Tracey K -- Of course you're in on time. I haven't noticed that about Garbo and Dietrich getting away with more after the Code. I'm not all that sure they did. Dietrich's PRE-CODE movies are pretty risque, while Garbo's aren't particularly, with the exception of QUEEN CHRISTINA. But after the Code b...

Moira -- No books scheduled, unfortunately. I'm always working on something, but whether they find their way into print is anybody's guess. Yep -- did mention MIDNIGHT MARY. She was very happy with the movie. She and Wellman were being punished by their studios for some reason, and forced to make th...

Dawtrina -- No, no more pre-Code discoveries, with the exception, I guess, of Ann Harding in DOUBLE HARNESS, which just became available last year. I say "I guess" because I'd seen a 1000 generation video of it before, but it was so bad it didn't quite register. If there are any discoverie...

Recent discoveries? Contemporary French cinema. That's where all the great women's films are being made today.

Island of Lost Souls, like Frankenstein, posits a mechanistic universe, in which human beings are essentially revealed as to not having souls. This is heavy stuff and would have been considered too unseemly to be made at all under the Code. You can take it to the bank that two years later that movie...

Gentree -- Hard to say which pushed the limits further. The very last pre-Code, THE SCARLET EMPRESS, has full frontal nudity (though it goes by quickly) and a story all about a woman seducing an entire army, so that would be as good a candidate as any. Jondaris -- The studios were more important tha...

Sue Sue -- DESIGN FOR LIVING didn't really chang perception of Miriam Hopkins. She was already an established star when she made it. And I like Ben Hecht's script better than Noel Coward's play -- it's a lot less subtle in some ways. Dawtrina -- The best 100 sounds like a good idea. I might do that ...

Moira -- LADY OF THE NIGHT has been on TCM. There's a new soundtrack and everything. It's great. Bell switched to producing, mainly. He ran the Astoria studio for Paramount and I believe he may have directed Jeanne Eagels in one of her late vehicles. His talkies weren't distinguished, with the excep...

Hays was just a front man, and his goal was to spare Hollywood from censorship. Joseph Breen was the viper who walked for Hays as a publicity man but who, at the same time, tried to drum up anti-Hollywood resentment in order to get the production code enforced. All the pre-Codes happened under Hays'...

Jondaris -- about the two books. The way I see it, COMPLICATED WOMEN is a book of advocacy, while DANGEROUS MEN is a book of criticism. I like both books for different reasons. Basically, CW is a book about pre-Code women, while DM is about the entire pre-Code era except for the women's movies, so D...

TEMPLE DRAKE is definitely a recommendation, twisted, sick and fun, but it's hard to find. Paramounts aren't easy to come by. I used to hope Ted Turner would buy Paramount. BOGIE -- No one film or couple of films brought on the Production Code (the phrase "Hays Code" is kind of a misnomer,...

Ok, lots of questions to get to. Pardon me if the answers end up seeming abrupt. That's not how I want to sound or how I feel as I write them. Feaito. TCM does have the complete version of MERRY WIDOW, and I hope when Criterion releases its Lubitsch set in February they use the correct full version....

I go into the Gilbert thing in more detail in DANGEROUS MEN. It's endlessly fascinating, and the scene in HIS GLORIOUS NIGHT is classic cinema's equivalent of the Zapruder film. Horrible, but you keep looking, trying to figure it out.

OK, whipping through your questions . . . Sorry to Klondike -- no relations in Washington State (do hope you get your money back) and no idea about Mitchum and Gardner. I didn't know there were rumors Lzcutter -- about CONVENTION CITY. My friend, Mark Vieira, read the screenplay, and says it looks t...

Good morning everybody (or afternoon if you're on the East Coast). I've never worked with emoticons before :lol: so this is very :P and makes me feel positively :lol: :o and :shock: . And now that I got that out of my system, let me go through your questions. I'll take the easy one first. Alas, I ha...