 | |
List Price: $49.98 | | Label: WARNER HOME VIDEO
Salesrank: 3408
Released: March 4, 2008 |
| Our Price: $33.50 |
| Used Price: $31.47 |
|
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD |
|
Editorial Review:
THE DIVORCEE (1930): After several blissful years of marriage a woman catches her husband in a compromising position and forces him to confess his infidelities Her solution to the problem is to then try to match him tryst for tryst. Based on the 1929 Ursula Parrott novel "Ex-wife," this highly controversial story was first published anonymously, with the author’s name added only after thousands of copies were sold. A FREE SOUL (1931): Lionel Barrymore shines as Stephen Ashe, a brilliant alcoholic lawyer who successfully defends dashing gangster Ace Wilfong (Clark Gable) on a murder charge only to find that his headstrong daughter, Jan (Norma Shearer), has fallen in love with his client. Jan, a fun-loving socialite seeking freedom from her blue-blood upbring, is only too eager to dump her aristocratic boyfriend (Leslie Howard) for the no-good gangster. Barrymore gives a remarkable Oscar-winning performance culminating in a legendary courtroom scene that is powerful and deeply moving. THREE ON A MATCH (1932): Childhood friends Mary Keaton, Ruth Wescott and Vivian Deverse reunite ten years after high school. Mary is now a chorus girl, level-headed Ruth has a job as a secretary, and sexy Vivian is on the verge of deserting her wealthy husband Henry Kirkwood and their baby in favor of a glamorous gangster. FEMALE (1933): In Michael Curtiz's romantic comedy FEMALE, Ruth Chatterton plays Alison Drake, the iron-fisted president of a motorcar company. Alison oversees the daily operations of her male employees with a predatory gaze and frequently exercises her right to engage with them in any way she deems fit. She meets her match in an equally strong-minded new employee, Jim Thorne (George Brent), and the two engage in a smoldering, contentious, sexually charged duel. NIGHT NURSE (1931): William Wellman's NIGHT NURSE is a sassy, unsentimental comedy about a private pediatric nurse named Lora Hart (Barbara Stanwyck) who, after applying as an apprentice in a family home, discovers there is a plot afoot to starve her two rich, fat, young charges to death. The culprit is the family's chauffeur, Nick (Clark Gable), a villain who plans to marry the kids' dissolute mother and make off with their trust fund. THOU SHALT NOT: SEX, SIN AND CENSORSHIP IN PRE-CODE HOLLYWOOD (2008): Over seventy years later, they've lost none of their power to shock, entertain, and titillate. So-called "pre-Code" movies remain among the most vital films America has ever produced. But why were these films so much more sexually free and socially critical than what came before or after? Who created the Code, and what did it forbid? And why did it finally become a Hollywood commandment? The answer is a fascinating mix of scandal, big business and social history - a unique collision of events that resulted in one of the most dynamic - and delicious - periods in Hollywood history.
TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2 (The Divorcee / A Free Soul / Night Nurse / Three on a Match / Female) Reviews:
Love and sex, pre-Code style 
2008-08-25 - There were a few years in movie making when sound was first introduced but the Production Codes had not yet been in force. These codes would severely limit the ability of movies to depict the real world: sex, violence and corruption were toned down - often to the point of sheer blandness. Crime could never pay, authority figures were always forces of good and even married couples were confined to twin beds. There were those few years, however, from the late-1920s to 1934 which was known as the pre-Code era, a period that offered films that would be much more daring than the movies of just a few years later.
TCM's set, Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Volume Two, showcases five such pre-Code movies. On the first of three discs are a pair of Norma Shearer films. In The Divorcee, she won an Oscar as a wife who discovers that her husband had an affair. Although he assures her it means nothing, it is an obvious hypocrisy that's exposed when she balances the books with an affair of her own. In A Free Soul, she defiantly has a fling with gangster Clark Gable, only to discover that the relationship will have unintended complications. Lionel Barrymore, playing her alcoholic father, won an Oscar for his role and Gable's performance would help transform him from a supporting player into a star.
On Disc Two, there is Three on a Match and Female. The former is a story of three schoolmates who meet in adulthood. Joan Blondell is the bad girl turned good, Ann Dvorak is the good girl turned bad, and Bette Davis is somewhere in the middle. This movie features an early gangster role by Humphrey Bogart. Female has Ruth Chatterton as the driven owner of an auto company. She works hard by day and chooses various male employees to be her playthings at night. It's a fine arrangement until she meets George Brent as the one man who resists her charms.
Finally, on Disc Three, Barbara Stanwyck is the Night Nurse, a woman from the wrong side of the tracks who betters herself by becoming a nurse. Unfortunately, the ethics of the profession compel her to look the other way when she sees malpractice, but she'll put what's right above what's required. Clark Gable is in one of his most villainous roles as a thuggish chauffeur out to kill a couple children. The resolution of this one would involve an act that would never be allowed under the Code.
Also on the third disc is a nice documentary called Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood. This feature describes more fully what this era meant to film, and what it meant when it ended. One thing that stands out is that this was a time where actresses could have juicy roles, a heyday for Blondell, Davis, Stanwyck and Shearer as well as folks like Crawford, Hepburn and Loy. The Code with its "family values" agenda would pigeonhole the women into much more limited roles.
All these movies are well-made and relatively short: the longest (A Free Soul) runs 93 minutes and Female is just an hour. With the documentary and a couple commentaries (on The Divorcee and Night Nurse), this is a wonderful set that will not only entertain, but serve as a reminder as to what the Production Code took away from movie making.
forbidden hollywood collection vol 2 
2008-08-03 - a great collection of old movies,never released on dvd before.
a must for a movie collector.
Classically Excellent
2008-07-21 - This collection of movies is great especially if you are looking to see what the 30's considered as risque.
Even though I had already seen Night Nurse and Three on a Match, I still bought this boxed set to add to my collection. Just to watch Norma Shearer, Bette Davis, Joan Blondell, and Barbara Stanwyck, not to mention Clark Gable in their early days was a treat.
I had previously purchased volume 1 of this collection and I'm glad I added volume 2. It's a great way to realize what Hollywood was like during the Depression but also to get a picture of what the US was like as well.
I heartily recommend this for the true movie buff.
Fantastic collection + suggestions for Volume 3
2008-06-28 - This is a perfect choice of films, continuing where Volume 1 left off by including only the pre-code films that exemplify what is fascinating and envelope-pushing about the era. The purpose of this review is to make some suggestions for Volume 3 (and 4, 5, and 6 - hopefully the series will keep going at least that long). Because volumes 1 & 2 were focused on sexually-charged dramas and comedies, I'll keep that focus here (though I would like to see some politically-charged pre-codes like Heroes for Sale, Wild Boys of the Road, and Gabriel over the White House appear soon). So here goes with some of the best pre-code films Warners/TCM own (based on seeing them on TCM), roughly in order of importance historically and in terms of entertainment value:
1) Red Dust
2) Safe in Hell
3) Rain
4) The Story of Temple Drake
5) Ladies They Talk About
6) Illicit
7) Possessed
8) The Strange Love of Molly Louvain
9) Strangers May Kiss
10) Employee's Entrance
11) Skyscraper Souls
12) Ex-Lady
13) Private Lives
14) Frisco Jenny
15) Midnight Mary
16) The Purchase Price
oh, you beautiful b&w dolls!
2008-05-20 - 'forbidden hollywood vol. 2' is comprised of films that have been seen often at tcm. whether it's during oscar sweeps or birthday tributes to barbara stanwyck or norma shearer, you can count on seeing 'night nurse' or 'a free soul'.
there are three additions to the collection, which is also accompanied by a nice new documentary titled 'thou shalt not' that make worth the price. the first is 'three on a match', which stars the now-obscure ann dvorak as a bored socialite, and joan blondell and bette davis as her childhood friends. dvorak's character has the life her friends aspire to--a rich powerful husband (warren william) and sumptuous digs on park avenue (or whereever rich white people lived in warners film of the 1930s). but she doesn't appreciate any of it and abandons it all for a fling with a handsome loser (lyle talbot). blondell and davis acquire all dvorak leaves behind to pursue sexual escapades. and as they rise, dvorak sinks lower, until she winds up a cocaine addict that must sacrifice her life to save her little boy.
this film is tight and features the neatest montage sequences at the beginning!
then, there's 'female', a true find! 'female' is way, way ahead of its 1933 release date. allison, played by ruth chatterton, is a high-powered auto-plant exec with a sharp mind, a great orry-kelly wardrobe and a sexual rapaciousness equal only to hugh hefner's. she plucks her boy toys from the factory and when she tires of them, she transfers them to canada! canada in 1933 must have been a lonely place.
'female' shows its timelessness when allison plucks a handsome stud that would fain worship her as a goddess--in other words, he's gay as a ukelele! then, as she seduces another, successfully with chilled vodka and pillows in front of the fire, she wears a gown that is a dead ringer for the gown cate blanchett wore to the 1999 oscar ceremony. all it needs is a painted hummingbird on the back.
of course, allison must realize a woman is nothing without a strong man so the film sinks at the very end but that's minor.
third but not last, is the documentary 'thou shalt not', which examines pre-code hollywood film product. the biggest revelation is to see jeanne eagels in a clip from the 1929 version of 'the letter'. this is priceless. eagels was more than intense--she was jennifer jason leigh at her most manic. tcm must show this version in its entirety soon.
