"Pre-code" Blogs & Blog Posts

The story: Millie (Helen Twelvetrees) marries young and has a child, but the union ends and she slips into a dissolute, single life. Years later, she fights to save her daughter from predatory older men. A dark and unusually complete portrait of one...

The story: A rich, spoiled woman (Dorothy Mackail) makes it her business to marry an ambitious, blue collar worker (Joel McCrea), employed by her father, who refuses to take charity.The first few scenes are unaccountably dull, as if lifted direct fro...

The story: Murder is committed backstage during a music review, and a grumpy detective (Victor McLaglen) begins an investigation while the show goes on.A lot of Pre-code movies survive by virtue of their intriguing moral stance - chiefly (usually) th...

The story: When Broadway street seller Apple Annie (May Robson) discovers that her daughter is coming to visit, her fellow ne'er do wells - led by Dave The Dude (Warren William) - band round to make the fiction of her socialite existence a reality.Fr...

The story: A man (Leslie Howard) gives up his dream of being an artist and trains to be a doctor, but falls in love with a waitress Bette Davis) who derails his life.Structure is a great thing in movies, even if it's the kind of structure that you do...

The story: An innocent couple come under the protection of an honourable criminal mastermind (Lowell Sherman).Lowell Sherman can be a magnificent presence on screen, and he directs himself accordingly in this solidly-plotted B-movie character study.

The story: A New York gadabout (Norma Shearer) falls for an English lord (Herbert Marshall) and marries him, but never quite leaves her drunken old flame (Robert Montgomery) behind.Out of all the Pre-codes I've watched, this is one of the finest. Tha...