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L E F T :
BROADWAY THRU A KEYHOLE A B O V E : HOOPLA |
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CLICK HERE FOR COMPLETE SCHEDULE “Compiled by Film Forum’s reliably ingenious programmer, Bruce Goldstein… ‘Fox Before the Code’ isn’t just a celebration of postjazz-age hot pants, blazing guns, and tough talk, but a remarkable tribute to an era when the Hollywood dream factory would stop at nothing to entertain.” “Celluloid fetishism takes on new meaning with Film Forum’s massive series.” |
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DECEMBER 1/2 FRI/SAT (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)
(1932, RAOUL WALSH) “I saw a swell picture… Strange Inner Tube or something.” Cop Spencer Tracy’s slanging matches with hash-slinger Joan Bennett, spiced with a hilarious parody of O’Neill’s Strange Interlude, are interrupted when director Walsh’s brother George blasts his way into a bank, in this unsung 30s classic. “Brash, lean, and energetically vulgar... the quintessential gum-chewing, fast-talking romance comedy of the period.” THE BOWERY “Raw and raunchy... The authentic Gangs of New York.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker DECEMBER 3 SUN (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) HOOPLA GOLDIE (1931, BEN STOLOFF) Roistering sailor Warren Hymer keeps finding pal Spencer Tracy’s signet ring mark on girls from Rio to Vladivostok (including screen siren Lina Basquette, star of DeMille’s Godless Girl), until they meet cash-hungry carny high diver Jean Harlow, in the picture that added “tramp” to the movie vocabulary. Print courtesy UCLA. “Miss Harlow emerges from a 200-foot dive without wetting her hair or disturbing her face powder.” – NY Times DECEMBER 4 MON (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) BROADWAY THRU A KEYHOLE (1933, LOWELL SHERMAN) Constance Cummings is befriended by protection racket boss Paul Kelly, but eventually falls for actual Bing Crosby rival Russ Columbo. Ripped from Walter Winchell’s column — Al Jolson socked him over supposed parallels to his romance with Ruby Keeler — with vaudeville star Blossom Seeley and legendary speakeasy hostess Texas Guinan (“Hello, suckers!”). Plus Fox “Magic Carpet of Movietone” short Broadway By Day. “Far from wholesome.” – NY Times ADVICE TO THE LOVELORN (1933, ALFRED WERKER) After reporter Lee Tracy drunkenly sleeps through an earthquake, he’s demoted to writing the sob sister column — which becomes a Good Spot to Be In when his fed-up girlfriend Sally Blane (sister of Loretta Young) writes in for advice. Loosely based on Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts. DECEMBER 5 TUE (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)
(1930, VICTOR FLEMING) When trying-to-go-straight Constance Bennett takes a job at a fancy home, it’s time to play hitting on the maid, with scion Lew Ayres leading the charge; but when a third generation develops, those family skeletons keep on coming. From the director of Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz! SERVANTS’ ENTRANCE (1934, FRANK LLOYD) Bored heiress Janet Gaynor decides to “learn to be a housewife” on a lark (in a nightmare she’s put on trial by Disney-animated kitchen utensils), then meets Lew Ayres, a chauffeur with motor design ambitions, even as dad Walter Connolly’s fortunes yo-yo. Print courtesy UCLA. DECEMBER 6/7 WED/THU (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)
(1934, DAVID BUTLER) Con men Spencer Tracy and Herbert Mundin decide to pass off their pal, screen extra Pat Paterson (later Mrs. Charles Boyer), as a lord’s daughter to get those movie roles, but her setup with hard-drinking star John Boles heads toward actual romance. With real-life murder victim Thelma Todd. “In the best 1934 filmusical manner and contributes handily toward the perpetuation of the cycle.” – Variety. JUST IMAGINE (1930, DAVID BUTLER) Metropolis...Meschmopolis! “Yumpin’ Yimminy!” squawks proto-Sleeper (see Dec. 31/Jan. 1) El Brendel, history’s most irritating comedian, at this sci-fi musical vision of Deco Manhattan in far-off 1980, when numbers replace names, commuters get stuck in aerial jams, and babies pop out of vending machines. With Maureen O’Sullivan. “Perhaps the only sci-fi musical comedy ever made...light-hearted and cheerfully foolish.” – Pauline Kael DECEMBER 7 THU (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) AFTER TOMORROW (1932, FRANK BORZAGE) Fellow workers in the Empire State Building Charles Farrell and Marian Nixon have been saving for three years to get married, but, boy, do they have future in-law problems — maybe they need a little pre-marital “holiday” to relieve their frustration. Print courtesy UCLA. “Features some unusually frank talk about pre-marital sex.” – Leonard Maltin THE FIRST YEAR (1932, WILLIAM K. HOWARD) Eleven months into marriage with bashful real estate man Charles Farrell, Janet Gaynor ain’t happy, particularly when an old beau shows up to proclaim Farrell’s big deal a flop. Print courtesy UCLA. “Acted to perfection and well written. Comic relief Maude Eburne is a hoot!” – Elliott Stein, The Village Voice Everson Archive THE FIRST YEAR page DECEMBER 8 FRI (3 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) BORN TO BE BAD
(1934, LOWELL SHERMAN) Hard-boiled single mom Loretta Young thinks she’s hit the jackpot when her seven-year-old son is hit by a truck driven by company head Cary Grant — if she can’t get Grant’s money, she’ll get the married Cary himself. Rare slutty, skimpily attired role for normally nice Loretta. Rejected by the Hays Office — twice! — for its “low moral tone.” (1933, SIDNEY LANFIELD) After Broadway angel Ricardo Cortez’s “dividend checks” break up dancer Joan Blondell’s marriage to a jealous Yalie, she rides the publicity to stardom at The Follies of 1929 — with sidekick Ginger Rogers along for the ride — but down the line there’s a custody fight over...whose son? The Hays Office flatly vetoed a 1935 reissue. “Starts off with a pre-Code bang, with a long sequence of lingerie, legs and lechery, and much snappy dialogue.” Everson Archive BROADWAY BAD page ARIZONA TO BROADWAY (1933, JAMES TINLING) The flimflams proliferate as con-men go against con-men across the country: James Dunn and his pals agree to help cosmetics demonstrator Joan Bennett get back the 20 Gs a mobster and his gang have fooled her brother into investing. With Ed Wynn, Jimmy Durante, and Mae West (all-male) impersonators showing up for the Broadway finale. DECEMBER 9 SAT (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) 
BLOOD MONEY
(1933, ROWLAND BROWN) Bailbondsman George Bancroft dallies with thrill-seeking heiress Frances Dee, despite his longtime mistress — debuting-Dame-to-be Judith Anderson — but then finds himself holding the bag after a half-mill bank robbery. Condemned by the Legion of Decency and the Maryland censors because it “would incite law-abiding citizens to crime.” “The highly talented and unjustly forgotten Brown creates a picturesque milieu of petty crime filled with a memorable slate of quirky characters in this invigorating dramatic comedy… Top honors go to the great Judith Anderson, in her film debut and lovely Frances Dee in the juiciest role of her career as amasochistic klepto.” Everson Archive BLOOD MONEY page 
NOW I’LL TELL
(1934, EDWIN BURKE) Spencer Tracy’s crooked gambler Murray Golden (a character based on Arnold Rothstein) claws his way to the top — fixing fights, bribing cops and two-timing Helen Twelvetrees along the way. With those standard bearers of the post-Code era, Alice Faye and Shirley Temple. Plus Manhattan Medley (1932), a Fox “Magic Carpet of Movietone” short subject. “Spencer Tracy gives a vivid performance… DECEMBER 10/11 SUN/MON (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)
CALL HER SAVAGE (1932, JOHN FRANCIS DILLON) Clara Bow returned to the screen with a vengeance (following a well-publicized nervous breakdown) as a Texas half-breed who takes a whip to childhood friend Gilbert Roland, brains the husband she married for spite with a stool, gets in a catfight with Thelma Todd, visits the screen’s first bona fide gay bar, and romps with an excited Great Dane — and we don’t mean Hamlet. “The plot throws in everything, from soap opera to sex, with wild parties and a Red Indian attack en route… Beautifully mounted and photographed (by Lee Garmes), it has a bang-up opening and a lively finish… even Clara's pet dog seems to have lecherous inclinations towards her.” “Enough melodrama for three movies.” – David Stenn Everson Archive CALL HER SAVAGE page HELLO, SISTER! (1933, ERICH VON STROHEIM AND ALFRED WERKER) James Dunn and Boots Mallory find love in lower-class New York, despite clinging pal ZaSu Pitts and sleazoids Minna Gombell and Terrence Ray. Von Stroheim’s only sound film was brought in on schedule and budget, but, caught in a studio power struggle, was finished by others. Based on a play by Dawn Powell. “Von Stroheim’s last film as a director—a Depression-era tale of poverty, lust, jealousy, and rage—was partly reshot by committee yet still bears its originator’s forceful mark.” Everson Archive HELLO SISTER! page DECEMBER 11 MON (EVENING) A Special Live Music And Movie Event!
Piano virtuoso, pop music historian and national treasure Peter Mintun returns for another fun-filled evening, taking us on a history of the Fox) studio’s music and song, from its earliest Movietone scores for silent movies to the emergence of the classic Twentieth-Century Fox musical. Disklavier Mark IV Grand Piano courtesy Frank & Camille’s and Yamaha Corp. of America. CLICK HERE FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
DECEMBER 12 TUE (3 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)
(1932, WILLIAM CAMERON MENZIES AND MARCEL VARNEL) When the mad Roxor (Bela Lugosi) threatens the world with a death ray, Chandu (Edmund Lowe) sprints into mystical action. The fabled touch of design wizard Menzies (Gone With the Wind, etc. etc.) enhances this seldom-seen fantasy/adventure, photographed by the equally legendary James Wong Howe. Based on a popular comic strip of the 30s. THE SPIDER (1931, WILLIAM CAMERON MENZIES AND KENNETH MACKENNA) Edmund Lowe’s Chatrand the Great’s announcement that he’ll cure the amnesia of his magic act assistant leads to bullets flying in the theater, magic escapes from the cops, a brothersister recognition scene, and a search for that darned spider ring. Print courtesy UCLA. “An intriguing whodunit [with] atmospheric lighting of Mr. Low-Key himself, the great James Howe—before he got his Wong.” (1934, ROY DEL RUTH) Passersby lost in the fog, a disappearing corpse, Loretta Young fainting at his door
— although Ronald Colman’s Drummond claims to
want peace and quiet, looks like just another day at the
office for the master sleuth. “Snappy comedy melodrama with a swashbuckling flavor. Packed with what it takes.” – Variety Everson Archive BULLDOG DRUMMOND STRIKES BACK page DECEMBER 13/14 WED/THU (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)
(1935, ROY DEL RUTH) Bon vivant baron Maurice Chevalier hires look-alike Folies entertainer Maurice Chevalier to romance wife Merle Oberon, while he’s off with showgirl mistress Ann Sothern. With Oscarwinning Busby-Berkeleyesque finale. “Sumptuous entertainment.” – Pauline Kael Everson Archive FOLIES BERGERE page MY WEAKNESS
(1933, DAVID BUTLER) To show his brassiere magnate uncle, playboy Lew Ayres plots to transform hotel maid Lilian Harvey into a mantrap for his cousin, postage stamp and raw carrot-loving Charles Butterworth — but what if real love intervenes? Cuckoo absurdist-farcewith- songs was first U.S. film for European musical super-star Harvey. With silent comedy legend Harry Langdon. DECEMBER 14 THU (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)
(1931, RAOUL WALSH) Jewish teacher Elissa Landi can leave the Czarist Pale only by acquiring the yellow passport of a prostitute — a scandal to naïve muckraking journalist Laurence Olivier. With Lionel Barrymore as a leacherous Baron, popping pills for “extra potency.” Print
courtesy Museum of Modern Art. “Handsomely produced melodrama...Old hambone Lionel Barrymore steals the show, chewing the period scenery with relish.” “An astonishingly slick and fast-moving piece of work constantly broken down into good compositions, exciting shots, and well-paced cuts. All florid and theatrical, with no subtlety needed or offered” “Rugged, unrestrained, and effective.” – NY Times. Everson Archive THE YELLOW TICKET page THE TRIAL OF VIVIENNE WARE (1932, WILLIAM K. HOWARD) Joan Bennett’s on trial for the murder of her cheatin’ fiancé, and her attorney Donald Cook, who really loves her, doesn’t believe her himself
— then somebody throws a knife! Blazing paced
courtroom drama — hours of plot and action are
packed into its 60-minute running time — from underrated
director Howard. William K. Everson Collection,
NYU/George Eastman House. “William K. Howard's skillful courtroom thriller is enlivened by a surprising amount of violence and the great Zasu Pitts in an unusual role.” “Director Howard here shows himself to be a complete master of the talkie melodrama. Few films have had so much talk crammed into five minutes---and yet few films have dazzled with so much visual virtuosity. It is almost certainly the fastest film ever made... with swish pans, overlapping dialogue, eccentric time and locale changes, abnormally rapid dialogue delivery and a constantly mobile camera. It’s a classic and an exhilarating hour.” Everson Archive THE TRIAL OF VIVIENNE WARE page DECEMBER 15 FRI (2 OR 3 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) LOOKING FOR TROUBLE (1934, WILLIAM WELLMAN) Telephone line repairmen Spencer Tracy and Jack Oakie have to contend with a crooked ex-partner, a gambling casino raid, illegal wiretaps, a stock tip robbery, a murder — or was it suicide? — and then there’s that earthquake! How’s Spence supposed to romance Constance Cummings? “Lively account of the adventures of telephone repair men...with bank holdups, car crashes, murders, and earthquakes happening in quick succession.” Everson Archive LOOKING FOR TROUBLE page THE PAINTED WOMAN (1932, JOHN BLYSTONE) Pearl diver Spencer Tracy falls for tropical dive chirper Peggy Shannon, but, boy, has she got a past. Later rejected for a 1939 reissue due to its theme and “various suggestive and vulgar lines.” Print courtesy UCLA. QUICK MILLIONS (1931, ROWLAND BROWN) Spencer Tracy stars as a cocky climber in this revelatory non- Warner Bros. gangster epic, the second of only three films by director maudit Brown. With Marguerite Churchill, Sally Eilers and George Raft. William K. Everson Collection, NYU/George
Eastman House. “THE MOST UNDERVALUED DIRECTORIAL DEBUT IN AMERICAN HISTORY… Quick Millions, has a subtle and expedient visual style decades ahead of its time… Using dissolves, sound bridges, long takes, and character punctuating close-ups, Brown blessed it with both gutter swagger realism and pulp expediency… And like the rest of Film Forum’s wide-ranging groaning board of pre-code freedom, compared to contemporary literal-minded Hollywood and self-congratulatory indiewood fodder, Quick Millions is a reminder, not of how much ground American film has gained since the decades between the World Wars, but of how much it has lost.” DECEMBER 16 SAT (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)
CALL HER SAVAGE (1932, JOHN FRANCIS DILLON) Clara Bow returned to the screen with a vengeance (following a well-publicized nervous breakdown) as a Texas half-breed who takes a whip to childhood friend Gilbert Roland, brains the husband she married for spite with a stool, gets in a catfight with Thelma Todd, visits the screen’s first bona fide gay bar, and romps with an excited Great Dane — and we don’t mean Hamlet. “The plot throws in everything, from soap opera to sex, with wild parties and a Red Indian attack en route… Beautifully mounted and photographed (by Lee Garmes), it has a bang-up opening and a lively finish… even Clara's pet dog seems to have lecherous inclinations towards her.” “Enough melodrama for three movies.” – David Stenn Everson Archive CALL HER SAVAGE page ZOO IN BUDAPEST (1933, ROWLAND V. LEE) Innocents against the World: in the Budapest Zoo, orphan-on-therun Loretta Young is sheltered by raisedin- the-zoo Gene Raymond, but that night the authorities come looking. Dazzlingly shot by Lee Garmes, with hair-raising animals-on-the-loose climax. “MARVELOUSLY POETIC... THE MOST INDELIBLY BEAUTIFUL MOVIE IN THE RETROSPECTIVE! Leading man Gene Raymond is a model of gentle virility, Loretta Young an ideal fairy-tale heroine. Lee Garmes’s cinematography is on par with his most brilliant work, and Lee's delicate fantasy is unlike any other film of the period.” Everson Archive ZOO IN BUDAPEST page DECEMBER 17 SUN (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)
(1933, MONTA BELL) . . .or the woman who came to dinner, as the eponymous Benita Hume, after splitting with best-dressed-man-in-Paris Adolphe Menjou out of boredom, becomes, thanks to a train wreck, the toast of Bridgetown, Kansas. “Charming piece of sophisticated romantic comedy frou frou” (W.K. Everson), but condemned by the Legion of Decency. With Helen (Dracula) Chandler. Plus musical short Susie's Affairs, with Betty Grable. WEEK ENDS ONLY (1932, ALAN CROSLAND) Talk about meeting cute! Ex-debutante Joan Bennett, now the keepyerhanzoff weekend hostess at a moneybag’s chateau, spots broke artist Ben Lyon stealing a bottle of milk. The Hays office nixed a post-Code re-release because of
“considerable suggestiveness of loose living”
while also noting “the entire theme is not
good.” Print courtesy UCLA. DECEMBER 18/19 MON/TUES (3 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)
(1931, SEYMOUR FELIX) Oftengaged socialite Virginia Cherrill (the blind girl of Chaplin’s City Lights, which opened the same week) goes back to the campus to battle the plans of abnormal psychology student John Wayne (yes, a collegiate Duke!) to roll back co-education. With Marguerite Churchill. COMING-OUT PARTY HOT PEPPER (1933, JOHN G. BLYSTONE) Scams, shakedowns, payoffs, blackmailing, brawls, Edmund Lowe’s Quirt and Victor McLaglen’s Flagg are still at it
— with spitfire stowaway Lupe Velez caught in
the middle — in this umpteenth sequel to antiwar
classic What Price Glory? “A boisterous picture of brazen lines and raw wisecracks... Lupe Velez displays audacity, recklessness, and extraordinary vitality.” – NY Times DECEMBER 19 TUE (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION) NADA MAS QUE UNA MUJER (spanish version of PURSUED) (1934, HARRY LACHMAN) Literally, Nothing
More than a Woman. Juan Torena arrives in Borneo to take up an uncle’s bequest, but his land-hungry neighbor figures possession is 9/10ths of the law, both in relation to plantations and to legendary cabaret poetry reciter Berta Singerman, whose “presentation of ‘Pregones en Buenos Aires’ is so realistic that the spectator only has to close his eyes to imagine himself listening to the varied and strangely alluring calls in the streets of the Argentine metropolis” (NY Times). English subtitles. Print courtesy UCLA. NO DEJES LA PUERTA ABIERTA (spanish version of PLEASURE CRUISE) (1933, LOUIS SEILER) . . . or Don’t Leave the Door Open. Green-eyed house-husband Raúl Roulien (star of the same year’s Flying Down to Rio) surreptitiously stalks wife Rosita Moreno on the pleasure cruise she’s taking as a break from him — but who took the monogrammed cigarette case from her stateroom? English subtitles. Print courtesy UCLA. DECEMBER 20 WED (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)
(1932, JOHN G. BLYSTONE) And, despite the devotion of fellow railroad brat Spencer Tracy, that’s what Joan Bennett gets, when moneybags judge of the Miss Universe contest rigs it in her favor — but he’s been married how many times before? Based on an actual case! Print courtesy UCLA. SHE LEARNED ABOUT SAILORS
DECEMBER 21 THU (2 OR 3 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)
DANCE TEAM (1932, SIDNEY LANFIELD) Out-of-towner James Dunn and unemployed cigarette girl Sally Eilers agree to form the eponymous team, but to keep it just professional — fat chance! This UCLA print is ten minutes longer than the release version! SAILOR’S LUCK (1933, RAOUL WALSH) Sally Eilers promises to wait for sailor James Dunn when shoreside leave romance blossoms; but he gets sore when she goes for the gold at a dance marathon run by lecherous Victor Jory, in very PC (Pre-Code, not politically correct) Walsh comedy. Print courtesy Everson Collection, NYU/George Eastman House. SPECIAL THANKS TO RICK YANKOWSKI, CRITERION PICTURES; SCHAWN BELSTON (VICE-PRESIDENT OF ASSET MANAGEMENT), CAITLIN ROBERTSON, KEVIN BARRETT, 20TH CENTURY FOX;
ROBERT GITT, TODD WIENER, UCLA FILM & TELEVISION ARCHIVE; PATRICK LOUGHNEY, CAROLINE YEAGER, ALEX TERZIEV, GEORGE EASTMAN HOUSE; ANNE MORRA, STEVEN HIGGINS,
MUSEUM OF MODERN ART; MARK HELLER, RICK DECROIX, STREAMLINE FILMS; MICHAEL SCHLESINGER, SONY REPERTORY; ERIC SPILKER; KAREN EVERSON, RUSTY CASSELTON;
MARTY KEARNS; DAN BURSIK; HOWARD MANDELBAUM; RICK SCHECKMAN; RICHARD BARRIOS; DAVID STENN; TOM TOTH; AND JOSEPH YRANSKI.
EVERSON COLLECTION PRINTS IN SERIES COURTESY NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, CONSERVED BY GEORGE EASTMAN HOUSE. |
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ME AND MY GAL
(1933, FRANK LLOYD) Carny barker Preston Foster warns farm boy son Richard Cromwell about cooch dancer Clara Bow (good tip!) — she’s already taking a $100 bet she can make him fall in love with her. In her wildly underrated swan song, Bow sports the “scantiest raiment she ever wore on the screen” (Film Daily). Plus a tour of Coney Island in a 1932 Fox “Magic Carpet of Movietone” short.
COMMON CLAY
BOTTOMS UP
BROADWAY BAD
CHANDU THE MAGICIAN
FOLIES BERGERE
THE YELLOW TICKET
THE WORST WOMAN IN PARIS?
GIRLS DEMAND EXCITEMENT
SHE WANTED A MILLIONAIRE
3 ON A HONEYMOON