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#PreCodeApril Thread.
Feels appropriate to start off with photographer A.L. “Whitey” Schafer’s wonderful Thou Shalt Not image, created in 1941 to satirise the Hays Code restrictions. More background here: https://ladailymirror.com/2013/11/04/mary-mallory-hollywood-heights-mdash-a-l-whitey-schafer-simplifies-portraits/
Feels appropriate to start off with photographer A.L. “Whitey” Schafer’s wonderful Thou Shalt Not image, created in 1941 to satirise the Hays Code restrictions. More background here: https://ladailymirror.com/2013/11/04/mary-mallory-hollywood-heights-mdash-a-l-whitey-schafer-simplifies-portraits/
Here’s my @Letterboxd list of over 800 #PreCode films (I’m still adding to it). The top 50 are personal favourites / recommendations / Pre-Code must-sees. Also, everything from around 650 onwards is on the Pre-Code Movies YouTube channel. #PreCodeApril https://letterboxd.com/filmfan1971/list/pre-code-films/
A big thank you again to @CookieNScreen and @filmstoriespod for helping me to spread the word about #PreCodeApril with this interview. https://www.filmstories.co.uk/news/old-movies-a-chat-about-precodeapril/
And just so everything’s in one place, here’s the #PreCodeApril recruitment drive thread. Includes lists of where to find #PreCode films and gifs. Lots of gifs. https://twitter.com/filmfan1971/status/1346770004503621634
Day 1 of #PreCodeApril: Possessed (1931), starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. Crawford plays a money-hungry factory girl who meets Gable’s handsome New York lawyer, but he’s only interested in her as a mistress. (He’s been burned before, see?) #PreCode
I like how the French poster for Possessed pulls off the same wordplay trick. #PreCodeApril
An alternate poster and an international poster for Possessed. The Swedish one (Hans Älskarinna) translates as His Mistress. #PreCodeApril
Some publicity stills of Crawford and Gable. Possessed was their third film together, after Dance, Fools, Dance and Laughing Sinners. All three films came out in 1931. (They made eight films together in total). #PreCodeApril
An early highlight of Possessed (1931) is this wonderful train sequence. Joan’s ambitious factory girl watches as a train slows down in front of her and every window represents the life she’s dreamed of for herself. #PreCodeApril
Here’s another great scene from Possessed - Crawford’s Marian singing songs in French, German and English to an audience of enraptured men. The subtext here is that she’s learned all this in the three years she’s spent as Gable’s mistress. #PreCode
Sauciest #PreCode moment in Possessed: Crawford and Gable arriving an hour late to a party because they've been having sex. They don't even attempt to deny it. Love their reactions in this clip. #PreCodeApril
Incidentally, I picked Possessed as my first #PreCodeApril film because I mistakenly thought it was the source of the gif I used for the Recruitment Drive tweet. It’s not though, as Gable’s moustache makes clear. (He’s clean shaven in Possessed).
Related Public Service Announcement: Possessed (1931) is available to rent on YouTube for £3.99. #PreCodeApril
Here's a handy @Letterboxd list of all the films that screened as part of the @BFI's Pre-Code Hollywood season in May, 2014. #PreCodeApril #PreCode https://boxd.it/bAqDK
And here's the accompanying Sight & Sound #PreCode article by Mike Mashon and @james___bell: https://www2.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/deep-focus/pre-code-hollywood #PreCodeApril
Hmmm. It appears the Pre-Code YouTube channel has been terminated. That’s...unfortunate. Another one has already sprung up in its place, so hopefully the same films will pop up again. #PreCodeApril
#PreCodeApril hot tip: YouTube user Pennsylvania History Buff has a #PreCode playlist with nearly 300 films on it. I won’t link to it, just in case (see previous tweet), but it’s easy to find. Everything from 792 onwards on this list is on that playlist. https://letterboxd.com/filmfan1971/list/pre-code-films/
Updated list of #PreCode films available on Amazon Prime, including The Old Dark House, The Great Gabbo and Joan Crawford in Rain. #PreCodeApril
