Naughty, Bawdy And Gawdy At Film Forum

The Film Forum, downtown Manhattan’s most eclectic and adventurous arthouse cinema complex, has created an interesting tradition of late. In the heat of summer, its resident repertory film programmer Bruce Goldstein has unearthed nasty nuggets from Hollywood’s early days and has built up a cult following for these “pre-code prizes”. Starting July 15 through mid August, Goldstein is presenting ESSENTIAL PRE-CODE, a four-week, 50 film festival of racy Hollywood movies from the early 1930s, all made before the enforcement of the industry’s strict, self-censoring Production Code. The films are astonishingly frank and adult, even by today’s standards. The coming of sound and the Depression brought to Hollywood a new honesty, and a fascination with sex, crime and brash city life. Their nudity, loose sex, illegal booze, drug addicts and gangsters outraged outside pressure groups (like the Catholic Church’s Legion of Decency) and led to the industry’s self-censoring Code. However, for a glorious few years, films could be more naughty then nice and this series is one of the Film Forum’s most crowd-pleasing events. For more information on the films in the series, visit: www.filmforum.org

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