8/3/2020 11 Pre-Code Hollywood Movie Histories: Early Depression-Era Melodramas, Adaptations, and Headline Stories — Immortal Ephemera

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You are here: Home / Library / 11 Pre-Code Hollywood Movie Histories: Early Depression-
Era Melodramas, Adaptations, and Headline Stories

11 Pre-Code Hollywood
Movie Histories: Early
Depression-Era
Melodramas, Adaptations,
and Headline Stories
By Cliff Aliperti

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8/3/2020 11 Pre-Code Hollywood Movie Histories: Early Depression-Era Melodramas, Adaptations, and Headline Stories — Immortal Ephemera

Yes, pre-Code movies are packed with more sin, sex, and

PR
violence than the Golden Age Hollywood classics that

E-
C
O
D
followed, but beyond looser censors, these movies remain

E
fascinating because they come from such a unique time,
not only in Hollywood's history, but in the history of the
world.

These 11 Pre-Code Hollywood Movie Histories progress

from 1930 through 1934, offering a sampling of product
from eight different Hollywood movie studios along the way.
They are linked by the world that they emerged from.

The following films are covered in this collection:

Show Girl in Hollywood (1930)

$2.99
For the Defense (1930)
Gentleman's Fate (1931)
City Streets (1931)
Hell's Highway (1932) Available in: Kindle, eBook

Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932)

Call Her Savage (1932)
AMAZON
Employees' Entrance (1933)
Only Yesterday (1933)
The Sin of Nora Moran (1933) KOBO
Jimmy the Gent (1934)

The movies talked, the stock market crashed, the pre-Code

era was begun. During these four-plus years of movie
history the Great Depression deepened and films were
allowed a frankness and cynicism that is absent for
decades after Production Code enforcement.

These 11 titles, by and large random, are united in

presenting a view of a generation that rose from the ashes
of the Great War, spent the '20s either roaring along with
the party or finding themselves all but forgotten, before
coping
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8/3/2020 11 Pre-Code Hollywood Movie Histories: Early Depression-Era Melodramas, Adaptations, and Headline Stories — Immortal Ephemera

Learn about pre-Code movie stars Alice White, William

Powell, Sylvia Sidney, Monroe Owsley, and Margaret
Sullavan within the appropriate entries, plus delve into the
period headlines to discover what William J. Fallon, Dashiell
Hammett, Florida's Sunbeam Prison Camp, and the Bonus
Army have to do with any of this.

From the Introduction:

The entries will variously look at source material, pre-
production notes, casting changes, basic story and plot, the
history behind any story elements unique to their time, brief
biographies of key film players, and other relevant aspects
of each film. I’ll resist the temptation to give away endings
or spoil other fun surprises that might ruin the viewing
experience for you.

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