Mar 31-08 Coffee Break with Barbara Stanwyck
Mar 31-08 Coffee Break with Barbara Stanwyck
I spent a rainy night viewing of the pre-release version of "Baby Face" with Barbara Stanwyck which leads me to wonder how much creativity the film industry lost when Hollywood enforced the "Production Code" aka "Hays Code" in 1934.
The code stated that films could only present certain things that were explicit, degenerate or unvirtuous if they motivated the plot and were not shown as acceptable behavior. The audience wasn't to view anything deemed immoral.
Baby Face (1933) was one such movie. Many critics at the time thought that Baby Face was "The most depraved film to come out of Hollywood." It is the story of Lily, played by Barbara Stanwyck, who sleeps her way to the top and isn't denounced for her raunchy behavior. The film was scrubbed according to the code and released to the public in 1934 as a far less interesting film.
Between the years of 1929 and 1934, women in Hollywood movies were portrayed as modern. For those years, women in American movies were unrepentant about having a career, divorced, took lovers, had babies out of wedlock, got rid of cheating husbands, and enjoyed their sexuality.
In general almost everything in Hollywood cinema between 1934 and 1968 complied with the code and depicted "good" women in ways very different from those complex ladies of the 30's. In 1968 when the code was no longer in effect, these portrayals began to change in Hollywood. Europe and other film making countries, on the other hand, had maintained broader viewpoints and less restricted "moral" standards throughout the Thirties to the Sixties. No wonder there were so many of us only going to "art house" movies and foreign films. The censorship meant to be a positive force in the building of a strong western society only added to the mediocratizing and stereotyping of the North American culture.
The pre-release version of "Baby Face" I watched this evening belies its age and I recommend it, should you find a pre-release copy.
I spent a rainy night viewing of the pre-release version of "Baby Face" with Barbara Stanwyck which leads me to wonder how much creativity the film industry lost when Hollywood enforced the "Production Code" aka "Hays Code" in 1934.
The code stated that films could only present certain things that were explicit, degenerate or unvirtuous if they motivated the plot and were not shown as acceptable behavior. The audience wasn't to view anything deemed immoral.
Baby Face (1933) was one such movie. Many critics at the time thought that Baby Face was "The most depraved film to come out of Hollywood." It is the story of Lily, played by Barbara Stanwyck, who sleeps her way to the top and isn't denounced for her raunchy behavior. The film was scrubbed according to the code and released to the public in 1934 as a far less interesting film.
Between the years of 1929 and 1934, women in Hollywood movies were portrayed as modern. For those years, women in American movies were unrepentant about having a career, divorced, took lovers, had babies out of wedlock, got rid of cheating husbands, and enjoyed their sexuality.
In general almost everything in Hollywood cinema between 1934 and 1968 complied with the code and depicted "good" women in ways very different from those complex ladies of the 30's. In 1968 when the code was no longer in effect, these portrayals began to change in Hollywood. Europe and other film making countries, on the other hand, had maintained broader viewpoints and less restricted "moral" standards throughout the Thirties to the Sixties. No wonder there were so many of us only going to "art house" movies and foreign films. The censorship meant to be a positive force in the building of a strong western society only added to the mediocratizing and stereotyping of the North American culture.
The pre-release version of "Baby Face" I watched this evening belies its age and I recommend it, should you find a pre-release copy.
posted by KB at
4:25 PM
