When
Paleolithic painters scrawled images on cave walls 20,000 years ago, critics viewing
them by torchlight argued about whether they enlightened or corrupted society
and about whether they should be censored. We don’t know that for a fact, of
course, but since critics have argued about art in this way since there have
been written records, it is not a big stretch to suppose they did so earlier as
well. There always has been tension between supporters of unfettered artistic freedom
and supporters of… well… fetters. Moralists see it as a choice between
decadence and decency – sometimes between outright evil and decency. Moralists
of a different stripe see the choice as prudery versus liberty. Beneath this
tension is the more basic question of the purpose of art. Does it have a
purpose? If so, should art uplift or simply reveal?
Decadent art? |
The
dramatic arts, when they came along, moved to the center of the debate. In the
5th century BCE Euripides was regarded by conservative Athenian critics
as decadent – even dangerous – compared to his elders Aeschylus and Sophocles.
Sophocles himself remarked, “I depict men as they ought to be. Euripides depicts
them as they are.” Indeed, though Sophoclean characters have their tragic flaws, there is a core of nobility in them. Euripidean characters, by
contrast, at their cores are likely to be adolescently voyeuristic (Pentheus),
cruelly vengeful (Phaedra), callously opportunistic (Jason), or murderous
(Medea). Even Aristophanes, who was pretty edgy himself, satirized Euripides in
The Frogs.
When
drama moved to the movie screen the tensions remained unresolved. They are to
this day. 100 years ago censors (acting sometimes through force of law and
sometimes through social pressure) typically framed their objections in
religious terms. Today the objections are more likely to be ideological, but
whether the concern is cosmic sin or secular political correctness, the effects
(and one supposes the underlying impulses) of censorship are similar. Neither
side in the debate gets the upper hand permanently. Nannies and libertines
trade off ascendency from one era to the next. One very special era in movie
history was that of the early talkies (1927-1934) when censors were largely
ignored: the pre-code era.
In
order to head off regulation by Congress the Motion Picture Association adopted
a self-regulatory production code in 1927 and updated it in 1930, but the
studios in practice didn’t pay heed to it prior to 1934. Faced in that year
with a more serious threat of legal restraints, The
Motion Picture Production Code (commonly called the Hays Code) began
to be broadly enforced by the studios. The code states, “No picture shall be
produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the
sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime,
wrongdoing, evil or sin.” A long and detailed set of rules for following the code
(describing, for example, how married couples may be depicted in a bedroom and
how long a kiss can last) soon developed alongside the code itself. All but a
few of the restrictions would find support from PC censors today, albeit for
differently stated reasons. Directors found ways to push the envelope, of
course. In Notorious (1946) Hitchcock
famously got around the 3-second limit for on-screen kisses by having Grant and
Bergman kiss
repeatedly over 3 minutes, but never more than 3 seconds at a
time. Still, the code remained a real force until the mid-1960s. Prior to then,
many of the most interesting movies ever made were pre-codes.
The
better of the pre-code films portray people as they are, which uplifting and PC
films do not – at least not in any rounded fashion. Fundamentally well-meaning
people have dark sides: they can scheme and cheat. People who are fundamentally
villains can be kind and generous in any number of ways. Pre-code characters
have that complexity. They are human. Once again, that is in the better films;
every era generates its share of garbage, and the pre-code era is no exception.
A marvelous DVD series of films from this period is the Forbidden Hollywood Collection. I have
owned for some time the first two volumes which contain such B-classics as Baby Face and Night Nurse. Last week I added Volume 3 to my shelf and
binge-watched its six movies. All six are directed by William “Wild Bill”
Wellman, best known for Wings (1927),
The Public Enemy (1931), A Star is Born (1937) and Nothing Sacred (1937). The films in
Volume 3 are nothing so ambitious. They are small films, but are interesting nonetheless,
not least because they mostly deal with ordinary people:
Other Men's Women
(1931)
Best
friends Bill and Jack are fireman and engineer on a railroad locomotive. Bill
is single and devil-may-care while Jack is married and responsible. When he
makes an extended visit to Jack’s home, Bill and Jack’s wife Lily (Mary Astor)
form a mutual attraction. Trouble ensues, but not in a simplistic way. There
are mixed motives, unintended consequences, and guilt all around.
The Purchase Price (1932)
Night
club singer Joan Gordon (Barbara Stanwyck) breaks from her underworld lifestyle
and her gangster lover Eddie by changing her name and answering a mail-order
bride ad posted by a farmer in North Dakota. As one might imagine, Joan doesn’t
adjust readily to country life. Her husband Jim (George Brent) is handsome but frequently
behaves as a stubborn jerk. Their marriage accordingly gets off to a rough
start and is a long time being consummated. To complicate matters, Eddie tracks
her down and shows up at the door.
Frisco Jenny (1932)
Jenny
(Ruth Chatterton) was raised in what nowadays would be called a “gentleman’s
club” owned by her father at the turn of the century. When the 1906 earthquake
hits, the club is destroyed, her fiancé and her father are killed, and she
finds she is pregnant. Jenny gives up her child but keeps track of him over the
years while she achieves criminal prosperity by running a prostitution ring and
later by running alcohol. Her son becomes the DA. Not knowing she is his mother,
he prosecutes her on capital charges.
Midnight Mary (1933)
As
Mary (Loretta Young) awaits the verdict of her trial for murder, we see in
flashback Mary’s journey from falsely arrested teenager to prison inmate to cavorter
with gangsters. A wealthy lawyer falls for her and tries to change her life,
but her past catches up with her, as pasts tend to do.
Heroes for Sale
(1933)
Presumed
killed in a raid on a German position in WW1, Tom (Richard Barthelmess) is
actually severely wounded and captured. After the war he returns home addicted
to morphine (from his treatment in a POW hospital) and finds that another
soldier has taken credit for his heroics. He gets clean and tries to make a new
start in Chicago. He does well and marries Ruth (Loretta Young). Then Ruth is
killed in labor unrest and Tom is falsely arrested and convicted. Upon his
release Tom takes to the road as a hobo.
Wild Boys of the Road (1933)
In
the Depression, high school sophomores Tom and Ed hop a freight train out of
their Midwestern small town so as not to burden their unemployed parents. They
meet many kids their age who are doing the same, and they team up with a
runaway named Sally. They are traveling in search of work, but wherever they go
the kids face violence (including sexual assault) and unwelcoming police. When
they get to New York, an opportunity arises but a run-in with the law
complicates matters.
None
of these films is unforgettable, but every one is a solid argument on the side
of the artistic libertines. Thumbs Up.
Clip from Frisco Jenny: in pre-quake 1906, night club hostesses relieve customers of cash