TCM Archives: Forbidden Hollywood Collections

[souvenir]

Even after reading about Baby Face for a couple of years, I was still a little shocked at Barbara Stanwyck's blatant come-ons. It's like a porn film without the explicit sex. Without Stanwyck and the shocking sexual content the film is pretty uninteresting, but somehow the whole thing works in a female empowerment kind of way.

The packaging is unimpressive though. Why Warner Bros. decided to use a figure eight digipak instead of a keep case is beyond me. There's an informative insert about the Baby Face print that I haven't seen mentioned in specs or reviews. As others have said, a little more care from WB would have been nice.

[shearerchic]

As others have said, a little more care from WB would have been nice.

a little more care as in 3 more movies. =D>

[Antoine Doinel]

Even after reading about Baby Face for a couple of years, I was still a little shocked at Barbara Stanwyck's blatant come-ons. It's like a porn film without the explicit sex. Without Stanwyck and the shocking sexual content the film is pretty uninteresting, but somehow the whole thing works in a female empowerment kind of way.

The packaging is unimpressive though. Why Warner Bros. decided to use a figure eight digipak instead of a keep case is beyond me. There's an informative insert about the Baby Face print that I haven't seen mentioned in specs or reviews. As others have said, a little more care from WB would have been nice.

Yeah, this is pretty explicitly sexual, but I was just as shocked by the body count! Stanwyck's outfits were pretty sublime though.

The packaging isn't great, and why this doesn't have a documentary or commentary regarding the film is beyond me.

[Antoine Doinel]

I finally got around to watching Red Headed Woman the other day, and I thought it was greatly enjoyable. The pyjama-switch sequence between Harlow and her roommate is fantastic! Yowsa!

[Lino]

From the recent chat:

Another Forbidden Hollywood boxset coming this year with six films and a brand new documentary on pre-code films. Also, two Forbidden Hollywood films per year starting in 2008.

[Derek Estes]

They must surely have meant two sets per year, not two films. I know that is what they said, because I read that somewhere else as well.

[HerrSchreck]

Jesus! I just got around to this box and watched the pre-cut BABY FACE and both mine and my balls jaws dropped repeatedly throughout the film.

Holy shit! I've got a pretty decent collection of pre-code material but there really is nothing to prepare you for the bare-knuckle force of this film.

I love films like this, where the stylization is simply in the script and the delivery/performances. In other words the photography is straightforward(don't get me wrong it's fabulously beautiful, but simply isn't stylized to call attention to itself), the direction is super-tight but again doesn't really call attention to itself stylistically... yet the film roars with style, grit, and a smoky emotional stimmung which pickles the whole thing in a glorious raunchy acid.

I now see why BABY FACE was the poster child for the appearance of the Code. And the pre-cut print is a revelation, both in content as well as the pristine beauty of the print itself.

A true American classic, everything about it is 100% American. Stanwyk (truly perhaps the most consistently great actress in the cinema) in this film makes Sternbergs Dietrich look like a fucking girl scout-- this in terms of cool, emotional power, and raw sexuality.

Truly atomic, and this pre-cut print is required viewing for anybody interested in the evolution of talking pictures. Most of todays material is tame by comparison.. the addition of modern nudity serves to minimize the impact as the viewer becomes distracted by the involountary instinctual & glandular response to nude bodies & sex, rather than stay with the implications in human terms. The boxcar sex scene is a perfect example.

[HerrSchreck]

Anyone know if there are other examples of WB distributing a Universal sound title, presumably if anywhere through any of the other TCM Archives sets? It just occured to me that WB wound up distributing WATERLOO BRIDGE, which is an early Uni title from the Frankenstein/Dracula/All Quiet On The Western Front days. One would have thought they would have released the pic in their Cinema Clasics line.

I could snoop around but..

[Matt]

Anyone know if there are other examples of WB distributing a Universal sound title

The Frederic March Dr. Jekyll (well, it's Paramount, but in the date range of titles Universal would own). I assume they're doing so because they bought the rights to the original titles to do remakes (a la Show Boat [Uni] and The Prisoner of Zenda [Selznick])? I can't imagine they're licensing. This might explain why the Jeanne Eagels version of The Letter was promised and then dropped from the disc of the Bette Davis version. Perhaps they thought they owned it and then realized they didn't.

[Narshty]

I heard somewhere that WB dropped the Jeanne Eagels Letter because they thought they owned it, then thought they didn't and dropped it, then realised they actually did when it was too late to put it back on the disc. Alas.

[dadaistnun]

According to this thread at HTF, the films in Volume 2 will be Ladies They Talk About, The Divorcee, A Free Soul, Female, Illicit, and Night Nurse.

[Gigi M.]

According to this thread at HTF, the films in Volume 2 will be Ladies They Talk About, The Divorcee, A Free Soul, Female, Illicit, and Night Nurse.

Wow, never expected some many films for Vol2. I've been dying to watch The Divorce for a very long time.

[shearerchic]

According to this thread at HTF, the films in Volume 2 will be Ladies They Talk About, The Divorcee, A Free Soul, Female, Illicit, and Night Nurse.

Wow, never expected some many films for Vol2. I've been dying to watch The Divorce for a very long time.

Well Warners did say that the sets would consist of 6 films and that we'd get one every 6 months.

[filmnoir1]

I must say that I am excited to see so many films included in the second set. Female is a lost gem and one of Curtiz's most interesting directorial efforts. I hope that we will see The Strange Love of Molly Louvain and Employees Entrance released at some point as well.

It is equally important to see Night Nurse get a dvd release but I think it would have been better for Warner's to release a pre-code Stanwyck set with Night Nurse, Ladies they Talk About, Illict, and Three on a Match. Can't wait for volume 2, this is a must.

[tryavna]

I'm still waiting for them to release Downstairs, which for some reason has always been one of my all-time favorite pre-Codes. John Gilbert makes a great sexual predator (broadly speaking).

[shearerchic]

Here's a list of the pre-codes WHV released under the same banner on VHS. Funny that these films were released just 9 years ago.

-Three On A Match
-The Strange Love of Molly Louvain
-Employee's Entrance
-Our Modern Maidens
-Dance, Fools, Dance
-Big Business Girl
-Blessed Event
-Blonde Crazy
-Heroes For Sale
-Lady Killer
-Madam Satan
-The Purchase Price
-Scarlet Dawn
-Skyscraper Souls
-They Call It Sin

[Matt]

Very excited for this set (if those titles hold true). Female is bonkers (see my review, one of my first for notcoming.com) and Night Nurse is really good (and the young Clark Gable is a whole lotta rough trade sexy in that chauffeur's uniform).

[shearerchic]

Very excited for this set (if those titles hold true). Female is bonkers (see my review, one of my first for notcoming.com) and Night Nurse is really good (and the young Clark Gable is a whole lotta rough trade sexy in that chauffeur's uniform).

Nice review on Female. Makes me want to see it even more now. Clark Gable was so damn sexy.

[filmnoir1]

Nice review of the film but I have to disagree with you about Curtiz's influence on the film because this is a film filled with mirrors and mirror shots, which is a technique Curtiz made use of throughout his career. As I argue in my thesis this is because he wants to cue the visually that characters seen within mirrors from its perspective are in fact duplicitous. One of the best examples of this usage occurs when Alison has her first business meeting at home and we see her reflection as she is lighting a cigarette.

This is a really great example of how risque pre-code cinema had become. Can't wait to replace my VHS with the dvd.

[Wittsdream]

I'm happy to see more of the unheralded films of this era make it onto DVD (good thing I didn't place the highest bid on e-bay last month for the old MGM Forbidden Hollywood boxset on laserdisc for $200.00!!!, as tempting as it was).

In my estimation, the 3 most corrosive films of that pre-code subset - Skyscraper Souls, Employees' Entrance and Three on a Match - are still unavailable on DVD.

These films all feature the great Warren William, the most unheralded of early Hollywood actors, and very much still the reigning "prick" of darkness of pre-code cinema. These films would just be curiosities without his presence in them.

His character seems to define the medium's dichotomous handling of burgeoning feminism in the immediate post-depression years - presenting women as both independent headstrong heroines (Stanwyck, Davis, Crawford, et al) and the resultant effect on the male ego (i.e. equating a crumbling economy with an impotent, male-dominated corporate America) epitomized by the Warren William character in these films.

How about a Warren William boxset featuring these 3 great films, with a commentary track by Mick LaSalle?

[dadaistnun]

A great blog dedicated to pre-code films for those who haven't already come across it.

Here's their extensive play-by-play of Night Nurse, including some shots of Gable in that uniform Matt's talking about.

[Matt]

These films would just be curiosities without his presence in them.

I beg to differ, at least in the case of Three on a Match. Warren William is pretty much a non-entity (a strait-laced lawyer) in this movie compared to Ann Dvorak out of her mind on smack and Lyle Talbot in a full-on panic through much of the picture. Neither of them were ever better. For prime Warren William, I recommend The Dark Horse.

[Wittsdream]

These films would just be curiosities without his presence in them.

I beg to differ, at least in the case of Three on a Match. Warren William is pretty much a non-entity (a strait-laced lawyer) in this movie compared to Ann Dvorak out of her mind on smack and Lyle Talbot in a full-on panic through much of the picture. Neither of them were ever better. For prime Warren William, I recommend The Dark Horse.

William is definitely much less of a "presence" in this film compared to the other two signature films I had mentioned in my post. I agree with you that it is hard to think of a more imperiled feminine in 30's cinema than Dvorak in this particular film.

I have yet to see The Dark Horse, though its reputation, along with your hearty recommendation, makes me want to hunt down a copy of it right away.

[Jeff]

Volume Two is on its way according to the Classic Horror Boards post:

On March 4, Warner Home Video (WHV) will introduce a second group of sassy and taboo films from Hollywood's Pre-Production Code era with the DVD debut of TCM Archives: Forbidden Hollywood Volume 2. Following the success of last year's Volume 1, this new 3-disc collection will contain five pre-code sizzlers, with some of Hollywood's biggest stars. Disc One spotlights Norma Shearer in her Best Actress Oscar®-winning role as The Divorcee and again in A Free Soul; with Lionel Barrymore and Clark Gable. Disc Two features Bette Davis, Joan Blondell and Ann Dvorak in Three on a Match paired with the Michael Curtiz-directed comedy Female starring Ruth Chatterton as a no-nonsense CEO. Disc Three features William Wellman's powerful drama Night Nurse, which stars Barbara Stanwyck with a very young Clark Gable, along with the new documentary feature Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood. The film provides fascinating insight into the American psyche of late 1920s and early 1930s, illustrating why, more than seventy years later, the so-called "Pre-Code" movies remain among the most vital and provocative films ever made. Each of the features contained in TCM Archives: Forbidden Hollywood Volume 2 have been digitally remastered from newly-restored film elements. The collection also contains bonus features such as commentaries and theatrical trailers. The three DVD set, containing the five vintage classics and the new documentary feature will be available as a collection only, selling for $49.92 SRP.

I can hear the squeals of delight from Matt and shearerchic from here.

I don't know what happened to the previously rumored Ladies They Talk About.

[Matt]

I can hear the squeals of delight from Matt and shearerchic from here.

Absolutely no complaints here. I'm very excited to get these films on DVD at long last.

I purchased this today and when I put in the discs I noticed that what the box says about the content of each disc is incorrect. In the set I purchased the two cuts of Baby Face are on disc 1 and on disc 2 is Red Headed Woman and Waterloo Bridge.

Did this labeling error on the first set ever get fixed? Has anyone bought this recently who could comment?