So fun and free.
This is the film I show my students, when I want them to understand the code, and how films could be before it.
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
to rock my soul
Be sure to show Red Headed Woman & Baby Face, too!
shareI recently saw this for the first time and loved it! This is fast becoming one of my favourite pre-codes too.
Go to bed Frank or this is going to get ugly .
I saw this in 1974, when a local So. Cal. pbs station played these old masterpieces every night at 7:30. I hadn't seen this before as it did not fit into the festivals and regulat showings of movies on TV then--Marx Bros, W.C. Fields, Ma & Pa Kettle, Fred Astaire, Albert and Costello, Horror ("Chiller") and Detective movies late at night. These sophisticated gems with their black and white graininess did not fit into the "Early Show" "Late Show, and "Late Late Show" movies, film festivals and necessary G ratings, and weren't the subject matter of the weekend movie shows the commercial stations aired.
I have remembered this ever since! I found it by date and subject matter, so I knew the title, but had not seen it since then. I'm so grateful for TCM playing these great movies. Showing us that people were intelligent, lustful, well-rounded beings before censorship turned them into one-dimensional creatures that limited everything they said and did in case children or fuddy duddies were watching them, unless of course they wished to be violent criminals.....that was permissible.
I love how so much is left for us to read into the scenes, too...the dialogue ends and you think you know what happens as the picture fades--but to another, maybe it did not happen...? The sexuality is off screen and in our minds. I remembered this as a very shocking movie (compared to how I thought people behaved then)--but the things really were not on the screen explicitly. That tickles me. Much more difficult to achieve than just filming a sex scene. Such a modern and smart film, for 1933 and now.
cyninbend-149-610489 says > I love how so much is left for us to read into the scenes, too...the dialogue ends and you think you know what happens as the picture fades--but to another, maybe it did not happen...? The sexuality is off screen and in our minds.I'm with you. I love the way the story is told in a humorous, entertaining way. It can be enjoyed solely on that level but along with that there are many subtleties going on that are clear but only to those who are old enough to understand them. This is what I love about the old movies made during those times; both pre-code and after the code went into full effect.