Pre Code Hollywood Quotes

“World War I was the final straw. Youth turned on their elders for making a hash of the world. Older men’s values had produced a cataclysm, and young men had paid with their lives. “The older generation has certainly pretty well ruined this world before passing it on to us,” wrote a young man in the Atlantic Monthly of September 1920, expressing the prevailing sentiment. How could the younger generation, the idea went, possibly do any worse?”
― Mick LaSalle, Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man

“Before the Code, romance and sex were intertwined. It was the Code that wrenched them apart, and the divorce remains in effect today. A cold-blooded and often depraved cinema that gives us sex with no humanity, feeling, or tenderness is Joseph Breen’s most fitting legacy.”
― Mick LaSalle, Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood

“Under the Code, actresses lost their edge, their ability to surprise. As one studio executive grumbled, “The leading lady must start out good, stay good, and be whitewashed for the finish.” Consigned by censorship to a fantasy land of purity, they lost their social relevance. After all, what is the point of a Kay Francis movie in which Kay Francis is less sophisticated than the viewer?”
― Mick LaSalle, Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood