Matt Nolan James Cagney Sue Riley Nolan Loretta Young Skeets George E. Stone Pop Riley Guy Kibbee Ruby Leila Bennett Buck Gerard David Landau Released by Warner Brothers | Directed By Roy Del Ruth Proof That It’s Pre-Code If you’ve ever wanted to see a woman get slapped around, well, Read more
Chick Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Ruth Joan Blondell Scrap Iron Guy Kibbee Bushy Sloan Alan Hale The Drunk Frank McHugh Kendall David Landau Released by Warner Brothers | Directed By Alfred E. Green Proof That It’s Pre-Code The film’s opening minutes read like a checklist of Code no-nos. There are prostitutes, Read more
Dan Quigley James Cagney Myra Mae Clarke Lois Underwood Margaret Lindsay Released by Warner Brothers | Directed By Roy Del Ruth Proof That It’s Pre-Code “I’m not a madam!” “Well… I wouldn’t know about that.” The main character is a conman who goes from card swindling, running a casino, grand Read more
Judy Jones Claudette Colbert Stewart Corder William Gargan Arnold Ainger Herbert Marshall Mrs. Mardick Mary Boland Montague Leo Carillo The Chief Tetsu Komai Released by Paramount Pictures | Directed By Cecil B. DeMille Proof That It’s Pre-Code Since the film is about commonly accepted morality shrinking away in a survival Read more
Joe Miller Ben Lyon Julie Kirk Claudette Colbert Eli Kirk Ernest Torrence One Punch McCoy Hobart Cavanaugh Ortegus Maurice Black John Phelps Purnell Pratt Released by Reliance Pictures/Edward Small Productions | Directed By James Cruze Proof That It’s Pre-Code Seagulls keep ruining reporter Joe Miller’s Read more
Mata Hari Greta Garbo Alexis Rosanoff Ramon Novarro General Shubin Lionel Barrymore Andriani Lewis Stone DuBois C. Henry Gordon Carlotta Karen Morley Released by MGM | Directed By George Fitzmaurice Proof That It’s Pre-Code The titular Mata Hari is an exotic dancer who doubles as a spy in Paris during Read more
Carol Morgan Tallulah Bankhead Bill Wade Robert Montgomery Peter Blainey Hugh Herbert Released by MGM | Directed By Harry Beaumont Proof That It’s Pre-Code The film opens with a montage of newspaper headlines over the years promising that the end of the Depression is at hand. The papers are greeted Read more
Temple Drake Miriam Hopkins Stephen Benbow William Gargan Trigger Jack La Rue Released by Paramount Pictures | Directed By Stephen Roberts Proof That It’s Pre-Code I’m going to go ahead and just quote Thomas Doherty’s Pre-Code Hollywood on this one: The Story of Temple Drake is a model of pre-Code Read more
Elsa Carlyle Tallulah Bankhead Jeffrey Carlyle Harvey Stephens Hardy Livingstone Irving Pichel Released by Paramount Pictures | Directed By George Abbott Proof That It’s Pre-Code Once again, everyone is amazed by a marriage that involves love. Tallulah Bankhead tries to transform into Wonder Woman but forgot to put her outfit Read more
Stephen Jones Bing Crosby Doris Worthington Carole Lombard Edith Ethel Merman Hubert Leon Errol George George Burns Gracie Gracie Allen Released by Paramount | Directed By Norman Taurog Proof That It’s Pre-Code No one in the film actually declares whether or not they’re dressing (I imagine whoever pitched the title Read more