Synopsis
Turner Classic Movies and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment present Columbia Pictures Pre-Code Collection; five films in which the working class heroines have more to overcome than just dubious occupations or notorious reputations. Made before the Motion Picture Production Code was rigidly enforced in July of 1934, these films traffic in subject matter that would soon become taboo on the screen and be banned or removed by the censors, such as premarital sex, prostitution, infidelity, suicide and criminal activities. Presented for the first time on DVD, these five films have been fully restored and re-mastered and offer a fascinating glimpse of Depression era social mores during the early sound era in Hollywood. (Arizona, 1931) Not to be confused with the 1940 Western of the same name, features John Wayne as a West Point football star who enlists in the army only to discover that his commanding officer is now married to his former mistress (Laura La Plante), a woman bent on revenge after Wayne jilted her. (Ten Cents A Dance, 1931) Barbara Stanwyck plays a taxi dancer trying to rise above her low station in life, but her no-good gambler husband keeps dragging her down with his debts and unlawful activities. (Virtue, 1932) Featuring Pat O'Brien as an honest, hard working cab driver and Carole Lombard as Mae, a prostitute he mistakes for an unemployed stenographer. After they get married, Mae's past comes back to haunt her when a duplicitous acquaintance plunges her into a financial crisis that she tries to hide from her husband. (Three Wise Girls, 1932) Showcasing Jean Harlow, prior to her successful MGM career, as an innocent small-town girl who trades her soda fountain job for a modeling job in New York City, and the complications and dangers that come with it. (Shopworn, 1932) A class-conscious melodrama in which a waitress (Barbara Stanwyck) falls in love with a wealthy college student (Regis Toomey) but his mother resorts to devious means to end the relationship.