Forbidden Hollywood Collection – Volume Two (The
Divorcee/A Free Soul/The Night Nurse/Three On A Match/Female;
Warner Bros. DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C Extras: B- Film: B-
Though
there is some debate about what exactly the Pre-Code era was, it certainly was
racier and more explicit about greed, sex and murder than films under it until
Hollywood’s filmmaking codes kicked into effect. Though some smaller companies have issued the
best prints they could find of such films, some of those releases are in print,
others not. Warner Bros. continues to
issue such films from their holdings (including old MGM from their Turner
acquisition) and have now issued a second, richer volume of such films from
what we hope will be a long running series called The Forbidden Hollywood Collection.
This
time, we get the following films:
The Divorcée (1930) Norma Shearer’s film began
the studio’s blatant challenge against the ideas of the codes and any
government control telling them how to run their studios. It also offers a great performance by Shearer
and was a big hit for her and MGM in its time.
Chester Morris and Robert Montgomery also star in this scorcher about
female sexuality and the freedom to exercise it.
A Free Soul (1931) brings back Shearer and
has her opposite Leslie Howard, Lionel Barrymore and a less-known Clark Gable
as a gangster she falls for, no mater how bad he is or how bad she’ll get. Both are MGM and are the only films from that
studio here, on DVD 1.
The Night Nurse (1931) has DVD 3 to itself with
Joan Blondell and Barbara Stanwyck as nurses and she has to protect a baby from
no less than Clark Gable playing bad again.
Another solid William Wellman film.
Three On A Match (1932) has Blondell, Bette Davis
and the underrated Ann Dvorak as childhood friends who meet again as adults
when the crisis of a kidnapped child kicks in and Dvorak is caught in the
middle of the drama. A great early
triumph for all the leads, they have great chemistry and Mervyn LeRoy delivers
one of his richer films.
Female (1933) is directed by no less
than Michael Curtiz and has Ruth Chatterson as a corporate CEO who feels she
can go a few rounds with any man, but can she find a man for herself she cannot
simply run over? George Brent and Johnny
Mack Brown also star in this gem that you would not likely see made today with
this kind of serious tone.
The first
two MGM films look better than the last three Warner films, but part of that is
because MGM’s grittiest films still had their sense of gloss and Warner thrived
on grittiness that was all their own.
Fortunately, Turner took carte of these films early and the 1.33 X 1
image on all five films has fine Video Black, detail for the respective age of
the films and look better than similar releases from indie DVD labels. The Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono on all five can be
trying and some cleaning up could be applied for the eventual Blu-ray releases,
but playback on all is impressive.
Extras include trailers for Night Nurse, Three On A
Match & Female, Jeffrey
Vance/Tony Moietta commentary tracks on Night
Nurse & Divorcée and the terrific Pre-Code documentary Thou
Shall Not: Sex, Sin & Censorship in The Pre-Code Era; a must-see
for any serious film fan.
- Nicholas Sheffo
