30s Movies
By I wonder if the Production Code was the worst thing to ever happen to Hollywood movies. I love silents and the early sound films as much for the glimpse they give into life at the time as for the movies themselves. Once the Production Code hits and censorship abounds, that slice of life mentality is lost. Even in films like The Grapes of Wrath, a lot of the power of the book is dissipated in the false positive message at the end of the film that had little to do with the actual mentality of the book characters or, presumably, Okies in California near the end of the Great Depression.
Watching the original Scarface (1932) really brought this home. Howard Hawks directed this film and as the Production Code was just coming in, he did not really follow its scriptures. Hawks glorifies the gangster in a way that was both offensive to the Puritans of the nation at the time and which reflected the treatment of these figures in the media. And the scenes that were not later edited are great fun. Also lots of Italian stereotypes, which are bad but also give that slice of reality that I love in those early films.
But the Production Code censors loathed Hawks’ original cut of Scarface and the only way producer Howard Hughes could get it out was to reshoot several scenes, including the ending where Scarface looks like a pathetic loser that no good Iowa farmboy would want to emulate. There are other scenes that are just tacked on that make the movie ridiculous. Before the show starts there are lines on the screen talking about how gangsters are destroying the country and how since we the people are the government that it’s our responsibility to stop it. How we are to do that is not really specified, but a scene in the film that takes a shot at habeus corpus might give us a clue. This lesson is repeated when the Good Citizens of America come to the newspaper publisher asking him not to glorify the gangsters and his response is that it’s better to do that than to talk about all the children they are running down in the road and that if they want the newspaper to report on something else they should elect right-thinking politicians to crack down on gangster scum.
Without this tacked on morality, it’s a good movie.
And speaking of ridiculousness, I also watched Love Me Tonight recently. Another film from 1932, it stars Maurice Chevalier as a tailor in Paris who has unwisely extended credit to a noble who notoriously never pays. He goes to the chateau to collect but the noble knows that if his uncle finds out about another creditor, he will kick him out of the house. So he introduces Maurice as a noblemen himself and invites him to stay in the house until he can be paid. Of course, our poor Parisian tailor falls in love with the princess, etc. etc. And there’s lots of Rodgers and Hart songs to make it fun for all. I’m willing to accept all of this. You know from the very beginning that Chevalier and the princess are going to get together and that’s fine. What’s not fine is the ending of the movie. Maurice reveals he is a tailor. The princess is shocked. The family can’t believe they’ve been bamboolzed by a commoner. Maurice takes the train back to Paris. The princess catches up with him and says she doesn’t care if he’s a tailor or not. And that’s it. There’s nothing about how she’s going to convince her family that this is OK. Nothing about how they are going to live in Paris. No, nothing that complicated. Instead the film ends with a shot of the princess’ spinster aunts, who incidentally cackle like hens whenever they are aroused somehow, talking about how they live happily everafter.
Even in 1932, even in a Rodgers and Hart musical, did audiences accept this as satisfactory? I can’t imagine why they did. What’s even more amazing to me is that even this saccharine movie was censored by the Production Code. 8 minutes were erased and have never been found. Huh? Where? Myrna Loy played the princess’ sultry cousin who wants Maurice too. Did she show a little too much shoulder? Very strange.