Columbia Pictures Pre-Code Collection (DVD)

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.

Starring: John Wayne, Jean Harlow, Barbara Stanwyck, Carole Lombard, Laura La Plante, Ricardo Cortez, Regis Toomey, Mae Clarke, Pat O'Brien, Walter Byron, Ward Bond, Monroe Owsley, ZaSu Pitts, June Clyde, Shirley Grey, Forrest Stanley, Marie Prevost, Sally Blane, Lucien Littlefield, Andy Devine, Clara Blandick, Mayo Methot, Blanche Friderici, Nena Quartaro, Martha Sleeper, Robert Alden, Natalie Moorhead, Willard Robertson, Susan Fleming, David Newell, Oscar Apfel, Lew Kelly, Jameson Thomas, Loretta Sayers, Lucy Beaumont, Hugh Cummings, Victor Potel, Maude Turner Gordon, Fred Santley, Albert Conti, Sidney Bracey, Katherine Clare Ward, Arthur Wanzer, Abe Lyman and His Band, James Durkin, Robert Dudley, Jessie Arnold, Aggie Herring, Edwin Stanley, Wallis Clarke, Marcia Harris, Harry Todd, Edwin Maxwell, Walter Miller, Jack La Rue, Armand Kaliz, Ed Le Saint, Peggy Doner, Phyllis Crane, Olive Tell, Al Hill, Jack Byron, Pat Harmon

Rating: NR