Pre-Code Hollywood Collection (The Cheat / Merrily We Go to Hell / Hot Saturday / Torch Singer / Murder at the Vanities / Search for Beauty)
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Actor: Cary Grant, Fredric March, Randolph Scott, Sylvia Sidney, Tallulah BankheadBrand: Universal
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 420 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-04-07
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of Pre-Code Hollywood Collection (The Cheat / Merrily We Go to Hell / Hot Saturday / Torch Singer / Murder at the Vanities / Search for Beauty)
DVD Review: Universal's Pre-Code Hollywood Collection: Hopefully The First Of Many More
Summary: 4 Stars
Universal owns a vast catalog of Pre-Code movies, many of which the studio purchased in the 1970s from Paramount; I hope this boxset collection is the first of many. Offering six movies on three DVDs, the set doesn't feature the most outrageous or even the most memorable of Pre-Code Hollywood, but it's a start. Maybe if enough of us buy a copy Universal will take notice and continue releasing more...
Image-wise the movies look relatively good. Grain is as always evident, but each of these movies is over seventy years old. There are no commentaries or special features, which is a shame. It appears to my untrained eye that these films have been somewhat restored; there's none of that subrate quality one will find on low-tier label releases (I'm looking at YOU, Alpha Video!). For some odd reason the set comes with a pamphlet reprinting the Production Code, the document which neutered the industry. Are we supposed to burn it in rage?
The movies:
The Cheat (1931): Tallulah Bankhead plays a troublesome wife with dreams of glamorous living. Frustrated with her husband's interminable promise that he's soon to make a windfall, she gets mixed up with a globetrotting millionaire who takes a shine to her. Pretty soon it's "Indecent Proposal" six decades early; the globetrotter offers Tallulah money but it's obvious what he expects in return. A hammy melodrama, what most impressed me about The Cheat were the sets, which combine `30s art deco with a Hollywood idea of "oriental." There's nothing particularly "Pre-Code" here. Other than the expectation placed upon Tallulah in return for the money, nothing really happens - except for an unexpected scene in which someone gets branded!
Merrily We Go To Hell (1932): Fredric March plays an upcoming playwright with one heck of a drinking problem. The movie attempts to be a social relevance type of thing, warning of the dangers of alcoholism, yet it can't help but revel in the glamour of high-society partying, complete with tuxedoed drinkers and opulent art deco surroundings. If anything the movie made me WANT to drink. March is good in the role. Sometimes he comes off as too stiff but here he gets into the role, he's fluid with it. In a drunken blur he meets a girl, courts her, and the two get married. Soon after March finds success, but he also runs into an old flame. Blossom rekindles despite his marriage - Pre-Code material for sure, as March and his wife develop an open relationship. The whole thing comes off like some "Ice Storm" sort of 1970s free love/open couples affair, only with booze instead of pot. And the factor which saves their relationship is a depressing event which itself wouldn't be allowed in a Hollywood film, Post-Code.
Hot Saturday (1932): No matter how long I kept watching this movie, it just wouldn't end. There are a bujillion Pre-Code movies that could've been included here instead of this one. But this is what we've been handed: a tedious movie only brightened by Cary Grant's small role. A gaggle of twentysomethings plan a huge weekend party, complete with bootleg booze. Grant plays the dapper gadabout who hosts the party. Our heroine swoons for him, spends most of the night mooning over the lake with him - because he's just a nice guy after all. But next day the lie gets out via her jilted beau that our girl is a floozy. Her image is bashed by an outraged town and her parents threaten to kick her out. Will she find redemption? Pre-Code material: two girls fight over a pair of underwear, with one of them actually pulling it off of the other.
Torch Singer (1933): Oh, how I adore this movie. And what's funny is I'm so completely outside its target audience. For this is a weepy, soapy, maudlin melodrama, one designed and aimed like a rocket for the hearts of a female audience. It's about a single mother forced to give up her child - and who, through various soap-operatic events, goes on to become a torch singer, a children's radio show host, and finally an obsessed seeker of her abandoned child. And why do I adore this movie? Two words: Claudette Colbert. Ricardo Cortez, her co-star in this, was quoted in Lawrence Quirk's 1985 Claudette bio as saying that the Torch Singer was only good because Claudette "willed it." A true and knowing statement; if you've ever wanted to witness a star carrying a picture on her back, then this is it. I'm positive I wouldn't even like this movie if it wasn't for Claudette. But yet I've watched it three times already. Claudette shows off her entire range here: from comedy to pathos. In her "torch singer" faze she vamps it up with delight, singing in key and spinning out one-liners with aplomb. Then when she moves into her "children's radio show host" she's utterly in the moment; there's a scene where you can witness the realization cross her face - that as she delivers this dialog over the airwaves, her abandoned daughter might be somewhere out there, listening. It's a heartbreaking moment. She even gets to play a "down and out" angle; convinced she'll never find her daughter, Claudette escapes to a bar where she drinks herself into a mascara-streaked stupor, a mound of cigarette butts piled beside her lolling head. My definite favorite movie of the collection. And possibly the most Pre-Code movie here, even though it doesn't show anything naughty. Yet Claudette plays an unwed mother and while in her "torch singer" incarnation she acquires a definite "reputation" - two factors at least which would be verboten in Hollywood just a year later. And finally, I find myself humming Claudette's theme song "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Love" at the oddest times.
Murder at the Vanities (1934): Mitchell Liesen's first sole credit as director; previous to this he'd directed (without credit) some of DeMille's 1932 "The Sign of the Cross" and had co-directed the forgotten Claudette Colbert/Fredric March 1933 film "Tonight Is Ours." A longtime DeMille assistant with a thorough experience in set and costume design, Liesen handles his first assignment with the assured skill of an old pro. The only problem, for me at least, is that the movie's just not very good. For one, it's a musical, and I've never liked musicals. Two, the plot just never gets moving, far as I'm concerned. It's all about a murder which occurs backstage during a musical revue; Victor McLaglen, of all people, plays the inspector who just happens to be in the audience and so investigates the crime. What makes the movie Pre-Code is the flesh-revealing costumes the chorines wear. In the midst of opulent and ornate musical numbers, attractive young women will materialize from the scenery in the skimpiest of costumes. In one sequence a group of them emerge from colossal flowers, topless, covering their breasts with their hands. None of this would be allowed once the Code was enforced. To add gravy there's another number all about marijuana. But despite all the topless, marijuana-praising wackiness there's something about the movie that just bores me. I intend to rewatch it someday soon to see if my feelings for it have improved.
Search for Beauty (1934): A movie calculated to exploit all those elements we seek in Pre-Code cinema. Nudity, unsavory characters, wanton attitudes: all are here in this grubby little gem. My man Larry "Buster" Crabbe appears in his first starring role, a year out from the first "Flash Gordon" serial and with his natural brown hair. We also get, in a marvelously hammy role, Robert Armstrong - "King Kong's" Carl Denham himself. The plot revolves around Armstrong's plan to cater to the burgeoning "raincoat" crowd by publishing a fitness magazine, one which will become more titilating with each issue. In other words, a respectable skin rag. Crabbe's hired on as an Olympic athlete who will lend the magazine some respectability. Only, he soon gets wind of the publisher's exploitative plans and does his best to prevent the ruining of his image. But yes, it's a comedy film - one which peeks into a men's locker room and focuses on alluring women in the midst of form-revealing stretches and workouts. But it's not a particularly funny or memorable comedy, and seems to exist only to exploit those very same elements which its sordid main characters seek to exploit in their magazine.
All in all, six forgotten films from the era in which Hollywood knew no boundaries. For myself I only enjoyed one of these movies enough to watch it multiple times - Torch Singer, of course. But there is a plethora of unreleased Pre-Code material in Universal's vaults. So let's hope they release another Pre-Code boxset - one with a better selection of films.
DVD Review: Much better than I expected
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this collection not expecting too much because all the pre-code films I have seen were MGM or 20th Century Fox.
I was more than pleased watching the films, as the production quality is very good, the film clarity is excellent and the subjects are very entertaining.
Definately recommended for early 30's film buffs!
Enjoy!
DVD Review: Mediocre Pre-Code Product
Summary: 2 Stars
I'd hate for anyone who is unfamiliar with Pre-Code cinema to start by viewing this collection. I found three films -- "Hot Saturday," "Torch Singer," and "Murder at the Vanities," more than satisfactory. "The Cheat" is a pale shadow of C. B. DeMille's sadistic silent version of the same story. "Merrily We Go to Hell," in which Sylvia Sidney plays a poor little rich girl who marries a drunk who never says he loves her, is one of the least likable films of any era that I have ever seen. "Search for Beauty" is a downright strange combination of Busby Berkeley and Lena Wertmuller cinematography without much of a story to hang it on. If you want to see some good Pre-Code cinema, start with one of the other collections.DVD Review: Not great but interesting
Summary: 4 Stars
This collection of films' interest lies in the rarity of seeing them. They would not usually be shown on any TV or cable station because they are simply not great films. However, if you enjoy seeing something different or your interest lies in Hollywood history or seeing some major stars, such as Randolph Scott, Cary Grant, Tallulah Bankhead, Claudette Cobert in some of their first films, then you will enjoy these 6 films.
There is nothing contained in these that would shock most sensibilities of today or even come near rating an X . You have to realize what was permitted and accepted at this time and how the sight of a line of shirtless men, or a single girl spending the night with a man or the fact of a unmarried woman having a baby - that this would become facts and sights that the public needed to be protected from - thus the code put into place that remained for years and can still be witnessed in some black and white TV shows such as I Love Lucy's two single beds and heaven forbid no sight of a toilet. So.. If you wish to see the pre code history of some otherwise forgettable films you will enjoy these 6 examples.
DVD Review: Paramount Pre-codes have a couple of gems in this collection
Summary: 4 Stars
The DVD transfer is very good considering the age of these films and there has been an obvious restoration done on the films. This is a very watchable package of films.
This is a special note about Toby Wing, a 30's and WW2 pinup queen. For most of her career, Toby was an extra with walk-on non-speaking parts. In this collection, we see her with 3 speaking roles and in "Search for Beauty" she has 5th billing. I make note of her because of the special magic she generated on screen when smiling for the camera.
THE CHEAT: **** This is a remake of the 1916 DeMille film of the same name concerning interracial affairs. Tallulah Bankhead heads the cast as a gambling-addicted wife to a hard-working businessman (Harvey Stephens). She gets deeper and deeper into trouble as she makes one mistake after another trying to recover her initial losses.
At the same time, she is being pursued by a wealthy Oriental, Hardy Livingstone (Irving Pichel) who socializes in her circle. In an attempt to add Miss Bankhead to his "collection" of women, Livingstone volunteers money to cover her debts with both characters understanding that the price will be adultery. At the last minute, Bankhead backs out, infuriating Livingstone who then brands her with a hot iron. From this point, the film gets even better. (I'm not giving it away). This one is well worth the viewing.
MERRILY WE GO TO HELL: ** Hollywood legend Fredric March is more or less wasted on this soapish pot boiler. He plays an alcoholic writer who marries the socialite daughter (Sylvia Sidney) of a wealthy financier (George Irving). This film could have been much better if the script had any originality or didn't have the normal turn-for-the-good ending. It does have the usual "pre-code" value system where adultery and free love seem to be on everybody's minds but fails to really build any tension or to generate sympathy for any of the characters. Look for Cary Grant in a bit part as Sylvia's party date after she decides to "go to Hell."
HOT SATURDAY NIGHT: ** The only attribute of this film which keeps me from dropping 1 star and telling you to forget it is the cast. Cary Grant and Randolph Scott play lead roles along with outstanding character actress, Jane Darwell (Oscar winner for "The Grapes of Wrath"). This is a flat soap opera with too much moralizing and too little of anything else. I suspect it was included because of the suave character portrayed by Grant which later became his trademark.
TORCH SINGER:**** Nobody could dominate a film like Claudette Colbert and she doesn't disappoint here. She goes from destitute single mother to cabaret singer to desperate mother looking for the daughter she gave up years ago. We get both the sarcastic whit that only Miss Colbert could deliver along with the sensitive vulnerable side of the character. This film is a fine ride thanks to Claudette. Sit back and watch one of America's great actresses bring a little magic to an otherwise slow film. Note: Toby Wing gets a few lines as one of the partiers in Miss Colbert's apartment..
MURDER AT THE VANITIES: **** Most pre-code fans will agree that costuming (or the lack thereof) is one of the significant traits of that group of films. Welcome to the Vanities where skimpy costuming (and in some cases VERY skimpy costuming) is the order for the day. Paramount did it's best to counter the Busby Berkeley musicals from Goldwyn and Warner Brothers that ruled the pre-code musical world, even borrowing Berkeley super extra, Toby Wing, for a speaking part. The Vanities show starts and somewhere in the middle a girl is found murdered high in the rigging. The stage manager (Jack Oakie) and a policeman (Victor McLaglen) search for clues and the murderer while the show progresses.
Carl Brisson plays the lead performer in the show but his part really fades compared to the music and those beautiful girls. His romance with Kitty Carlisle and the jealousy it creates is the center of the plot line but, hey, who cares. This is great pre-code fun.
As far as the musical is concerned, we get 2 highlights. 1 is Kitty Carlisle singing "Sweet Marijuana". She claims she didn't know what the stuff was, she just sang the lyrics. (right, Kitty, I'll buy that one!) The other highlight, "Ebony Rhapsody", is backed by Duke Ellington and his Orchestra featuring an all black chorus line. This is by far the best musical number of the show with great jazz rifts and rhythms and a highly energetic dance routine.
SEARCH FOR BEAUTY: *** This film, in some ways, could be considered a parody of itself and other pre-code entries. Our heroes, Buster Crabbe as an American swim champ and Ida Lupino as a British diving champ, are fooled into working for a rather unscrupulous group of con artists. The cover is a health magazine that Buster and Ida lend their names to and edit (supposedly) stories about staying healthy and exercising. Instead, the cons are really adding racy photos and spicy stories to the mag for pure sensationalism. "Circulation is the key," claims Robert Armstrong (King Kong) who heads up the con artists. This film is filled with pretty girls in sexy outfits, leering dirty old men, and pre-code sexual innuendo. As a serious piece of film....forget it...but "Search for Beauty" could be used to demonstrate any number of "pre-code" concepts and practices taken to the point of absurdity. I mean really, what is this collection about anyway!
Toby Wing gets 5th billing here and has one of her biggest roles in a movie. Her character is the one that can be talked into anything. Ah heck, I'll give this one 4 stars just for Toby. ****
Description of Pre-Code Hollywood Collection (The Cheat / Merrily We Go to Hell / Hot Saturday / Torch Singer / Murder at the Vanities / Search for Beauty)
For the first time ever, Universal opens its vaults to bring you 6 classic films from the most decadent era in motion picture history: Pre-Code Hollywood. In 1934, Hollywood was turned upside down by the enforcement of a strict "Production Code" that would change the way movies were made for the next 34 years. During the "pre-Code" period (1929 to mid-1934), censorship barely existed in Hollywood and filmmakers had free reign to make the movies they wanted and the public demanded. No subject was taboo including adultery, murder, or sex. Starring screen legends Cary Grant, Fredric March, Claudette Colbert, Tallulah Bankhead, Randolph Scott, and Sylvia Sidney, the Pre-Code Hollywood Collection forever captures one of the most unique periods in cinema history. The Cheat A compulsive gambler (Tallulah Bankhead) will do anything to pay off her debt - including turning to a wealthy businessman behind her husband's back. Merrily We Go to Hell An abusive alcoholic (Fredric March) reunites with a woman from his past and drives his wife (Sylvia Sidney) to drastic measures. Hot Saturday Scandal erupts after a young woman (Nancy Carroll) innocently spends the night with a notorious playboy (Cary Grant) and neglects to tell her fianc? (Randolph Scott). Torch Singer After giving up her illegitimate child for adoption, a notorious nightclub singer (Claudette Colbert) attempts to find her daughter through a children's radio show. Murder at the Vanities While sexy musical revue "The Vanities" captivates an audience on its opening night, a murder investigation takes place backstage. Search for Beauty Olympic swimming champions (Buster Crabbe and Ida Lupino) are tricked into endorsing a racy magazine - and much worse.General DVDs
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