84-501: In Old Arizona is a 1928 American pre-Code Western film directed by Raoul Walsh and Irving Cummings , nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The film, which was based on the character of the Cisco Kid in the 1907 story " The Caballero's Way " by O. Henry , was a major innovation in Hollywood . It was the first major Western to use the new technology of sound and
168-453: A World War I veteran cast onto the streets with a morphine addiction from his hospital stay. In Wild Boys of the Road (1933), the young man played by Frankie Darrow leads a group of dispossessed juvenile drifters who frequently brawl with the police. Such gangs were common; around 250,000 youths traveled the country by hopping trains or hitchhiking in search of better economic circumstances in
252-486: A chorus girl , she regularly received diamonds and pearls as gifts, but now must content herself with a corned beef sandwich. In Union Depot (1932), Douglas Fairbanks Jr. puts a luscious meal as the first order of business on his itinerary after coming into money. Given the social circumstances, politically oriented social problem films ridiculed politicians and portrayed them as incompetent bumblers, scoundrels, and liars. In The Dark Horse (1932), Warren William
336-579: A building named after himself that is larger than the Empire State Building . He tricks everyone he knows into poverty to appropriate others' wealth. He is ultimately shot by his secretary ( Verree Teasdale ), who then ends the film and her own life by walking off the roof of the skyscraper. Americans' mistrust and dislike of lawyers was a frequent topic of dissection in social problem films such Lawyer Man (1933), State's Attorney , and The Mouthpiece (1932). In films such as Paid (1930),
420-492: A cablegram to all the studios in March 1934 mandating that Dillinger not be portrayed in any motion picture. The genre entered a new level following the release of Little Caesar (1931), which featured Edward G. Robinson as gangster Rico Bandello. Caesar , along with The Public Enemy (starring James Cagney ) and Scarface (1932) (starring Paul Muni ), were, by standards of the time, incredibly violent films that created
504-665: A censorship board in 1921. Virginia followed suit the next year, and eight individual states had a board by the advent of sound film. Many of these boards were ineffectual. By the 1920s, the New York stage, a frequent source of subsequent screen material, had topless shows; performances were filled with profanity, mature subject matter, and sexually suggestive dialogue. Early during the sound system conversion process, it became apparent that what might be acceptable in New York would not be so in Kansas. In 1927, Hays suggested studio executives form
588-429: A committee to discuss film censorship. Irving Thalberg of Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), Sol Wurtzel of Fox , and E. H. Allen of Paramount responded by collaborating on a list they called the " Don'ts and Be Carefuls ", based on items that were challenged by local censor boards, and which consisted of eleven subjects best avoided, and twenty-six to be handled very carefully. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved
672-608: A dispossessed juvenile delinquent is in court expecting a jail sentence. However the judge lets the boy go free, revealing to him the symbol of the New Deal behind his desk, and tells him "[t]hings are going to be better here now, not only here in New York, but all over the country." A box-office casualty of this hopefulness was Gabriel Over the White House , which entered production during the Hoover era malaise and sought to capitalize on it. By
756-496: A high and self-sufficing purpose. Hays and others, such as Samuel Goldwyn , obviously felt that motion pictures presented a form of escapism that served a palliative effect on American moviegoers. Goldwyn had coined the famous dictum, "If you want to send a message, call Western Union " in the pre-Code era. However, the MPPDA took the opposite stance when questioned about certain so-called "message" films before Congress in 1932, claiming
840-448: A lot further than more recent efforts such as Wall Street , and it's amazing how much plot and character are gracefully shoehorned into 75 minutes." The film featured pre-Code megastar Warren William (later dubbed "the king of Pre-Code" ), "at his magnetic worst", playing a particularly vile and heartless department store manager who, for example, terminates the jobs of two long-standing male employees, one of whom takes his own life as
924-628: A memory." Although the liberalization of sexuality in American film had increased during the 1920s, the pre-Code era is either dated generally to the start of the sound film era, or more specifically to March 1930, when the Hays Code was first written. Over the protests of NAMPI, New York became the first state to take advantage of the Supreme Court's 1915 decision in Mutual Film vs. Ohio by instituting
SECTION 10
#17328550457501008-465: A new type of anti-hero. Nine gangster films were released in 1930, 26 in 1931, 28 in 1932 and 15 in 1933, when the genre's popularity began to subside after the end of Prohibition . The backlash against gangster films was swift. In 1931, Jack Warner announced that his studio would stop making them and that he himself had never allowed his 15-year-old son to see them. Academy Award for Best Cinematography The Academy Award for Best Cinematography
1092-536: A picture, to be titled Mad Dog of Europe , which was intended to be a full-scale attack on Hitler. Jaffe had quit his job at RKO Pictures to make the film. Hays summoned the pair to his office and told them to cease production as they were causing needless headaches for the studios. Germany had threatened to seize all the properties of the Hollywood producers in Germany and ban the import of any future American films. In
1176-448: A potential government takeover of film censorship and social research seeming to indicate that movies that were seen to be immoral could promote bad behavior, was enough pressure to force the studios to capitulate to greater oversight. In 1922, after some risqué films and a series of off-screen scandals involving Hollywood stars, the studios enlisted Presbyterian elder Will H. Hays to rehabilitate Hollywood's image. Hays, later nicknamed
1260-549: A product of the excesses of the previous decade. In looking back upon the 1920s, events were increasingly seen as occurring in prelude to the market crash. In Dance, Fools, Dance (1931), lurid party scenes featuring 1920s flappers are played to excess. Joan Crawford ultimately reforms her ways and is saved; less fortunate is William Bakewell , who continues on the careless path that leads to his ultimate self-destruction. For Rain or Shine (1930), Milton Ager and Jack Yellen composed " Happy Days Are Here Again ". The song
1344-471: A result. He also threatens to fire Loretta Young 's character, who pretends to be single to stay employed, unless she sleeps with him, then attempts to ruin her husband after learning she is married. Films that stated a position about a social issue were usually labeled either "propaganda films" or "preachment yarns". In contrast to Goldwyn and MGM's definitively Republican stance on social issue films, Warner Brothers, led by New Deal advocate Jack L. Warner ,
1428-568: A secret letter to Dunn telling him to come that evening to take down the Cisco Kid before he makes his escape. However, the Cisco Kid finds this letter and replaces it with a fake letter "from Maria" which he has written himself. His letter says that he will be dressed up in Maria's clothes in an effort to disguise himself from Dunn, while Maria is actually in the Cisco Kid's clothes riding away. Dunn receives this fake letter, believing it to be from Maria. When
1512-422: A single film was adopted in all profession-related categories. From 1939 to 1966 with the exception of 1957, there were also separate awards for color and black-and-white cinematography. After Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), the most recent black-and-white films to win since then are Schindler's List (1993), Roma (2018) and Mank (2020). Floyd Crosby won the award for Tabu in 1931, which
1596-415: A way that might arouse passion or be made to seem right and permissible. All criminal action had to be punished, and neither the crime nor the criminal could elicit sympathy from the audience. Authority figures had to be treated respectfully, and the clergy could not be portrayed as comic characters or villains. Under some circumstances, politicians, police officers and judges could be villains, as long as it
1680-533: Is again enlisted, this time to get an imbecile, who is accidentally in the running for Governor, elected. The candidate wins the election despite his incessant, embarrassing mishaps. Washington Merry-Go-Round portrayed the state of a political system stuck in neutral. Columbia Pictures considered releasing the film with a scene of the public execution of a politician as the climax before deciding to cut it. Cecil B. DeMille released This Day and Age in 1933, and it stands in stark contrast to his other films of
1764-591: Is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work on one particular motion picture . In its first film season, 1927–28, this award (like others such as the acting awards) was not tied to a specific film; all of the work by the nominated cinematographers during the qualifying period was listed after their names. The problem with this system became obvious the first year, since Karl Struss and Charles Rosher were nominated for their work together on Sunrise . Still, three other films shot individually by either Rosher or Struss were also listed as part of
SECTION 20
#17328550457501848-466: Is decidedly anti-capitalist; however, its preface claims otherwise: In many parts of the South today, there exists an endless dispute between rich land-owners, known as planters, and the poor cotton pickers, known as "peckerwoods". The planters supply the tenants with the simple requirements of everyday life and; in return, the tenants work the land year in and year out. A hundred volumes could be written on
1932-444: Is in a relationship with Tonia Maria, and visits her often. He loves her, but she has frequent affairs without his knowledge. Dunn and Maria meet each other and begin an affair. Dunn tells Maria that once he takes down the Cisco Kid, he will give the $ 5,000 reward to Maria, making her fall in love with him. They express their love for each other while the Cisco Kid secretly watches and listens nearby, learning of her betrayal. She writes
2016-779: Is incomplete, and Sadie Thompson (1927) is incomplete and partially reconstructed with stills. David Lean holds the record for the director with the most films that won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography at the Oscars with five wins out of six nominations for Great Expectations , The Bridge on the River Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia , Doctor Zhivago , and Ryan's Daughter . The first nominees shot primarily on digital video were The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire in 2009, with Slumdog Millionaire being
2100-477: Is inhabited by the archangel Gabriel upon being knocked unconscious. The spirit's behavior is similar to that of Abraham Lincoln . The president solves the nation's unemployment crisis and executes an Al Capone -type criminal who has continually flouted the law. Dictators were not just glorified in fiction. Columbia's Mussolini Speaks (1933) was a 76-minute paean to the fascist leader, narrated by NBC radio commentator Lowell Thomas . After showing some of
2184-401: Is to ENTERTAIN. ... This we must keep before us at all times and we must realize constantly the fatality of ever permitting our concern with social values to lead us into the realm of propaganda ... the American motion picture ... owes no civic obligation greater than the honest presentment of clean entertainment and maintains that in supplying effective entertainment, free of propaganda, we serve
2268-564: The Great Depression of the 1930s motivated studios to produce films with racy and violent content, which boosted ticket sales. Soon, the flouting of the code became an open secret. In 1931, The Hollywood Reporter mocked the code, and Variety followed suit in 1933. In the same year as the Variety article, a noted screenwriter stated that "the Hays moral code is not even a joke any more; it's just
2352-1354: The Production Code Administration . Before that date, film content was restricted more by local laws, negotiations between the Studio Relations Committee (SRC) and the major studios, and popular opinion than by strict adherence to the Hays Code, which was often ignored by Hollywood filmmakers. As a result, some films in the late 1920s and early 1930s depicted or implied sexual innuendo , romantic and sexual relationships between white and black people, mild profanity , illegal drug use , promiscuity , prostitution , infidelity , abortion , intense violence , and homosexuality . Nefarious characters were seen to profit from their deeds, in some cases without significant repercussions. For example, gangsters in films such as The Public Enemy , Little Caesar , and Scarface were seen by many as heroic rather than evil. Strong female characters were ubiquitous in such pre-Code films as Female , Baby Face or Red-Headed Woman , among many others, which featured independent, sexually liberated women. Many of Hollywood's biggest stars, such as Clark Gable , Bette Davis , James Cagney , Barbara Stanwyck , Joan Blondell , and Edward G. Robinson , got their start in
2436-672: The Victorian era was sometimes ridiculed as being naïve and backward. When the Code was announced, The Nation , a liberal periodical, attacked it. The publication stated that if crime were never presented in a sympathetic light, then, taken literally, "law" and "justice" would become the same. Therefore, events such as the Boston Tea Party could not be portrayed. And if clergy were always to be presented positively, then hypocrisy could not be examined either. The Outlook agreed. Additionally,
2520-464: The singing cowboy , as its star, Warner Baxter , does some incidental singing. Baxter went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance. Other nominations included Best Director for Irving Cummings , Best Writing for Tom Barry , Best Cinematography for Arthur Edeson , and Best Picture . The film entered the public domain on January 1, 2024 . In Arizona, a bandit known as
2604-475: The "Match King", who attempts to corner the global market on matches. William's vile character, Paul Kroll, commits robbery, fraud, and murder on his way from a janitor to a captain of industry. When the market collapses in the 1929 crash, Kroll is ruined and chooses suicide over imprisonment. William played another unscrupulous businessman in Skyscraper Souls (1932): David Dwight, a wealthy banker who owns
In Old Arizona - Misplaced Pages Continue
2688-515: The "screen Landis". In 1924, Hays introduced a set of recommendations dubbed "The Formula", which the studios were advised to heed, and asked filmmakers to describe to his office the plots of films they were planning. The Supreme Court had already decided unanimously in 1915 in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio that free speech did not extend to motion pictures, and while there had been token attempts to clean up
2772-519: The 1920s. "After two years the Jazz Age seems as far away as the days before the war", F. Scott Fitzgerald commented in 1931. In the sense noted by Fitzgerald, understanding the moral climate of the early 1930s is complex. Although films experienced an unprecedented level of freedom and dared to portray things that would be kept hidden for several decades, many in America looked upon the stock market crash as
2856-406: The Cisco Kid leaves her house, Dunn shoots Maria, believing her to be the Cisco Kid in disguise. Now farther away, the Cisco Kid laments that "[Maria's] flirting days are over, and she can finally settle down". He then makes his escape. Raoul Walsh was set to direct the film and star as the Cisco Kid , but had to abandon the project when a jackrabbit jumped through the windshield of a vehicle he
2940-439: The Cisco Kid robs a stagecoach. Word of this deed reaches to Sergeant Micky Dunn, who is tasked by his superior to bring in the Cisco Kid dead or alive, with a $ 5,000 reward promised once he succeeds. They meet in a barber shop, though Dunn is unaware of the Cisco Kid's true identity and passes him off as a friendly civilian. When he leaves, the local blacksmith tells him that was the Cisco Kid, much to Dunn's chagrin. The Cisco Kid
3024-621: The October 29, 1929, market crash) highlighted Bow's sexual attractiveness. 1920s stars such as Bow, Gloria Swanson , and Norma Talmadge freely displayed their sexuality in a straightforward fashion. The Great Depression presented a unique time for film-making in the United States. The economic disaster brought on by the stock market crash of 1929 changed American values and beliefs in various ways. Themes of American exceptionalism and traditional concepts of personal achievement, self-reliance, and
3108-483: The Pre-Code era was more incendiary than the gangster film; neither preachment yarns nor vice films so outraged the moral guardians or unnerved the city fathers as the high caliber scenarios that made screen heroes out of stone killers. In the early 1930s, several real-life criminals became celebrities. Two in particular captured the American imagination: Al Capone and John Dillinger . Gangsters like Capone had transformed
3192-458: The audience as to how to commit crime. Sadistic violence and reaction shots showing the faces of individuals on the receiving end of violence were considered especially sensitive areas. The Code later recommended against scenes showing robbery, theft, safe-cracking, arson, "the use of firearms", "dynamiting of trains, machines, and buildings" and "brutal killings", on the basis that they would be rejected by local censors. No motion picture genre of
3276-593: The audience feels sure that evil is wrong and good is right." The Code contained an addendum, commonly referred to as the Advertising Code, that regulated film advertising copy and imagery. On February 19, 1930, Variety published the entire contents of the Code. Soon the men obligated to enforce the code – Jason Joy, who was the head of the Committee until 1932, and his successor, Dr. James Wingate – would be seen as generally ineffective. The first film
3360-425: The audiences' desire for realism led to certain unsavory social, legal, and political issues being portrayed in film. The length of pre-Code films was usually comparatively short, but that running time often required tighter material and did not affect the impact of message films. Employees' Entrance (1933) received the following 1985 review from Jonathan Rosenbaum : "As an attack on ruthless capitalism, it goes
3444-399: The authority to order studios to remove material from a film in 1930, but instead worked by reasoning and sometimes pleading with them. Complicating matters, the appeals process ultimately put the responsibility for making the final decision in the hands of the studios themselves. One factor in ignoring the Code was the fact that some found such censorship prudish. This was a period in which
In Old Arizona - Misplaced Pages Continue
3528-529: The ban on homosexuality or the use of specific curse words, were never directly mentioned but were assumed to be understood without clear demarcation. Miscegenation, the mixing of the races, was forbidden. The Code stated that the notion of an "adults-only policy" would be a dubious, ineffective strategy that would be difficult to enforce. However, it did allow that "maturer minds may easily understand and accept without harm subject matter in plots which does younger people positive harm." If children were supervised and
3612-460: The breaking point. These economic circumstances led to a loss of nearly half of the weekly attendance numbers and closure of almost a third of the country's theaters in the first few years of the depression. Even so, 60 million Americans went to the cinema weekly. Apart from the economic realities of the conversion to sound, were the artistic considerations. Early sound films were often noted for being too verbose. In 1930, Carl Laemmle criticized
3696-439: The connection between mobsters and Broadway productions in movies such as Lights of New York (1928), Tenderloin (1928), and Broadway (1929). The Hays Office had never officially recommended banning violence in any form in the 1920s—unlike profanity, the drug trade or prostitution—but advised that it be handled carefully. New York's censor board was more thorough than that of any other state, missing only around 50 of
3780-502: The country's 1,000 to 1,300 annual releases. From 1927 to 1928, violent scenes removed included those in which a gun was pointed at the camera or "at or into the body of another character". Also subject to potential censorship were scenes involving machine guns, criminals shooting at law enforcement officers, stabbing or knife brandishing (audiences considered stabbings more disturbing than shootings), whippings, choking, torture and electrocution, as well as scenes perceived as instructive to
3864-410: The early 1900s, the United States was still primarily a rural country, especially in self-identity. D. W. Griffith 's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) is one of the earliest American films to feature urban organized crime. Prohibition 's arrival in 1920 created an environment in which those who wished to consume alcohol often had to consort with criminals, especially in urban areas. Nonetheless,
3948-483: The early 1930s. Complicating matters for the studios, the advent of sound film in 1927 required an immense expenditure in sound stages, recording booths, cameras, and movie-theater sound systems, not to mention the new-found artistic complications of producing in a radically altered medium. The studios were in a difficult financial position even before the market crash as the sound conversion process and some risky purchases of theater chains had pushed their finances near
4032-562: The economic realities of a country struggling to find its next meal. In Blonde Venus (1932), Marlene Dietrich 's character resorts to prostitution to feed her child, and Claudette Colbert 's character in It Happened One Night (1934) gets her comeuppance for throwing a tray of food onto the floor by later finding herself without food or financial resources. Joan Blondell 's character in Big City Blues (1932) reflects that, as
4116-450: The era. Other stars who excelled during this period, however, like Ruth Chatterton (who decamped to England) and Warren William (the so-called "king of pre-Code", who died in 1948), would be largely forgotten by the general public within a generation. Beginning in late 1933 and escalating throughout the first half of 1934, American Catholics launched a campaign against what they deemed the immorality of American cinema. This, along with
4200-399: The events implied elliptically, the code allowed what Brandeis University cultural historian Thomas Doherty called "the possibility of a cinematically inspired thought crime ". The Code sought not only to determine what could be portrayed on screen, but also to promote traditional values. Sexual relations outside of marriage could not be portrayed as attractive and beautiful, presented in
4284-490: The film's message. The Jazz Age prelude was almost singularly used to cast shame on the boisterous behavior of the 1920s. Cabin in the Cotton (1932) is a Warner Bros. message film about the evils of capitalism. The film takes place in an unspecified southern state where workers are given barely enough to survive and taken advantage of by being charged exorbitant interest rates and high prices by unscrupulous landowners. The film
SECTION 50
#17328550457504368-749: The first talkie to be filmed outdoors. It made extensive use of authentic locations, filming in Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park in Utah , and the Mission San Juan Capistrano and the Mojave Desert in California . The film premiered in Los Angeles on December 25, 1928, and went into general release on January 20, 1929. In Old Arizona contributed to creating the image of
4452-470: The first winner of this category to have also served as director on the film, for Roma . This followed a public dispute between Cuarón and the Academy over the Academy's plan to shorten the Oscars broadcast by relegating four awards, including cinematography, to the commercial breaks in the show. Cuarón objected by saying, "In the history of cinema, masterpieces have existed without sound, without color, without
4536-484: The first winner. The following year, Avatar was the first nominee and winner to be shot entirely on digital video. In 2018, Rachel Morrison became the first woman to receive a nomination. Prior to that, it had been the last non-acting Academy Award category to never nominate a woman. In January 2017, Bradford Young became the first African-American cinematographer to be nominated for an Academy Award, for his work on Arrival . In 2019, Alfonso Cuarón became
4620-439: The legal system turns innocent characters into criminals. The life of Joan Crawford 's character is ruined and her romantic interest is executed so that she may live free, although she is innocent of the crime for which the district attorney wants to convict her. Religious hypocrisy was addressed in such films as The Miracle Woman (1931), starring Barbara Stanwyck and directed by Frank Capra . Many pre-Code films dealt with
4704-570: The list, and Hays created the Studio Relations Committee (SRC) to oversee its implementation. However, there was still no way to enforce these tenets. The controversy surrounding film standards came to a head in 1929. Director Cecil B. DeMille was responsible for the increasing discussion of sex in cinema in the 1920s. Starting with Male and Female (1919), he made a series of films that examined sex and were highly successful. Films featuring Hollywood's original " It girl " Clara Bow such as The Saturday Night Kid (released four days before
4788-478: The most of the year with The Patriot ; and Best Cinematography ( Arthur Edeson ). In a ceremony where no film won more than one award, only Warner Baxter's Best Actor nomination was successful. The Academy Film Archive preserved In Old Arizona in 2004. Under the Copyright Term Extension Act , this movie entered the public domain on January 1, 2024. Pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood
4872-542: The motion picture "Czar", was paid the then-lavish sum of $ 100,000 a year (equivalent to more than $ 1.7 million in 2022 dollars). Hays had previously served as U.S. Postmaster General under president Warren G. Harding and as the head of the Republican National Committee . At the time of his hiring, he was president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA); he held
4956-577: The movies before, such as when the studios formed the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry (NAMPI) in 1916, little had come of the efforts. In 1929, Catholic layman Martin Quigley , editor of the prominent trade paper Motion Picture Herald , and Father Daniel A. Lord , a Jesuit priest, created a code of standards (of which Hays strongly approved) and submitted it to
5040-450: The nomination. In the second year, 1929, there were no nominations at all, although the Academy has a list of unofficial titles that were under consideration by the Board of Judges. In the third year, 1930, films, not cinematographers, were nominated, and the final award did not show the cinematographer's name. Finally, for the 1931 awards, the modern system in which individuals are nominated for
5124-434: The office reviewed, The Blue Angel , which was passed by Joy without revision, was considered indecent by a California censor. Although there were several instances where Joy negotiated cuts from films, and there were indeed definite, albeit loose, constraints, a significant amount of lurid material made it to the screen. Joy had to review 500 films a year using a small staff and little power. The Hays office did not have
SECTION 60
#17328550457505208-485: The overcoming of odds lost great currency. Due to the constant empty economic reassurances from politicians in the early years of the Depression, the American public developed an increasingly jaded attitude. The cynicism, challenging of traditional beliefs, and political controversy of Hollywood films during this period mirrored the attitudes of many of their patrons. Also gone was the carefree and adventurous lifestyle of
5292-413: The perception of entire cities. Capone gave Chicago its "reputation as the locus classicus of American gangsterdom, a cityscape where bullet-proof roadsters with tommygun-toting hoodlums on running boards careened around State Street spraying fusillades of slugs into flower shop windows and mowing down the competition in blood-spattered garages". Capone appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1930. He
5376-476: The period. Filmed shortly after DeMille had completed a five-month tour of the Soviet Union , This Day and Age takes place in America and features several children torturing a gangster who got away with the murder of a popular local shopkeeper. The youngsters are seen lowering the gangster into a vat of rats when the police arrive, and their response is to encourage the youths to continue this. The film ends with
5460-485: The position for 25 years and "defended the industry from attacks, recited soothing nostrums , and negotiated treaties to cease hostilities". Hollywood mimicked the decision Major League Baseball had made in hiring judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as League Commissioner the previous year to quell questions about the integrity of baseball in the wake of the 1919 World Series gambling scandal ; The New York Times called Hays
5544-536: The progress Italy has made during Mussolini 's 10-year reign, Thomas opines, "This is a time when a dictator comes in handy!" The film was viewed by over 175,000 jubilant people during its first two weeks at the cavernous Palace Theater in Albany, New York . The election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) in 1932 quelled the public affection for dictators. As the country became increasingly enthraled with FDR, who
5628-527: The rights and wrongs of both parties, but it is not the object of the producers of Cabin in the Cotton to take sides. We are only concerned with the effort to picture these conditions. In the end, however, the planters admit their wrongdoing and agree to a more equitable distribution of capital. The avaricious businessman remained a recurring character in pre-Code cinema. In The Match King (1932), Warren William played an industrialist based on real-life Swedish entrepreneur Ivar Kreuger , himself nicknamed
5712-631: The streets in protest became a prevalent sight during the Great Depression. The Bonus Army protests of World War I veterans on the capital in Washington, D.C., on which Hoover unleashed a brutal crackdown, prompted many of the Hollywood depictions. Although social issues were examined more directly in the pre-Code era, Hollywood still largely ignored the Great Depression, as many films sought to ameliorate patrons' anxieties rather than incite them. Hays remarked in 1932: The function of motion pictures
5796-565: The studios wanted to appease the German government. The ban on Jews and negative portrayals of Germany by Hitler's government even led to a significant reduction in work for Jews in Hollywood until after the end of World War II. As a result, only two social problem films released by independent film companies addressed the mania in Germany during the pre-Code era ( Are We Civilized? and Hitler's Reign of Terror ). In 1933, Herman J. Mankiewicz and producer Sam Jaffe announced they were working on
5880-498: The studios. Lord's concerns centered on the effects sound film had on children, whom he considered especially susceptible to the medium's allure. Several studio heads, including Irving Thalberg of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), met with Lord and Quigley in February 1930. After some revisions, they agreed to the stipulations of the Code. One of the main motivating factors in adopting the Code was to avoid direct government intervention. It
5964-450: The surface of American life in the Depression was the fear of the angry mob, portrayed in panicked hysteria in films such as Gabriel Over the White House (1933), The Mayor of Hell (1933), and American Madness (1932). Massive wide shots of angry hordes, comprising sometimes hundreds of men, rush into action in terrifyingly efficient uniformity. Groups of agitated men either standing in breadlines, loitering in hobo camps, or marching
6048-426: The time the film was released on March 31, 1933, FDR's election had produced a level of hopefulness in America that rendered the film's message obsolete. Adolf Hitler 's rise to power in Germany and his regime's anti-Semitic policies significantly affected American pre-Code filmmaking. Although Hitler had become unpopular in many parts of the United States, Germany was still a voluminous importer of American films and
6132-728: The urban-crime genre was mostly ignored until 1927 when Underworld , which is recognized as the first gangster movie, became a surprise hit. According to the Encyclopedia of Hollywood entry on Underworld , "The film established the fundamental elements of the gangster movie: a hoodlum hero; ominous, night-shrouded city streets; floozies; and a blazing finale in which the cops cut down the protagonist." Gangster films such as Thunderbolt (1929) and Doorway to Hell (1930) were released to capitalize on Underworld ' s popularity, with Thunderbolt being described as "a virtual remake" of Underworld . Other late-1920s crime films investigated
6216-557: The wall-to-wall banter of sound pictures, and director Ernst Lubitsch wondered what the camera was intended for if characters were going to narrate all the onscreen action. The film industry also withstood competition from the home radio, and often characters in films went to great lengths to belittle other media. The film industry was not above using the new medium to broadcast commercials for its projects however, and occasionally turned radio stars into short feature performers to take advantage of their built-in following. Seething beneath
6300-496: The youngsters taking the gangster to a local judge and forcing the magistrate to conduct a trial in which the outcome is never in doubt. The need for strong leaders who could take charge and steer America out of its crisis is seen in Gabriel Over the White House (1933), about a benevolent dictator who takes control of the United States. Walter Huston stars as a weak-willed, ineffectual president (likely modeled after Hoover) who
6384-575: Was an era in the American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines (popularly known as the Hays Code ) in 1934. Although the Hays Code was adopted in 1930, oversight was poor, and it did not become rigorously enforced until July 1, 1934, with the establishment of
6468-463: Was clear that they were the exception to the rule. The entire document contained Catholic undertones and stated that art must be handled carefully because it could be "morally evil in its effects" and because its "deep moral significance" was unquestionable. The Catholic influence on the Code was initially kept secret, owing to the Anti-Catholic bias of the time. A recurring theme was "throughout,
6552-446: Was driving; the resulting wreck cost Walsh an eye. He never acted again, but continued his successful career as a film director. The film features a theme song entitled "My Tonia" which was composed by B. G. De Sylva, Lew Brown and Ray Henderson. At the 2nd Academy Awards , the film was nominated for five awards— Outstanding Picture ; Best Director (Irving Cummings); Best Actor (Warner Baxter); Best Writing ( Tom Barry )—tied for
6636-622: Was even offered seven-figure sums by two major Hollywood studios to appear in a film, but he declined. Dillinger became a national celebrity as a bank robber who eluded arrest and escaped confinement several times. He had become the most celebrated public outlaw since Jesse James . His father appeared in a popular series of newsreels giving police homespun advice on how to catch his son. Dillinger's popularity rose so quickly that Variety joked that "if Dillinger remains at large much longer and more such interviews are obtained, there may be some petitions circulated to make him our president." Hays wrote
6720-404: Was featured in countless newsreels , it exhibited less desire for alternative forms of government. Many Hollywood films reflected this new optimism. Heroes for Sale , despite being a tremendously bleak and at times anti-American film, ends on a positive note as the New Deal appears as a sign of optimism. When Wild Boys of the Road (1933), directed by William Wellman , reaches its conclusion,
6804-573: Was repeated sarcastically by characters in several films such as Under Eighteen (1931) and 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1933). Less comical was the picture of the United States' future presented in Heroes for Sale that same year (1933), in which a hobo looks into a depressing night and proclaims, "It's the end of America". Heroes for Sale was directed by prolific pre-Code director William Wellman and featured silent film star Richard Barthelmess as
6888-473: Was the last silent film to win in this category. Hal Mohr won the only write-in Academy Award ever, in 1935 for A Midsummer Night's Dream . Mohr was also the first person to win for both black-and-white and color cinematography. No winners are lost , although some of the earliest nominees (and of the unofficial nominees of 1928–29) are lost, including The Devil Dancer (1927), The Magic Flame (1927), and 4 Devils (1928). The Right to Love (1930)
6972-423: Was the most prominent maker of these types of films and preferred they be called "Americanism stories". Pre-Code historian Thomas Doherty has written that two recurring elements marked the so-called preachment yarns. "The first is the exculpatory preface; the second is the Jazz Age prelude." The preface was essentially a softened version of a disclaimer that intended to calm any in the audience who disagreed with
7056-426: Was the responsibility of the Studio Relations Committee, headed by Colonel Jason S. Joy, to supervise film production and advise the studios when changes or cuts were required. The Code was divided into two parts. The first was a set of "general principles" that mostly concerned morality. The second was a set of "particular applications", an exacting list of items that could not be depicted. Some restrictions, such as
#749250