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| Jean Harlow and Mary Astor in Red Dust (1932). C: Harold Rosson. D: Victor Fleming (uncredited). |
In the early days of moviemaking, there were no standards for the content of films, no organized oversight body, only the individual movie producers and ultimately the moviegoing public. Movies made in the 1910s, 1920s, and early 1930s were mostly family-friendly. Many, however, included risqué sexual situations, overt sexual themes, scantily-clad or even nude women. Some included themes involving drug use. Some included brutal violence.
In reaction, Will Hays, the head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (forerunner of the Motion Picture Association of America [MPAA]), oversaw the adoption of a written censorship document in 1927, a checklist of movie dos and don'ts, that was officially known as the Motion Picture Production Code and unofficially known as the Hays Code. After some revisions it was approved by the major studio heads in 1930.
Among many other things, the Hays Code forbade "Pointed profanity" such as the words "God, Lord, Jesus, Christ," unless used "reverently," "Hell, S.O.B., damn, Gawd …"; "Any licentious or suggestive nudity—in fact or in silhouette"; "White slavery"; "Any inference of sex perversion," which included homosexuality; and "Miscegenation." "Virgin" was also forbidden. Criminality and immorality could not be presented in a positive or neutral light. Criminals could never "get away with it." Fallen women paid for their immorality onscreen by getting sentenced to prison or by getting killed. The inside of a woman's thigh could never be shown. A kiss could not last more than three seconds.
The Hays Code began to be enforced in late 1933 and early 1934. The enforcement took place during production, with censors reviewing scripts, costumes, and filmed scenes. Enforcement during this early period was spotty and some movies slipped through the censors' nets. Many producers and directors were quite clever in dodging the censors, chiefly through the use of innuendoes and double entendres.
Movies with forbidden scenes, themes, or dialogue that had been made and released before the Hays Code—now known as "pre-Code" movies—but which were later re-released, had to comply with the Code before returning to the theaters. Movies like Frankenstein (1931), Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), and King Kong (1933) all were re-edited to remove parts that violated the Code. Fortunately, the censored footage for these films has been restored for DVD, Blu-ray, and TCM. For other formats and streaming services, caveat emptor: let the buyer beware.
After the slow demise of the old movie studios in Hollywood, enforcement of the Hays Code became lax and movie producers began pushing the bounds of what was acceptable. Movies like The Killing of Sister George (1968), with its lengthy lesbian sex scene ending in orgasm, caused Jack Valenti, MPAA president, to usher in the first MPAA Rating System (G, GP, R, and X) to replace the old Hays Code.
Since the 1990s movie distributors have made a concerted effort to restore the edited footage from as many notorious pre-Code films as they can save and restore. Red Dust is one of these.
The following are pre-Code films which I've seen and recommend (not an exhaustive list).[⭐ = Essential pre-Code films]
For clarity, let me stress that when I recommend a movie, I'm recommending it only in its original theatrical release version—original aspect ratio, no ads, no editing for any purpose; or, if it had been a victim of the Hays Code, I recommend the restored edition, if there is one:
- Animal Crackers (1930)
- The Divorcée (1930)
- Morocco (1930)⭐
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
- Frankenstein (1931)⭐
- A Free Soul (1931)
- M (1931)⭐
- The Miracle Woman (1931)
- Other Men's Women (1931)
- Platinum Blonde (1931)⭐
- Possessed (1931)
- The Public Enemy (1931)⭐
- Waterloo Bridge (1931) (starring Mae Clark; not to be confused with the Code-approved 1940 version starring Vivien Leigh)
- The Animal Kingdom (1932)
- Rain (1932)
- Red Dust (1932)⭐
- Red-Headed Woman (1932)
- Scarface (1932)⭐
- Three on a Match (1932)⭐
- Trouble in Paradise (1932)⭐
- 42nd Street (1933)⭐
- Baby Face (1933)⭐
- Flying Down to Rio (1933)
- Footlight Parade (1933)
- Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)⭐
- Hold Your Man (1933)
- I'm No Angel (1933)
- King Kong (1933)⭐
- Midnight Mary (1933)
- She Done Him Wrong (1933)
- When Lady's Meet (1933)
- It Happened One Night (1934)⭐
- Of Human Bondage (1934)
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Harold Rosson was one of the best and most respected cinematographers in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Among his many credits, he photographed Tarzan the Ape Man (1932); five Jean Harlow movies, including Red Dust; Treasure Island (1934); The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934); Captains Courageous (1937); The Wizard of Oz (1939); Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944); Duel in the Sun (1946); On the Town (1949); The Asphalt Jungle (1950); Singin' in the Rain (1952); The Bad Seed (1956); No Time for Sergeants (1958); and Onionhead (1958).
Like many other cinematographers, Rosson did spot work and clean-up work for directors for which he received no screen credit. For instance, Rosson received no credit for having shot the "burning-of-Atlanta" scene for Gone With the Wind (1939) nor for having shot the "trolly song" scene for Meet Me in St. Louis (1944).
Rosson was married to Jean Harlow for 2½ years between 1933 and 1936. He was nominated for 5 Oscars in his career but never won.
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Harlean Harlow Carpenter was born on 3 March 1911 in Kansas City, Missouri. She didn't have anything like the standard childhood for an actor—elementary school plays, dance class, "theatre" in high school, etc. At age 12, however, she and her mother moved to Hollywood so Harlean could break into the movies. Agents wouldn't take her on, studios wouldn't give her a chance: she was too old to start a career as a child actor. She and her mother returned to Kansas City.
At age 17 she moved back to Hollywood and tried and failed repeatedly to get an acting job. She changed her name to her mother's, Jean Harlow. She spent months working as an extra while trying to land an acting job. Eventually she was "discovered" by one of the stars of what would become the first of her breakout movies, Hells Angels (1930). The studio behind the film was Caddo, run by Howard Hughes, who also produced and directed the film. He signed her to a contract and put her in a featured role in Hells Angels, heavily promoting the movie by emphasizing Harlow's platinum blonde hair. (The color was achieved with a mixture of ammonia, Clorox bleach, and Lux soap flakes, applied once a week.) Hells Angels was a sensation, the highest-grossing movie in 1930, and made Harlow an international star. But her career fizzled out almost immediately. Nobody would hire her as an actor. Critics said she couldn't act. So did anyone who saw her try.
On looks alone, Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures (after gaining Hughes's permission) signed Harlow to a two-picture deal. The first was Platinum Blonde (1931) with Robert Williams and Loretta Young, and the second was Three Wise Girls (1932) with Mae Clark.
Platinum Blonde is one of my favorite pre-Code films and another movie that was marketed using Harlow's hair. The campaign worked. Girls began dying their hair as close to platinum as they could get it. "Platinum Blonde" hair clubs sprang up across the country. Platinum Blonde was Harlow's second breakout picture.
Meanwhile, Howard Hughes lost interest in Harlow. He sold her contract to MGM. And her career took off.
Harlow could pack in audiences. Why not give her movie roles where she didn't have to act, she could just be herself, and prominently display that hair and her charms? Irving Thalberg set Harlow up for success with a string of such movies, including starring roles in Red-Headed Woman (1932), the third of her breakout movies, where she showed she could act with the right material; Hold Your Man (1933); Bombshell (1933); The Girl From Missouri (1934); China Seas (1935); Suzy (1936); and Saratoga (1937). He also found featured roles for her in Dinner at Eight (1933), playing alongside Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, and Billy Burke, and stealing every scene she was in; Red Dust (1932) with Clark Gable and Mary Astor; Wife vs. Secretary (1936) with Gable, Myrna Loy, and May Robson, in which Harlow stretches her acting muscles to marvelous effect; and a leading role in what would become a comedy classic, Libeled Lady (1936) with Spencer Tracy, William Powell, and Loy. She was paired with Gable six times and played to packed movie houses every time. Howard Hughes didn't have a clue about how to make money with Harlow. The boy genius, Irving Thalberg, did.
I've seen nearly all her movies. My favorite is Wife vs. Secretary. It isn't the best film she was in. That honor goes to Dinner at Eight or possibly Platinum Blonde. But the best movie for Harlow—the one that best showcases her talents—is Wife vs. Secretary. Somebody took a chance that she'd be able to act and do so in an against-type role. She more than carries her end in this movie. A must-see.
Jean Harlow died in 1937 of uremic poisoning, allegedly caused by her hair dye. At the time of her death she was engaged to William Powell. Her final film, Saratoga (1937), was released six weeks after her death.
In her brief career she went from a shooting star, quietly forgotten, to immortal superstar, still wildly popular more than eighty years later and a favorite subject of image downloads, T-shirts, coffee mugs, lunch pails, and tchotchkes of all kinds.
The word "icon" gets thrown around too frequently. And the entertainment world has its share of them. But it applies here too. As a legendary actor whose face and body of work still make profits for others, Jean Harlow was and remains a Hollywood icon.
