Pre-Code Hollywood

Informationen zum Autor Thomas Doherty Klappentext 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. Zusammenfassung This book explores the four-year interval between 1930 and 1934! a time when censorship was lax and Hollywood made the most of it. Doherty chronicles how the freewheeling films of an unrestricted Hollywood inform the culture of America in the 1930s. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1. On the Cusp of Classical Hollywood Cinema Patrolling the Diegesis Pre-Code Contexts 2. Breadlines and Box Office Lines: Hollywood in the Nadir of the Great Depression The Lost Millions A Synchronized Industry "Mike Fright" 3. Preachment Yarns: The Politics of Mere Entertainment Telegraphing Ideology Class Distinctions Professional Malfeasance 4. Dictators and Democrats: The Rage for Order Hankering for Supermen "The Barrymore of the Capital": The Newsreel Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt A New Deal in the Last Reel The Mad Dog of Europe 5. Vice Rewarded: The Wages of Cinematic Sin Packaging Vice Models of Immorality Figurative Literalness Queer Flashes "Women Love Dirt" Working Girls 6. Criminal Codes: Gangsters Unbound, Felons in Custody Rushing Toward Death: The Gangster Film Men Behind Bars: The Prison Film 7. Comic Timing: Cracking Wise and Wising Up Commentators on the Action Story, Screenplay, and All Dialogue by Mae West Newspaper Patter The Blue Eagle and Duck Soup (1933) 8. News on Screen: The Vividness of Mechanical Immortality Library Stock The Newsreel Ethos Covering Up the Great Depression 9. Remote Kinships: The Geography of the Expeditionary Film Points on the Compass Faking It: Phoney Expeditions and Real Deaths The Dark Continent 10. Primitive Mating Rituals: The Color Wheel of the Racial Adventure Film "He's White": Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932) and Tarzan and His Mate (1934) Red Skin, Red Lips: Massacre (1934) East Mates West "The Ethiopian Trade" Nerve and Brains: Paul Robeson and The Emperor Jones (1933) Beauty and the Beast: King Kong (1933) 11. Nightmare Pictures: The Quality of Gruesomeness Rugged Individualism: Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), and Their Progeny The Lower Orders Rise Up: Island of Lost Souls (1933) and Freaks (1932) 12. Classical Hollywood Cinema: The World According to Joseph I. Breen "The Storm of '34" Hollywoo...

Autorentext

Thomas Doherty is associate professor in the American Studies Department and chair of the Film Studies Program at Brandeis University. He is the author of Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II (Columbia, 1993) and Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of American Movies in the 1950s, and is associate editor of the film journal Cinéaste.

Klappentext

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.

Zusammenfassung
This book explores the four-year interval between 1930 and 1934, a time when censorship was lax and Hollywood made the most of it. Doherty chronicles how the freewheeling films of an unrestricted Hollywood inform the culture of America in the 1930s.

Inhalt

1. On the Cusp of Classical Hollywood Cinema
Patrolling the Diegesis
Pre-Code Contexts
2. Breadlines and Box Office Lines: Hollywood in the Nadir of the Great Depression
The Lost Millions
A Synchronized Industry
"Mike Fright"
3. Preachment Yarns: The Politics of Mere Entertainment
Telegraphing Ideology
Class Distinctions
Professional Malfeasance
4. Dictators and Democrats: The Rage for Order
Hankering for Supermen
"The Barrymore of the Capital": The Newsreel Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
A New Deal in the Last Reel
The Mad Dog of Europe
5. Vice Rewarded: The Wages of Cinematic Sin
Packaging Vice
Models of Immorality
Figurative Literalness
Queer Flashes
"Women Love Dirt"
Working Girls
6. Criminal Codes: Gangsters Unbound, Felons in Custody
Rushing Toward Death: The Gangster Film
Men Behind Bars: The Prison Film
7. Comic Timing: Cracking Wise and Wising Up
Commentators on the Action
Story, Screenplay, and All Dialogue by Mae West
Newspaper Patter
The Blue Eagle and Duck Soup (1933)
8. News on Screen: The Vividness of Mechanical Immortality
Library Stock
The Newsreel Ethos
Covering Up the Great Depression
9. Remote Kinships: The Geography of the Expeditionary Film
Points on the Compass
Faking It: Phoney Expeditions and Real Deaths
The Dark Continent
10. Primitive Mating Rituals: The Color Wheel of the Racial Adventure Film
"He's White": Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932) and Tarzan and His Mate (1934)
Red Skin, Red Lips: Massacre (1934)
East Mates West
"The Ethiopian Trade"
Nerve and Brains: Paul Robeson and The Emperor Jones (1933)
Beauty and the Beast: King Kong (1933)
11. Nightmare Pictures: The Quality of Gruesomeness
Rugged Individualism: Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), and Their Progeny
The Lower Orders Rise Up: Island of Lost Souls (1933) and Freaks (1932)
12. Classical Hollywood Cinema: The World According to Joseph I. Breen
"The Storm of '34"
Hollywood Under the Code
Post-Code Hollywood Cinema