(PRE) CODE REFLECTS CONTROVERSIAL MOVIE ERA
Bruce Goldstein loves movies from the Pre-Code Era. Give him 30 minutes, and he’ll give you the entire history of it.
As the founding director of repertory programming at New York’s Film Forum (as well as the founder of Rialto Pictures, a film distributor that has restored and rereleased many classic films in its 22-year history), Goldstein has made it his thing to hip people to the provocative films that were released in the early 1930s. This was before the Motion Picture Production Code — aka the Hays Code, after Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) president Wil H. Hays — along with the Production Code Association (PCA) and American Roman Catholics, forced studios to crack down on movies with questionable subject matter.
When he grew up, Goldstein watched films that he says were more about “twin beds and chaste kisses.” All that changed during his teen years. “I went to a repertory screening in New York and I saw ‘Gold Diggers of 1933,’ ” remembers Goldstein, “and said, ‘Wait a minute — this is rather racy! We don’t see these films on TV!’ ”
“Gold Diggers of 1933” and many other films of that time will be shown at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as part of a monthlong series called Cracking the (Pre) Code. The baker’s dozen of films that will be screened (either on 35 mm film or on digital) delve into what was considered the sinful stuff back then: homosexuality, promiscuity, profanity, violence, etc. These films will also feature some of the era’s heaviest hitters: sexualinnuendo virtuoso Mae West (“I’m No Angel,” “She Done Him Wrong”), angel-faced vamps Barbara Stanwyck (“Baby Face”) and Jean Harlow (“Red-Headed Woman”), German temptress Marlene Dietrich (“Shanghai Express”), perennial smart-alecks the Marx Brothers (“Duck Soup”) and, last but not least, Warren William (“Gold Diggers of 1933,” “Three on a Match,” “Employees’ Entrance”), whose rep for playing unscrupulous, nefarious men made him known as the “King of Pre-Code.” Says Goldstein, “I think all the ones I chose are really some of the most important films of the era.”
Goldstein will be in town this weekend introducing several of his faves, including “Entrance,” “Blessed Event” and “Blood Money,” films he has also introduced at the Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival in Los Angeles over the past few years. He will also be doing postscreening discussions on each film.
Goldstein got together with the MFAH thanks to film/video curator Marian Luntz, a friend of Goldstein’s for nearly 40 years. She feels it’s about time the museum did a Pre-Code series. “It’s certainly the first spotlighted series focusing on Pre-Code that we have done in a long time,” says Luntz. “I think we have probably shown some of these films here and there, but I just became excited sort of following Bruce’s programming and hearing, seeing other programming — something always seem to pop up on TCM about the Pre-Code — and it
just seems to be a great occasion to have Bruce here, have people meet him and I hope this is the first of numerous times that we’ll be able to bring Bruce back and have him choose what he is passionate about and show it to our audiences.”
Luntz is very aware these problematic but still fascinating films may turn off more sensitive viewers. “Bruce and I spoke about it a little bit that the audience here is gonna be different from an audience that sees the film in New York,” she says. “You hope that people will appreciate that this is of a period …. I think it’s a moment for people to see the films, to think about what it reflected of our history and our society at that time.”
“I hope they get to understand the era a little better also,” adds Goldstein. “That’s the one thing about these movies: They really are reflective of the times. They’re not escapist the way Hollywood movies were after the enforcement of the Code. They are reflections of the Depression, and that’s why some of them are a little depressing — but entertaining.”