The Mysterious Lady (1928), Our Dancing Daughters (1928), The Letter (1929), The Divorcee (1930), Madam Satan (1930), Paid (1930), Dance, Fools, Dance (1931), Illicit (1931), Strangers May Kiss (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), A Free Soul (1931), Night Nurse (1931), The Common Law (1931), Possessed (1931), Safe in Hell (1931), Manhattan Parade (1931), Under 18 (1931), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), The Beast of the City (1932), The Strange Love of Molly Louvain (1932), Red-Headed Woman (1932), Skyscraper Souls (1932), Hell's Highway (1932), Red Dust (1932), Three on a Match (1932), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), Employees' Entrance (1933), Ladies They Talk About (1933), King Kong (1933), 42nd Street (1933), Gabriel Over the White House (1933), Diplomaniacs (1933), Ex-Lady (1933), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Heroes for Sale (1933), Midnight Mary (1933), Baby Face (1933), Bosko's Picture Show (1933) (Short), Penthouse (1933), Footlight Parade (1933), I'm No Angel (1933), Meet the Baron (1933), Female (1933), Lady Killer (1933), Queen Christina (1933), Hips, Hips, Hooray! (1934), Wonder Bar (1934), Tarzan and His Mate (1934), Dames (1934), Forsaking All Others (1934), Romeo and Juliet (1936), The Letter (1940), and A Tale of Two Kitties (1942) (Short).


3:30 AM -- Skyscraper Souls (1932)
A ruthless financier will stop at nothing to control a 100-story office building.
Dir: Edgar Selwyn
Cast: Warren William, Maureen O'Sullivan, Gregory Ratoff
BW-99 mins,

American Film Institute Catalog of Feature Films 1931-1940 identifies Arnold Lucy as playing Hamilton; actually, Lucy plays one of the other bankers, and William Morris plays Hamilton.


5:15 AM -- She Had To Say Yes (1933)
A secretary pads her salary by dating prospective buyers for her company.
Dir: Busby Berkeley
Cast: Loretta Young, Winnie Lightner, Lyle Talbot
BW-66 mins, CC,

The first film directed by Busby Berkeley.