Complicated Women

This film is a wonderful introduction to the women of the so-called "Pre-Code" movies--movies that were made through about the middle of 1935. They were called "Pre-Code" in that they were made before the rigid Production Code was enforced and the films abounded with sexuality, violence and topics of questionable taste for the time. This documentary focuses not on this overall topic, but specifically on women of the films and their smoldering sexuality. Because of this it is NOT indicative of the general topic of Pre-Code films but on a narrow aspect of the movies.

The documentary is great because I was shocked how well-preserved some of these old leading ladies were and listening to their stories about the era was extremely fascinating. I also liked all the old clips, though I felt that many times important films were omitted from discussion or clips. For example, while the very tawdry nude swimming scene from TARZAN AND HIS MATE was mentioned and shown several times (a very spicy scene even by today's standards), very little mention was made of equally famous films with similar content, such as THE BARBARIAN and THE SIGN OF THE CROSS--the two bathing scenes in these films are amazing for the early 1930s. Also, the film seemed to indicate that the Pre-Code era was from the beginning of talkies until 1934, whereas there were MANY films in the silent era that featured copious amounts of nudity or sexually liberated females. Both these quibbles, though, are very minor, as only to film nuts like me will even notice or care!

Complicated Women is the documentary companion to Mick LaSalle's book about women in the pre-code era. The time from the first talkies through to the enforcement of the Production Code is known as the pre-code era, a great time for movie making. Subjects ranging from marital infidelity, prostitution, abortion, nudity, drug use, and other shocking subjects littered films. The public either loved them or hated them, and thanks to groups like the Catholic Legion of Decency, these subjects were censored. However, this documentary praises these films for their modernity and shows clips from films like The Divorcée, Queen Christina, Downstairs, Torch Singer, Mary Stevens MD, The Smiling Lieutenant, Men in White, Female, A Free Soul, Baby Face, Midnight Mary, The Story of Temple Drake, Red Dust, Faithless, Grand Hotel, Gold Diggers of 1933, Ladies They Talk About, I'm No Angel, Tarzan and His Mate, and more.

The only problem with this documentary is that it skips around a lot. There are headers for each section, but they all begin to blend together.

The film incorporates interviews with many great sources like Mick LaSalle, Molly Haskell, Mark Viera, and several actresses of the era.

I thought the Mick LaSalle character was great, he really brought out the Italian American in him.

The thing that's good about this documentary is it really brings out that the current puritanism in America is a modern phenomenon. Pre-code, nudity was OK and there weren't any self-appointed moral watch dogs complaining about the contents. If you didn't want to watch something spicy, you didn't go see that movie.

Mick LaSalle is an excellent film reviewer who really knows his stuff (is that enough suck up?).

Cheers, Neil.

Terrific little documentary on pre-code movies, and more specifically the role of women in them, but this subject cannot be done justice to in a mere 55 minutes (it's too short). One omission I noticed: Clara Bow. Ironically, the most telling moment of the entire program may be a scene from a POST-Code film at the very end! *** out of 4.

I almost feel guilty giving this the low score that I did, as, for what it is, it's excellent. Had it been part of a three-parter that expanded onto the (studio and real world) politics and society more at the time in question, and then even delved into the reversion of the code decades later, I'd have been deliriously happy, but alas all I got was the clip show part.

As such, it's great. First hand reports from the people who were there - the Complicated Women themselves - makes this a particularly insightful documentary. Mick LeSalle is a great writer with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the field (and also the single film reviewer I pay the most attention to, he sees through the fog when others can't), and if you're not familiar with the pre-Code movies you should hopefully find it a very interesting eye-opener...

... an eye-opener which will make you say "how did things go so wrong?", and then wish for the other two parts of the documentary :/