Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood

by Mick LaSalle

In the pre-Code Hollywood era, between 1929 and 1934, women in American cinema took lovers, had babies out of wedlock, got rid of cheating husbands, enjoyed their sexuality, led unapologetic careers, and, in general, acted the way many think women only acted after 1968.

Before then, women on screen had come in two varieties-sweet ingenue or vamp. Then two stars came Greta Garbo, who turned the femme fatale into a woman whose capacity for love and sacrifice made all other human emotions seem pale; and Norma Shearer, who succeeded in taking the ingenue to a place she'd never the bedroom. In their wake came a deluge of other complicated women-Marlene Dietrich, Jean Harlow, and Mae West, to name a few. Then, in July 1934, the draconian Production Code became the law in Hollywood and these modern women of the screen were banished, not to be seen again until the code was repealed three decades later.

A thorough survey and a tribute to these films, Complicated Women reveals how this was the true Golden Age of women's films.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, History, Media Tie In, Feminism, Biography, Womens

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Mick LaSalle is an American film critic and the author of two books on pre-code Hollywood. As of March 2008[update], he has written in excess of 1550 reviews for the San Francisco Chronicle,[1] and he has been podcasting them since September 2005.[2]

LaSalle is the author of Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood, a history/critical study of the actresses who worked in the film industry between 1929-1934. It was published by Thomas Dunne Books in 2000. In his review in The New York Times, Andy Webster called it "an overdue examination of a historic conflict between Hollywood and would-be monitors of morality" and added LaSalle "has an avuncular but informative style, and makes his points with a relaxed economy."[3]

The book served as the basis for the documentary film Complicated Women, directed by Hugh Munro Neely and narrated by Jane Fonda, which originally was broadcast by Turner Classic Movies in May 2003. LaSalle provided commentary for and served as Associate Producer of the project.[4]

LaSalle's follow-up to Complicated Women was Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man, published by Thomas Dunne in 2002.

LaSalle has lectured on film subjects at various film festivals, including those in the Hamptons, Denver, Las Vegas, and Mill Valley and at New York City's Film Forum and San Francisco's Castro Theatre. For several years he taught a film course at the University of California, Berkeley, and now[when?] teaches film courses at Stanford University.

In the late 1990s, LaSalle was the on-air film critic for KGO-TV. He is a member of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle,[5] and was a panelist at the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Venice Film Festivals. He was also a panelist at the 2009 Berlin film festival. In addition to his reviews, he answers film-related questions in the Chronicle column Ask Mick LaSalle.

Reviews

[Jill Hutchinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have you ever read a book that you couldn't decide if you liked it or didn't? That happened to me with this history of film/actresses in Pre-Code Hollywood. I have been on a bit of a binge of early film lately and am especially interested in those that were made before the Code came into being. Those were the days when women had the same freedom as men and didn't have to be punished for that freedom.

This book addresses those films and does it well, but it turns into a biography of Norma Shearer and her career. If I wanted to read about Shearer I would have read her biography. It does touch on Garbo and Joan Crawford and a few others but that's about the extent of the many fine Hollywood players that the public enjoyed during the late 20s/early 30s. The author is obviously a huge fan of Shearer and his information is interesting but too subjectively focused.

I settled for a three star rating (rounded to 3.5) since I felt that the author's information was fact based and well written but it wasn't exactly an overall look at that era. But now I'm an expert on the life of Norma Shearer!!

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've watched more pre-code movies since I read LaSalle. His writing was so convincing and his cut to Breen's jugular so adept, I was carried along and convinced, although I'm not usually so convincable. Perhaps it was because he made Breen, the Censor who ruled over Hollywoodland from 1934 on so loathesome. Also, like most Americans who consider themselves intellectual, whether that's justified or not, I am predisposed to find inanity in rigid controls and government interference in artistic portrayal. Breen wasn't government, but he might as well have been.

I'm not arguing here for censorship, however, but having seen more of the movies he extols, I find that LaSalle has misrepresented what pre-code films espoused. First, he claims that they decried the double standard. Second, he said that they showed that women could be as independent as men. Bosh!! Take The Divorcee with Norma Shearer. It is true that when her husband cheats on her she retaliates by having a one-night stand and telling him about it. She justifies this because, when she rebukes her husband for cheating, he answers "It was nothing." When she repeats these words to him, he gets angrier with her and refuses to pardon her. What is sauce for the gander is not sauce for the goose. He even alludes to his shock at her being a loose woman. Her response is to plead with him to forgive her. When he won't, she says "From now on my door will be open to any man except you."

Then she embarks on a career of doing what the worse of men do. In short, she becomes a slut. It is clear that soon she is weary of bed-hoping, and, worse, she is consumed with guilt and shame. She is no longer worthy of any decent man. Fast forward to a man who does want to marry her. Unfortunately, he is already married to a woman whom he disfigured while drunk driving. When that woman comes to our heroine's house to plead her not to take away her husband, her plea is as old as sexism: even if he doesn't love me, even if he supports me financially, without a husband, my life is nothing. Needless to say, our heroine agrees.

This movie, and several others (I bought the pre-code DVD sets) all uphold the double standard, view women only in sexual terms, and reinforce a woman's dependence on a man at all costs. It is worth noting that the divorcee does have a lucrative career and is financially independent, but that isn't enough. She has to take her husband's cheating or she is nothing.

Censorship was absurd. Breen was a hateful man. The studios were stupid for letting him police them -- and they did let him do it. However, once censorship was imposed, women were no longer viewed as sex obects. Censorship ushered in the age of the strong, independent woman. The Thin Man series, Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (with their reversal of roles in Adam's Rib, Rosalind Russell in The Front Page and a slew of other movies with strong, independent women. My good friend, Fr. Ken Gumbert believes that having to butt against the code increased ingenuity in portraying women and, most important, it took women from the realm of sex objects to characters in their own right, not as mere appendages to men.

Even if you're not a movie buff and even if you hate old movies, this book is of more than casual interest. If you start around Chapter 11 and read about Breen and censorship and his deleterious effect on American movies for decades, which eventually affected how Americans viewed women and other deviates, you'd still gain insights into American culture up to today. For those of you who do know the delights of the Studio Era, the chapters on pre-code movies and actresses are a revelation. These movies weren't just about depicting sex on screen. In fact, they didn't do that. They only depicted the prelude, like a man putting his hand on Barbara Stanwyck's thigh in Baby Face, or the after -lude, like a satiated couple in bed together. Yes, there is a lot of sex, and it is clear in that movie that she seduces her way up the social ladder. However, precode movies are a lot more than that. They clearly violate the double standard and give the message that women should have the same freedom to play that men do. If a man strays from his wife, she doesn't just take it in bravely. She throws him out and goes out and has fun herself. Then came 1934 and Joseph Breen, a Catholic who referred to the Jews who paid him as lice. Yes, the Holywood moguls let themselves in for this nonsense because the Catholic Church had frightened them with their League of Decency. The moguls, being insecure Jews who had lived through Pogroms, were petrified, not realizing that every time the Legion of Decency banned a movie, more people attended than ever. Movies are extremely influential because their larger than life imagery and closeups of faces stimulate people's emotions and feelings of bonding with the characters. The messages they send out teach people how to act and what to think. This is an important book and a good read. BTW, you can see many of these pre-code films on DVD. Many had not been available for 70 years until the electronic revolution made it profitable to put them on tape and disk.

[Rama Rao · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fascinating history of the pre-code Hollywood

This is a fascinating book that discusses the movies produced during pre code period of 1929-1934 and evaluates the impact it had on the careers of Hollywood's leading ladies. The movies of Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo are extensively discussed along with many other leading ladies and how it impacted the studios and the Hollywood culture. Shearer was a smiling subversive and her most characteristic film is the Divorcee and Riptide in which she portrays as woman of questionable morals in spite of being married. In Divorcee (1930) she has an affair with her husband's best friend after she finds out that he cheated on her. Her roles explored women's feelings about love, and sex with honesty. Greta Garbo's Mata Hari, Camille, and Two Faced woman were also similar in character and spirit. Garbo's Queen Christina explored bisexuality; that was the most daring examination of gender and sex the studio system ever produced. The author observes, despite some daring stuff and no matter how far off from the societal values, Garbo's movies had touching Christian allegories to assert divine faith that enriches the power of love and passion

Dorothy Mackaill, a hard drinking Ziegfeld Follies girl turned actress, was a strong contender of the roles of Jean Harlow in early 1930s, analyzed the effect of war on Hollywood and its portrayal women's sexual freedom as a logical change in values and none of the old taboos can affect them. Shearer began working with director Monta Bell; he shaped her career like Josef Von Sternberg did for Marlene Dietrich, and G.W. Pabst for Louise Brooks. Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Marlene Dietrich, were also in top of the pack. They were like Lindberg for speed. From New York stage, came ladies like Claudette Colbert, Barbara Stanwyck, Ann Harding, Bette Davis, and Kathryn Hepburn. Marlene Dietrich was imported from Germany by Paramount Studios as an answer to MGM's Greta Garbo.

Ruth Chatterton in the movie Female, hires young men for her firm, uses them for sexual pleasure, and then let them go. Constance Bennett played a poor girl who slept her way through to become rich in the movie, Easiest Way; she gives birth to a baby out of wedlock in Born to Love; and in Bed of Roses, she slides into the oldest profession. The most outrageous movie is the Common Law where she leaves her live in lover and becomes a nude model. Carole Lombard becomes a kept woman in Summer in the Sun to lead a luxurious life style. In Faithless, Tallulah Bankhead turns to the oldest profession when her husband becomes ill and incapable of supporting the family. All movies produced at the height of Great Depression. Ironically, some of these examples were the real life stories of the 1920's stars like Barbara La Marr and Louise Brooks who lurked into poverty. Cecil DeMill's Sign of Cross breached the boundaries of faith which annoyed the Catholic Church and Christian conservatives where in Claudette Colbert plays Nero's wife Poppeae and losses her lover to a Christian woman (Elisa Landi), and she is humiliated by pagans and aroused in a dance that contains lesbian like overtures.

In many pre-code movies women got away with murder. Most notorious example is the Ricardo Cortez. Loretta Young shoots Cortez in Midnight Glory; Kay Frances does the same in 56th Street, and poisons Cortez in Mandalay; and Dolores Del Rio stabbed Cortez in Wonder Bar. He also gets shot by Helen Twelvetrees in Bad Company and by Anita Louise in The Firebrand. Marjorie Rambeau kills blackmailer Arthur Hohl in A Man's Castle and Sally Eilers kills gigolo Ivan Lebedoff in cold blood. Ruth Chatterton kills a woman, Clair Dodd, a Broadway star for stealing her husband.

The code had significant effect on the work of many stars who built their career around uninhibited and honest portrayal of love, marriage, and womanhood. But this was not tolerated in the code era, consequently Ruth Chatterton, Constance Bennett, Miriam Hopkins, Ann Dvorak, Madge Evans, Glenda Farrell and Kay Frances faded. The code damaged stateside popularity and made Joan Blondell less important. Mae West also faded into the horizon. Ann Harding left Hollywood and triumphed on stage in London. Bernard Shaw, a caustic critique of marriage, said that Harding was the best for the role of Candida. By the end of 1942, Garbo was 36 and Shearer 40 had passed their final phase of movie business.

This book is brilliantly written and contains well researched materials. There are some rare pictures of 1930s stars, and I especially liked the pictures of Greta Garbo, Mae Clarke and Dorothy Mackaill; they are simply gorgeous.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining and informative history of women's roles in the pre-code (late 20's - early 30's) era. Warning: this book will make you want to see all of the films mentioned in it! But that's a GOOD thing.

[Collin Bost · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mick LaSalle's central thesis is the pre-Code offered the most complex portrayals of women in the classic studio era--that this was the best time for actresses, more so than the 1940s, because women were allowed to be real people and to have real fun on screen. Although this argument might be persuasive (and even true), most of this book is actually about how much LaSalle really, really likes Norma Shearer.

The book is organized around in-depth sections on Shearer and Greta Garbo. As a result, LaSalle gives short shrift to other major actresses of the pre-Code era. (For example, there's very little on Barbara Stanwyck, despite her work in essential pre-Code films, such as Baby Face and Night Nurses.) At times, he does offer some great critical insight, such as his deconstruction of Marlene Dietrich's persona, which he sees (rightly, I think) as basically ironic. Ultimately, though, LaSalle seems to present a very selective analysis/history of the pre-Code era.

The book is also frustrating because many of the films mentioned aren't readily available. Fortunately, I live in city that has great video stores. (While reading this book, I rented from Vulcan Video Born to Be Bad, with Loretta Young and Cary Grant; Midnight Mary, also with Loretta Young; Safe in Hell, with the neglected Dorothy Mackaill; and the musical Wonder Bar. Only one of these can be rented through Netflix, I believe.) Even though I'm lucky to have access to more resources than the average reader, the book kept taunting me with movies I'd never be able to see. Damn you, LaSalle! So, I guess, this book also functions as a highly frustrating list of movie recommendations.

[Bkwormmegs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It's a thorough and joyful review of the leading ladies and their films in the late twenties and early thirties before the Code was enforced in Hollywood. When you read about the actresses, their ambitions and independence, the influence they held and exercised in their work, the strength of the characters they played and the personas they inhabited - it's all startlingly modern. I came out of this book with a fresh and more favorable view of Garbo as an actress - her mystique somewhat escaped me but I understand her better now in the context of her times and what she and the other ground breaking actresses of the day were attempting to accomplish - and a long list of movies to watch. Fantastic read for any film buff!

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author is calling the five years between when talkies became the thing and the enforcement of the Production Code- 1929 to 1934. It’s a time that many don’t even know existed; they think that strong women who had sex, had out of wedlock babies, got divorced, didn’t exist until the late 60s. Two women in particular embodied the woman of the era (five years barely constitutes an era!): Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer. Now, everyone who has even a passing interest in film knows Garbo’s name, but many don’t have a clue who Shearer was. She was intensely driven and consistently strove to break barriers in film; she wore thin, close fitting costumes with no underwear, she had roles where she did the things women in real life were doing but weren’t considered ‘nice’. The fact that she was married to Irving Thalberg, boy-wonder producer at MGM helped; he gave her the green light for the movies she wanted to do.
Shearer and Garbo were the flag bearers, but they opened the way for many, many other female actors. The pre-Code era was the era of actresses: Mae West, Barbara Stanwyck, Dietrich, Loretta Young, Constance Bennett, Jean Harlow, and many more started their film careers during this era. The characters they portrayed were, as the title says, complicated women. They were women with choices, until the characters who were given the okay during Code years. During the decades of the Code, if a woman had sex outside of marriage she had to be punished- she died, got thrown in jail, lost her children, or found herself out on the streets. Women had to take whatever men dished out; they were martyrs to marriage and motherhood. If they had careers, they had to give them up or at least make them second to their duties as wives and mothers, and never have more success than their men did.
I found the book very interesting; I’ve been a fan of old movies ever since I was a kid. I knew vaguely about pre-Code movies, but didn’t realize how much was done during those five short years. The book gives both the history of the pre-Code years and the biographies of Garbo and Shearer- especially Shearer. She dominates the pages. And I can see why the author chose her as his icon of the era; while many thing of Mae West when they think about this era, her first movie wasn’t made until 1932. It was fun to read about this era but sad that the Code came into being; the movies weren’t just about sex but about women having their own lives and destinies rather than being appendages of men. They were about how women were really living their lives after the changes of the roaring 20s. They had careers, they didn’t put up with cheating husbands, they gave their opinions. The were complicated! Five stars.

[Sarah Fields · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have some disagreements with LaSalle's assessment of Pre-Codes. He makes them out to be much more progressive then they are and is a harder on the films that came after 1934 then I think is fair. I do agree that the representation of women between 1929 and 34 was more complicated, as LaSalle says. They did often subvert certain gender norms and cultural expectations, but they were also products of their time and could be just as misogynistic as any film made later. If anything, many of the films were more honest and harsh about it and subverted things like rape culture almost accidentally because in their efforts to be the most shocking or sensational they dropped the romantic filter that distorts the violence and oppression of patriarchy.

All that said, I think part of why I liked the book so much was that I disagreed in places but remained engaged in the "conversation". LaSalle's style is incredibly accessible and he knows a lot about these films. It made those places where I disagreed feel like a simulating debates and fueled my fascination. The book made me want to learn more and understand more and I think that's the best compliment I could give any piece of historical research.

This period of Hollywood history is one of its most interesting and even if you don't know a lot about these movies to begin with this book is a great place to start. Historical and thematic context can be incredibly helpful in understanding and engaging with these films if you aren't already familiar with them and there really is no better place to start than this book (other than maybe the documentary made based on the book). It is a great primer and will add depth and complexity to how you view them.

[Russell Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have long been a fan of Mick LaSalle’s movie reviews. And thus I was eager to get his book Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood when I saw it listed online recently. I was not disappointed, for this book is every bit as thoughtful and well-written as LaSalle’s reviews. “Pre-code” refers to the half-decade or so after silent films and before the film industry established rules that governed film content. During those few years, Hollywood actresses were allowed to play real women, women who were unapologetically promiscuous or were bold in their dealing with men or simply what we would refer to these days as liberated. LaSalle, while discussing many films featuring a variety of actresses, focuses on the careers of Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. The dominant thread through the book is how these two women influenced cinema at the time, how they fared after the code was established, and how they ended their days with their careers and their lives. Having not seen most of the films LaSalle analyzes, it was a bit difficult to absorb the information he imparts. I didn’t doubt it, but it might have had more impact if I had been familiar with the films. Besides examining the careers of two of Hollywood’s most treasured actresses and getting glimpses into the careers of many others, including Miriam Hopkins, Ann Dvorak, Barbara Stanwyck, and Joan Crawford, the book goes into great detail about the code that was adopted. It is made clear that the rules were made out of Catholic sensibilities and, indeed, were enforced by a rabid Catholic, Joseph Breen. The starch was taken out of women-driven plots because, with Breen’s Roman Catholic leanings, women were supposed to be punished for their sins, their husbands ruled the marriage, and all crimes, marital or otherwise, must be punished by the end of the film. Hollywood followed these rules until 1968. With the rise of the feminist movement, the rules simply no longer made sense. This is a fascinating book. It ends with an examination of “current” actresses and their films and how many of those differ so much from the pre-code films in their treatment of female characters. Unfortunately, Complicated Women is twenty years old now. It would be nice to find a follow-up article by LaSalle, if one exists, that would continue the analysis into our 21st century world.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

The preponderance of this book covers the female stars of Pre-Code Hollywood. The movies and actresses of this era reflected the new freedoms women had obtained as a result of changes in society. In the movies women were empowered and on an equal footing as men. Sex and romance combined to provide movie goers an idea of the new society. Stars like Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo exuded a sensuality that enticed men and women into the movies. Alas, reality was not to last. Anti-Semetic misogynists such as Joseph Breen, Christian fundamentalist (Roman Catholic and Protestant), and the Legion of Decency saw to it that strict moralistic 19th century propaganda was placed on the screen. Woman was subservient to man. A man could commit adultery and would always be taken back by a smiling wife. If his wife also cheated then she bore the consequences by dying. It was forbidden to portray independent women succeeding and having a good life. As a result, the Pre-Code films makers and the actresses lost their appeal as they were confined by strictures of the code. It wasn't until the last decades of the last century that the code was done away with, but the damage was done. No longer was romance and sex intertwined. Joseph Breen and his Legion of Decency has given us a 'cold-blooded and often depraved cinema that gives us sex with no humanity, feeling, or tenderness. Unfortunately, it seems there are those in this country that want us to return to the censorship which exposes their propaganda for their idea of morality.

[Mollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating subject and wonderfully written book. These actresses deserve so much more recognition that what they get. Wow.

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm very angry about this book, and the way LaSalle talks about women. Clearly this book is the product of the early 00's, but even then I can't imagine this book was considered a forward-thinking book. I've never read a book this anti-woman while being this pro female sexuality.

I've taken some serious time to ruminate on this book and digest why I am upset with it. My main reasons boil down to the condescending tone of the book, LaSalle's madonna/whore complex with Garbo and Shearer, and LaSalle's insistence that any movie post-code enforcement cannot be feminist or liberating.

The condescension isn't something you can really get around or talk about aside from that it exists, so I'm going to skip over that and move on to the other two things I hated. First off was the tendency to glorify Greta Garbo as a latter day Madonna figure, often speaking of her with overt religious references and overtones. Contrast this to his tendency to immediately before or after these rhapsodic passages, talk about Norma Shearer like she was a degenerate whore. I just--you know what? Let me copy/paste my rant via IM about this, because that captures it better than anything I can write post-finishing this crap. (Full disclosure, it also features way more swearing than my usual reviews do.)

Jennifer Lee:
He keeps completely writing off the late thirties and the entirety of the forties because they fall under the realm of the production code, so clearly there can be nothing liberating or feminist about those movies.
He continues to be condescending about actresses and their performances while at the same time fetishizing their on-screen personas.
He seems to find no value in pre-code films that stick to what I'll call the "traditional" formula for couples.
And he ascribes to the virgin/whore dichotomy but slightly twisted, where the virgin becomes a long-suffering saint and the whore becomes a "slut with a gold heart."
I am literally only continuing to read this so I can eviscerate it on goodreads.
Also, the embodiment of his slut is Norma Shearer, while he waxes rhapsodic about Garbo's suffering saint performances. It's hella icky.

Longsuffering Friend:
That book still. Ah.
Word

Jennifer Lee:
OKAY HAS THIS ASS EVEN *WATCHED* A PRE-CODE MUSICAL????????? "COMPARE FAVORABLY TO TECHNICOLOR MUSICALS FROM THE LATER DECADES" WHAT THE HELL IS THIS BASTARD EVEN ON?
HE LIKES THEM BECAUSE THERE ARE TITS.
THAT IS LITERALLY HIS REASONING.
THEY SHOW NUDITY SO THEY'RE AS GOOD AS ROGERS AND HAMMERSTIEN.
FUCK YOU, YOU LASCIVIOUS JERK.
Jerk may take some of the acid out of that last comment, there, but I couldn't think of a good enough profanity.
"DRAINED OF LIFE AND SPONTANEITY???????"
MICK LASALLE, I AM FUCKING *COMING* FOR YOU.
*Hagrid voice* DO NOT INSULT GENE KELLY IN FRONT OF ME!

Longsuffering Friend:
*gaaaaaaasp*
*the piano and crowd fall silent in every saloon in the country*

Jennifer Lee:
*grumbles about how I may not like American in Paris either, but there was no need to call it pessimistic and depressing, for Christ's sake*
Yup. I'm going to issue a personal challenge to Mick LaSalle and fight him. I may not win, me being really horrible at any kind of fighting, but I'll do my best to defend the honor of the late thirties, the forties, and the fifties. And also to get back at him for liking pre-code musicals because they have nudity.
Um, did.
Did I just read that right?
So, for the whole book he's been praising these women and these movies for the sexual freedom and their feminism, and now, when he's talking about a movie where a wife cheats on her husband and refuses to apologize, he gets all "Well, this is too much."

Longsuffering Friend:
Men. Are. Scum.

Jennifer Lee:
And I quote: "It gets worse. Next thing, she's blaming him."
The speech he quotes from to support this? The opening line he quotes is "Whatever's happened, some of it's your fault, some of it." She goes on to talk about how he's cold to her and she'd rather he never forgive her if it means she gets a man who "makes you so dizzy you don't know what's happened and you don't care!"
Oh, ouch. He just called a scene where a woman is trying to figure out who was in her bed last night "funny." Because she cringes every time a man says hello to her.
Oh, and two paragraphs later, a woman who abandons her child to feed her cocaine addiction is wrong when she says there's something missing from her soul, because according to this ass, "maybe she has a little *extra* something."
Wait, not abandons. "neglects to the point of malnourishment."
*not my impressed face*
Like, I'm not saying all women have to be bastions of wifely good humor and motherhood (obviously) but I fail to find anything particularly admirable about child abuse. Which apparently LaSalle does? Or seems to? His implication isn't that the role is daring and therefore interesting compared to films made during the code, but that it is a type of woman to aspire to be?
His whole point through this chapter is confusing and not well thought out, though, so.

Longsuffering Friend:
Hmmm

Jennifer Lee:
I really want to force Mick LaSalle to say things like, "rape is bad and I will not find it humorous when a woman flinches at men who say hello to her" and "sometimes men are the ones at fault in the breakup of a relationship and I should not try to pretend it's unreasonable for a woman to call a man out on this."

Longsuffering Friend:
Make him say it 100 times

Jennifer Lee:
"Women are not objects for me to fetishize, no matter how many movies they appeared in, or how many sheer dresses they wore."
*glares at this two-page soliloquy on how the production code forcing filmmakers to be subtle is a myth*
It's not that his points are wrong, it's just that he's making condescending blanket statements about his points.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the movies of the 1930s, and I loved reading Mick LaSalle's take on some of these films, which is the main reason that I'm giving this book a five-star rating. It's perhaps too easy to dismiss these movies as dated or corny and not give them the respect they deserve. I appreciate that LaSalle takes these films seriously.

Specifically, LaSalle addresses the Pre-Code movies, made before mid-1934 when the censorship rules became compulsory, rather than suggested. It's an interesting look at women's roles in society and how they were portrayed on the screen, with a primary focus on the films of Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo, but also covering other stars such as Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Mae West, and many more.

I've seen very little of Shearer's work; I think I've only seen her in He Who Gets Slapped and The Hollywood Revue of 1929 , two films that aren't really representative of her work. (I'll have to look for films like The Trial of Mary Dugan and The Divorcee on TCM.) I'm much more familiar with Garbo, but LaSalle has made some general observations about the characters she plays that I hadn't really picked up on, but rang true. I found that I agreed with his take on Jean Harlow, and more or less with his take on Marlene Dietrich, but he clearly seens something in Mae West that I don't. (Watching her strut through She Done Him Wrong was almost painful, but LaSalle praises her performance in that movie.)

I also liked how LaSalle contrasted some of the Pre-Code films with the ones that came shortly after the Code was introduced. We see some concrete examples of how certain subjects had to be addressed differently in 1935, for example, than they would have been shortly before. (He provided a great example with Ann Harding in 1935's The Flame Within.) LaSalle speculated that, without the Code, we might have started seeing what we know today as "R-rated" subject matter much sooner than we did. It made me wonder, how might that have changed some classic Post-Code films? Would we have seen nudity in Gone With the Wind? (There certainly wouldn't have been the controversy about Gable saying he didn't "give a damn.") Would Rick and Ilsa's relationship have been more explicit in Casablanca? And the big question: would (or could) either of those movies have been better if not for the Code? It's hard to think that that's the case.

LaSalle perhaps spent too much time near the end of the book contrasting movies of the 1930s with movies from the 1990s. The book was published in 2000, so I guess it made sense at the time, but now it just makes the book seem a little out of date. (And the book had a few too many references to Madonna!)

I found myself thinking about the subject of the book even when I wasn't actually reading it -- while riding in the car, while walking around outside -- which is another mark, to me, of a five-star book. If you're like me, and find the films of the past to be continually intriguing, this is a book you ought to consider reading.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book about the onset of censorship in Hollywood and its attack on women, mostly headed up by TADA! the religious right and the Catholic church. The same sort of evil clowns who brought you the 50's comic code. Women were advancing, progressive and permissive roles were shown on the silver screen; that had to stop.

I only remember a handful of the movies listed in this work and I'm not old enough to have seen them in theaters, but for those LaSalle's descriptions are spot on. The author is in love with his subject and the prose is a bit gushy, it would be hard to pick a few films from the list of 200 hundred to watch since many get the royal treatment. What would be great (but impossible) would be a DVD with appropriate film clips, which is something he probably does for his classes.

There is a film documentary done in 2003, might be fun to watch.

[Heather Babcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so sad because I finished reading this book yesterday evening and I really didn't want it to end! One of the blurbs for Complicated Women states that reading LaSalle's fascinating study of the women of Pre-Code Hollywood films feels a bit like having a late night phone conversation with a good friend and I agree. LaSalle's writing style is conversational, fun and sometimes poetic. Whether you are new to Pre-Code movies or already in love with them, this is the book for you. I know this will be a book that I will re-read again and again. All the stars!

Just a note: Complicated Women was written in 2000 and LaSalle has a section in the back to let readers know where they can find the movies mentioned in the book (TV, Laser Disc or video tape). Thankfully in 2022, many of these movies are now restored and available on DVD (such as the fabulous Forbidden Hollywood collection).

[Jenine Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author made what should have been a fun topic eye rollingly boring. It seemed to be entirely the author's opinion about the actresses ad nauseam. Hundreds and hundreds of movies mentioned one after the other until my eyes glazed over and then the author says the movies were cut by the sensors so it's impossible to watch them even if I cared to.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, like the sequel 'Dangerous Men'. Both of these have left me wanting to watch as many pre-code movies as possible!

[Creolecat · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent documentary based on LaSalle's book airs on TCM from time to time. Perhaps one day they'll release it on DVD.

[Ostap Bender · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I love about this book is that Mick LaSalle sees the pre-Code era of American filmmaking for what it was: an exciting period with raw, uncensored content certainly, but also one that was often quite progressive and refreshingly feminist. He is insightful in articulating the view that this era empowered female sexuality without condemning it (or dooming its characters), questioned the institution of marriage, and examined issues like abortion, physical and sexual abuse, and economic disparity, often while telling women’s stories.

The period also showed that an everyday woman could simply enjoy sex for physical pleasure. LaSalle correctly points out that one underrated pioneer in this regard was Norma Shearer, who played average young women who were unapologetic about their sexuality in films such as ‘A Free Soul’ and ‘Strangers May Kiss’ (both 1931), and thus highly dangerous. After the Production Code descended this would not be seen for decades (LaSalle gives Susan Sarandon in ‘Bull Durham’ (1988) as an example). He recognizes the Production Code for what it was – mainly an attempt to put women back in their place – and cites many examples to make the argument.

I liked how he put the period in context, and pointed out the evolution of men’s fears of women’s independence manifesting in the ‘vamp’ character, the sexually voracious woman who would suck the life out of men (e.g. sex = death) from films in the 1910’s-20’s, and decades earlier in literature. For the brief pre-Code interval (1929-34) this was lifted to the fear and consternation of conservatives - see one of the below quotes, which likens it to the downfall of civilization. After the Code was enforced, women characters such as the femme fatales in film noir who were not in traditional roles like motherhood were almost always in misogynistic situations, and again, viewers were shown that sex was perilous, and often meant death.

LaSalle’s writing style is informal and comes across as one old movie fan talking to another. This can be both good and bad, as he’s prone to making statements that are either wildly subjective or which made me wonder where he got his information, since the book had no footnotes (e.g. “most boys in the 19th century lost their virginity to prostitutes.”) He also has several groan-out-loud lines that should have been excised in the editing process, starting with him gushing over Garbo’s beauty in embarrassing ways across several paragraphs (“She was beautiful. She was really beautiful. She was really really really … Descriptions have never done her justice.” And then later “It was all in the face. Garbo’s face made her body irrelevant. Men lusted for her. Women lusted for her. But mostly from the neck up.”) Ugh. He also really phoned it in on lines like “There is no such thing as a movie so good that it could not be made a little better by Joan Blondell” and “Glenda Farrell’s name in the credits is always good news.”

My biggest criticism of the book, however, is that it has far too much focus on Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer. They dominate the book from beginning to end, when it should have been more balanced. In part that’s because of their landmark impact, but it’s also clear that a part of this is because they were very attractive to him personally. His own personal favorites always come through, and he even finds a way to work in a ‘Flashdance’ (1983) reference (which readers of his regular column in the San Francisco Chronicle will know he has a thing for). Everyone has their preferences and it’s his book after all, but I have to say, I preferred the more scholarly, detailed, and balanced approach of Doherty in his book “Pre-Code Hollywood”.

With that said, this book is a good one to read if you’re interested in the subject. It’s chock-full of little nuggets, many of which I extract below. I also liked how clear-eyed LaSalle was in assessing the interval in Hollywood that was subject to the Production Code, administered mostly by Joseph Breen, who was a political reactionary and very much an anti-Semite. He does not hold back, and as he puts it, “Breen had the power to impose his pathetically narrow vision of life, art, and morals.” It’s sad that the Code not only involved censoring new content, but also content upon its re-release – and in some cases, this resulted in footage being removed permanently.

Quotes:
On anti-Semitism, from Joseph Breen, who ended up single-handedly having the most power over content produced in America for decades:
“These lousy Jews…are simply a vile bunch of people with no respect for anything but the making of money…These Jews seem to think of nothing but money-making and sexual indulgence. The vilest kind of sin is commonplace hereabouts and the men and women who engage in this business are the men and women who decide what the film fare of the nation is to be…Ninety-five percent of these folks are Jews of Eastern European lineage. They are, probably, the scum of the earth.”

On censorship; interesting to consider in light of the far left today:
“After all, from the beginning of film, there had always been people calling for strict censorship. Sometimes they’d come from the left in the form of liberals wanting to socially engineer human behavior. This time they’d come from the right, from traditionalists wanting to enforce morality.”

And this, from Mae West:
“I resisted the type of censorship that quibbled over every line as if the devil were hiding behind each word.”

On feminism, from Dorothy Mackaill in 1930:
“The modern girl is like Lindbergh, built for speed. We have tremendous vitality of body and complete emancipation of mind. None of the old taboos…mean a damn to us. We don’t care.”

This one from Ann Harding in 1929, about her military-officer father who disowned her when she became an actress:
“He was talking from his generation. I was talking from mine, and never the twain shall meet.”

And from Norma Shearer:
“I feel that the morals of yesterday are no more. They are as dead as the day they were lived. Economic independence has put women on the same footing as a man. A discriminating man and a fastidious woman now amount to the same identical thing. There is no difference.”

On Garbo:
“Depending on one’s point of view, the bulk of Garbo’s films can be seen either as touching Christian allegories or acts of subversion that use the metaphor of Christianity to assert the divinity and soul-enriching power of erotic love. I think they’re both.”

And this one, from Don Herold, a critic in the 1930’s, which I agree with:
“Detach yourself from the Garbo spell at any point in almost any Garbo picture, slap yourself back to common sense, listen to her as you might to any woman, and you’ll realize what horsefeathers most of the Garbo technique really is. There is too much glum severity or knowing laughter (with head thrown back). It is all too thick, all too, too significant.”

On Harlow, from biographer David Stenn:
“With the cameras running for the rain barrel scene in ‘Red Dust,’ Harlow stood up, topless, and shouted, ‘Something for the boys in the lab!’”

On individuality, about Barbara Stanwyck:
“At United Artists, a producer told her that her crooked front tooth would keep her off the screen, but he had a suggestion: ‘That one crooked tooth can be removed and a false one put in,’ he told her.
‘Not if you give me the whole studio, I won’t,’ she answered. It sounds like a moment from a Stanwyck pre-Code – a snappy comeback covering deep outrage and distress, from a woman with her back to the wall and only one thing to use in her defense: her adamant sense of self.”

On old movies, the last line of which I feel intensely:
“The actresses of the pre-Code era are one particularly vital aspect of the birth of the modern era, and it’s impossible to watch them without admiration. To see them is to marvel at how things are still the same. It’s to wonder when things will change again. And it’s to do that thing that can’t be done, though movies come closest. It’s to stop time, hold the best of it in your hand.”

And his one, actually from his April 14, 2019 column in the San Francisco Chronicle:
“Clearly, people have different thresholds for what they find too offensive to enjoy, and different people have different reasons to take offense. Still, I think it would be absurd to cultivate this sensitivity. It accomplishes nothing. It doesn’t change the past, and it doesn’t make us virtuous. It just makes us, in the chronological sense, monolingual. It would be much more useful to cultivate the ability to see these movies as they were seen at the time.”

On sexuality:
“The prostitute movies of the pre-Code era are guided by a single idea. The idea is surrounded by lots of melodrama, high emotional stakes, and the clutter of plot and circumstances. The idea is disguised by all manner of disaster and misery, possibly as an intentional distraction. Still, it comes through loud and clear: In this young century, these movies tell us, goodness and chastity are no longer synonymous. Celibacy is not the same as virtue. Virginity doesn’t matter anymore. Get over it.”

And:
“A few months later, Shearer was asked if she wore a brassiere in her newest film, ‘Private Lives’ (1931). She answered that she hadn’t and she didn’t in real life, but why should that be news?”

This one from an internal memo from the Studio Relations Committee to Jason Joy about Shearer’s performance in ‘Strangers May Kiss’ (1931), where she plays a woman who goes on an erotic adventure in Europe after being dumped:
“It would be difficult to exaggerate my revulsion at this picture… The picture is a reflection of the initiatory stages of the degeneration of a people. It embodies and personifies the warped moral sense that has disintegrated every previous civilized nation.”

From Miriam Hopkins:
“When I can’t get to sleep, I don’t count sheep, I count lovers. And by the time I reach thirty-eight or thirty-nine, I’m asleep.”

And lastly this, about Kay Francis:
“She is remembered for a real-life incident, in which she showed up at a publicist’s door, drunk and naked, saying, ‘I’m not a star. I’m a woman, and I want to get fucked.’”

On Shearer:
“Like other pre-Code stars who would soon emerge, Shearer was never unwilling to show her body. In ‘The Last of Mrs. Cheyney,’ she argues and bargains and presses, half-dressed and in complete command. For her, as it would be for many actresses generations later, flimsy clothing was not a mark of vulnerability but a major weapon in her arsenal of self-assertion.”

And this one, from Clark Gable to his friends, after making ‘A Free Soul’ with Shearer:
“Damn, the dame doesn’t wear any underwear in her scenes. Is she doing that in the interests of realism or what?”

On the vamp:
“The image of the vamp embodies two fantasies, one paranoid, one romantic. The paranoid fantasy is that sex can kill you. The romantic fantasy is that it just might be worth it. But as the social climate of the twenties got more liberal, the atmosphere of danger that the vamp required for her existence had disappeared.”

[Magnus Stanke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't praise this book enough. It's the Best, together with the 'sequel' Dangerous Men!!!

Complicated Women is intelligent, highly readable, informative and perceptive in equal measure. It tells the story of the Pre-Codes (uncensored Hollywood films between 1929 and 1934) in the best possible context, with just enough examples and synopsys to makes its points without ever becoming boring or overbearing.
As I'm writing this in early 2018, the entertainment world (and not only that) is at a crossroads, shaken and stirred about the shameful abuse of power by industry men; where nearly every day the lines of demarcration are newly defined, fought over and declared 'overstepped'; when, maybe more than ever, the role of women in the movie industry is getting a timely look at.

Complicated Women takes us back to a time when film became modern, recognisable (in the 20s, as opposed to the teens when flickering images looked otherwordly, Victorian), and when, for a short while, women on screen where allowed to be just that, women, without the audience being told necessarily what to think of them. Just before the self-proclaimed guardians of moral rectitude enforced their rigid views on them, and by extention, the rest of the world.

The only, tiny shortcoming of this book, where LaSalle is slightly off, is when he talkes about contemporary Hollywood films (i.e. the 90s when he was writing/researching) because, unlike everything that went before, that part feels a little dated already.

Marvelous book. Highly recommended

[Richard Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the last few years, I've become quite enamoured with pre-Code films. That is, those films that came out roughly between the mainstream introduction of sound in 1929 and the adoption of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines (popularly known as the “Hays Code”) in 1934. In LaSalle's book, he attempts to trace the boundary-pushing films of the era through some of its biggest female stars. Names like Joan Blondell, Greta Garbo, Miriam Hopkins, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Ann Dvorak, Marlene Dietrich, Tallulah Bankhead, Claudette Colbert and LaSalle's evident favourite, Norma Shearer. Indeed, if anything detracts from LaSalle's excellent tome — an ideal companion to Mark A. Vieira’s Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood (1999) — it's that he's given Shearer an overcompensatory amount of page space to make up for her perceived slide into Hollywood's footnotes. Yet by bookending his work with a chapter on how modern stars compare to the models pre-Code women left behind, including Shearer, LaSalle makes the most compelling argument of all: "As time goes on, and the distance stretches between the Code's end (in 1968) and the present, it becomes obvious and undeniable that the pre-Code era was not some perverse five-year anomaly. The anomaly was the three decades that followed it." More to the point, LaSalle shows that the Code wasn't just anti-sex or anti-violence, but it was consciously anti-women as well.

[Alexandra Freire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sin duda alguna, aunque la edición deja mucho que desear, el texto es un tesoro invaluable.
Norma Shearer sin duda alguna se ha vuelto en estos últimos años una de mis actrices favoritas del viejo Hollywood, en conjunto con Hedy Lamarr y Sylvia Sidney.
Lastimosamente esta última ni siquiera se menciona en el libro, lo cual es una terrible pena ya que formó parte de aquella bella y sensual época precode.
Este libro es un himno a Shearer, quien fue hace mucho tiempo atrás, una de las más grandes actrices del viejo Hollywood, y que lastimosamente el tiempo fue olvidando; y que si no hubiese sido por investigadores y escritores como LaSalle o Viera, permanecería desconocida y en la oscuridad probablemente para siempre.
El carisma, la sofisticación y la belleza de esta mujer, son incomparables, y me cautivo ante cada una de sus películas, y es que, ¿quién no se emocionaría con una mujer que desafía las convenciones sociales?, quien habla y piensa su mente y hace con los hombres lo que quiere...
En fin, otra joyita para todo amante del Precode Hollywood.
P.D. Sin ganas de entrar en conflicto, la verdad no me agradan mucho Crawford, ni mucho menos Dietricht o Garbo, quienes para ser sinceros, aun me confundo entre las dos últimas.

[Blueglass · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really excited to read this book since I love watching Pre-Code films. However, I had not realized that this book was mainly focused on Norma Schearer and Greta Garbo, with just a glancing over of all the other fine actresses of the era. Also, it was repetitive at times and could have used more editing. The last chapter about "current" actresses being compared to Pre-Code actresses could have been scrapped. It added nothing to the topic. I found the way the author wrote to be distracting. It was too conversational in tone and too opinionated. However, I did find some important nuggets of information, like essential movies to watch. I will be on the look out for those!

[Hilarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating subject. Definitely got me wanting to see more Norma Shearer movies. There is also some hints at some largely overlooked aspects of women's lives and feminism in the late 20's and early 30's. It's not a bad overview, but it lacks depth. The book is 20 years old and starting to show it's age....particularly with some of LaSalle's descriptions of the actresses he clearly has the hots for....that gets a bit icky.

[Kevin Cannell]

An enjoyable read, written in a conversational style. LaSalle has clearly seen the films and done his research. It mostly covers the period from 1929 to 1934, touching on other people, but predominantly looking at the work of Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo.

If you're looking for something more wide ranging or about other actresses, then it probably isn't the right book for you. But as an overview of the era it's a very good choice.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were wonderful excerpts about women, sexual politics and the movies throughout the book. It provided interesting insights. However, there were moments where I felt like LaSalle became almost venomous in his opinions. In spite of the bombastic nature of some sections, I would study this book again.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this and now want to search out and watch many of the movies referenced. LaSalle's prose is a bit hyperbolic, but without having seen many of these movies I can't comment on his descriptions one way or the other. It's enough to say that his descriptions of these actresses and the movies they made from 1929-1934 makes me want to see them and judge for myself.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was essentially a 300 page argument about why you should try to find Norma Shearer’s per-code films, and it’s convincing enough that I’ll probably go to Glebe Video on my next day off and do just that

[L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable book on women in pre-code films, but the last two chapters bogged down with the author’s lame attempts at tying in current actresses. It was disturbing to discover that not only was Joseph Breen who ran the Production Code a moralistic twit, he was a rabid anti-Semite.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is what has best established my understanding of women's relationship to storytelling in the first generation of Hollywood. It gives a holistic picture of what society was craving and what was feared across the board when it came to how a woman could or might be in the world.