Suggestions for a good pre-Code (30's) movie?

A Free Soul
Baby Face
Blonde Crazy
Bombshell
City Streets
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Five Star Final
Flesh
Hell's Highway
Hold Your Man
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
I'm No Angel
The Island of Lost Souls
Lady Killer
Morocco
Night Nurse
Platinum Blood
Red Dust
Safe In Hell
Taxi!
The Beast of the City
The Champ
The Criminal Code
The Maltese Falcon
The Most Dangerous Game
Trouble in Paradise
Wild Boys of the Road



I think that's the kinda stuff you're looking for. There's others movies like Marx Brothers, Monster flicks, Gangster flicks, Musicals and Foreign. But that should get you started for now.

Remember many of the pre code movies were darkened in places to hide the see through cloths wore by some actresses in those movies. So you have to get a copy of the movie that was lightened back to post code copies.

What we call the pre code starts in the late silent era, in the early 1920's, before sound pictures.

Themes of these movies included: sexual innuendo, miscegenation, profanity, illegal drug use, promiscuity, prostitution, infidelity, abortion, intense violence, and homosexuality.

And as I posted before some actresses wore see through clothing at some point in the movie.

The last of the pre codes are shot in 1933, as the code was adopted in 1930 and it took the Catholic church to get it fully enforced by 1934 production schedules.

The Code:

1.No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.
2.Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
3.Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

Specific restrictions were spelled out as "Particular Applications" of these principles:

Nudity and suggestive dances were prohibited.
The ridicule of religion was forbidden, and ministers of religion were not to be represented as comic characters or villains.
The depiction of illegal drug use was forbidden, as well as the use of liquor, "when not required by the plot or for proper characterization."
Methods of crime (e.g. safe-cracking, arson, smuggling) were not to be explicitly presented.
References to alleged "sex perversion" (such as homosexuality) and venereal disease were forbidden, as were depictions of childbirth.
The language section banned various words and phrases that were considered to be offensive.
Murder scenes had to be filmed in a way that would discourage imitations in real life, and brutal killings could not be shown in detail.
"Revenge in modern times" was not to be justified.
The sanctity of marriage and the home had to be upheld.
"Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing."
Adultery and illicit sex, although recognized as sometimes necessary to the plot, could not be explicit or justified and were not supposed to be presented as an attractive option.
Portrayals of miscegenation were forbidden.
"Scenes of Passion" were not to be introduced when not essential to the plot.
"Excessive and lustful kissing" was to be avoided, along with any other treatment that might "stimulate the lower and baser element."
The flag of the United States was to be treated respectfully, and the people and history of other nations were to be presented "fairly."
"Vulgarity", defined as "low, disgusting, unpleasant, though not necessarily evil, subjects" must be "subject to the dictates of good taste."
Capital punishment, "third-degree methods", cruelty to children and animals, prostitution and surgical operations were to be handled with similar sensitivity.