Audiences will have the opportunity to explore the risqué world of film from the early 1930s when ‘Forbidden Hollywood: The Wild Days of pre-Code Cinema’ opens this evening at the Gallery of Modern Art’s Australian Cinémathèque.
The free, curated film program celebrates a unique period of creative freedom in North American movie production and features 23 key films of the period.
Embracing both realism and glamour, these films tackled issues of sexuality and crime, social criticisms and a growing mistrust of authority with gleeful enthusiasm. Strong women dominated the screen, scorning the prevailing Victorian-era ideals of passiveness and purity. Stars like Joan Crawford (Possessed 1931) Marlene Dietrich (Blonde Venus 1932), and Jean Harlow (Red-Headed Woman 1932) epitomised the modern woman, unapologetic in their desires they achieved their independence through any means necessary. Newspaper headlines also provided studios with storylines as the Prohibition gang wars came to a close in 1929. Inspired by real-life events the gangster genre as we know it today emerged through films such as Little Caesar 1931, The Public Enemy 1931 and Scarface1932.
Films from the era, often referred to as ‘pre-Code’, offered audiences a diversion from the grim economic climate of the Great Depression, but came at a great financial cost to Hollywood studios who invested heavily in the new sound technology just before the stock market crash of 1929. Faced with financial ruin they turned to topics which appealed to the experiences of the wider audience.
Full list of films in ‘Forbidden Hollywood: The Wild Days of pre-Code Cinema’ available here.
