#pre code actresses

[secretceremonies]

Facial studies for Mae West and Greta Garbo

[silentdivasblog]

Lady of The Day 🌹 Esther Ralston ❤️

[peggy-elise]

Joan Blondell and Bette Davis for Three On A Match 1932 💋

[bitter69uk]

“This is a woman who is fine with transactional sex even if she rolls her eyes at some of the men after her, and this is partly because Lady Lou (West’s character in She Done Him Wrong (1933)) loves sex so much that even bad sex with a seemingly unattractive man excites her. It is this above all that makes West still seem as dangerous as she ever was, and as threatening to conventional morals … Some of her older screen men are physically repulsive, yet she seems to respond to their sleaziness just as enthusiastically as she responds to the pretty boy looks of Cary Grant and Gilbert Roland … West is a born outlaw, a queen of the underworld who knows that two and two are four but five will get you 10 if you know how to work it.” / From the essay “Mae West: Pleasure Woman” by Dan Callahan in Bright Lights Film Journal, 2022 / Remembering cinema’s incomparable and risqué High Empress of Sex Mae West (17 August 1893 - 22 November 1980) on the anniversary of her death. As film historian Ken Wlaschin concludes, “She could be considered the Lenny Bruce of the 30s, daring to talk about the unmentionable.” Pictured: portrait of West in 1935.  

[001410]

Gloria Stuart in The Old Dark House (1932)

[fleetingprose]

Jobyna Ralston ✨🪡💋 I so adore her <3

*not my gif. found on pinterest. whoever made it originally i love you x*

[evercodine]

The Cat and the Canary (1927)

[scenephile]

Are you letting me go?

[justbusterkeaton]

Buster Keaton and Sally Eliers in Doughboys 1930

[secretceremonies]

Movie mirror

[silentdivasblog]

Lady of The Day 🌹 Carole Lombard ❤️

[peggy-elise]

Carole Lombard and Clark Gable in No Man of Her Own 1932 ⭐️

[oskarlevant]

[ohfiddlefrancesdee]

Scene from “King of the Jungle” 1933 with Frances Dee and Buster Crabbe

[billiethetween]

Watched Call Her Savage (1932) in discord last night. Someone pointed out that it's like an embryonic version of the female manipulator/femcel/whatever we're calling it now movie. TBF that's most pre-code movies, but it's an accurate assessment of the vibe.

The premise is unapologetically racist in the way only a movie made before WWII can be, and that's been thoroughly unpacked by people much more qualified than I many times. But I will say that it complicates that racist premise so much that I have difficulty dismissing it entirely. The white society that Nasa spends the majority of the film trying to fit into is just so awful. "Society" is presented as being ruled by white men who I can only describe as unrepentantly psychotic and dare I say "savage." While one should point out that Nasa's biological father and childhood love are both walking, talking noble savage stereotypes who barely are in the film this also further complicates the premise because Nasa's rage, arrogance, stubbornness, and hedonism clearly come from her grandfather, her white father, and deeply fucked society she was raised in. By the time the movie ends and she embraces her identity as "half-breed" it seems more like a rescue than an acceptance of one's place. I can't really apologize for the movie's obvious problems, but it is an interesting window into how people tried to tell stories about these things when racism and misogyny were considered inevitable and unquestionable by most.

There's A LOT in this movie: racism, murder, rape, child death, an old timey drag show. And Clara Bow sells all of it so well you'll be upset she wasn't able to make more movies like this. Just as a rare showcase of her range with real production values it's worth a watch. Maybe you'll even find it as interesting as I do

Screen caps taken from pre-code.com

[bitter69uk]

“Jean Harlow was the first screen tramp to become a heroine, and her raw sexuality made her the sex symbol of the 30s, very much in the way Marilyn Monroe became the sex symbol of modern cinema. Harlow’s screen persona was very different from Monroe’s, however; she wasn’t vulnerable but impudent, tough, wisecracking, slatternly and sexually voracious … She wore clinging satin dresses without a bra, became known as the Platinum Blonde and obviously was just as keen on sex as men were. On top of all that she was a fine comedienne and is just as enjoyable to watch today as she was in the 30s.”

/ From The Illustrated Encyclopedia of The World’s Great Movie Stars by Ken Wlaschin, 1979 /

“She was the successor to Clara Bow and a kind of bridge to Marilyn Monroe, and she was more good fun than both of them combined …. there is no part of sex or the sexual instinct that Harlow doesn’t openly enjoy on screen, and that’s what made her such a radical presence in the early 1930s, and that sexual radicalism hasn’t dated … She harnessed all of her sexual energy and put it on screen without any inhibitions, and it still makes for a hackle-raising spectacle.”

/ From “Jean Harlow: Bombshell”, a lyrical analysis by by Dan Callahan for The Chiseler /

Born on this day 114 years ago: Depression-era platinum blonde sex goddess Jean Harlow (née Harlean Carpenter, 3 March 1911 – 7 June 1937). Tough to pick, but I think my favourite Harlow performance is in outrageous pre-Code comedy Red-Headed Woman (1932). Pictured: portrait of Harlow in the December 1934 edition of Modern Screen magazine.

Modern Screen, December 1934