Talking horror films and ‘Pre-Code Essentials’ with co-author Danny Reid
Mention a film made any time from 1930 to 1934 to classic movie fans and see how fast someone practically yells “pre-Code!” The term refers to movies made between 1930-34 when the Motion Picture Production Code was adopted and it conjures images that are sexual, sinful and racy, but also violent and exploitative. It’s not difficult to see why they are such fan favorites.
But being a “stick-in-the-mud,” I felt that while pre-Code defined a time period, not all films made in those years fit the criteria since they weren’t all sexual, sinful and racy. So I admit to always rolling my eyes when a mention of Universal’s 1931 Dracula on social media would find many people dubbing it “pre-Code!” without any context. But it made me wonder what horror’s role was in pre-Code cinema.
I’ve found that answer through the entertaining and engaging new book Pre-Code Essentials: Must-See Cinema from Hollywood’s Untamed Era 1930-1934 (Running Press and Turner Classic Movies). Authors Kim Luperi and Danny Reid, the creators of pre-code.com, write about 50 movies from this era, touching on a variety of films from Tarzan and His Mate to The Public Enemy, Baby Face, Three on a Match and even the comedy Duck Soup.
Clearly my view of pre-Code was narrower than the reality, although Luperi and Reid say they don’t base pre-Code only on the dates, but they define it as a “spirit or a vibe.”
Before we get to a Q&A with Danny Reid, here’s more about the book.
They write about traditional horror films like Frankenstein, Freaks, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Most Dangerous Game, King Kong and The Black Cat. And they have other dark and disturbing films that straddle horror (The Sin of Nora Moran is a particularly nightmarish film), along with the unexpected horror musical I Am Suzanne! (In short, it’s about Tony who is so obsessed with a dancer named Suzanne that he re-creates her stage show with puppets after she is injured. “You’ll make a beautiful puppet,” says Tony, who then becomes infatuated with the puppet version of Suzanne. Yes, he’s unhinged – one of the hallmarks of pre-Code cinema.)
As I read about all 50 films, I could finally see how horror took “popular” pre-Code themes to the extremes. They didn’t stop at being sexy, for example, they went on to perversity. And it’s explained how the financial success of Dracula set the stage for Universal to make Frankenstein and future horror movies like The Black Cat that utilize pre-Code themes like blasphemy and sadism. However, the fact that Dracula left some audience members “hysterical,” led censors to pay much more attention to horror films to come like Frankenstein.
We learn how the films continue to be relevant today. The themes in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde remain “a window into how sexual frustration, righteousness, and societal pressures can lead to outbursts of violence.” That King Kong has timeless social cues and has yet to be topped despite being remade and revisited so often. And the kinky and daring The Most Dangerous Game influenced material like The Hunger Games, and its influence will only continue to grow with time.
I can’t recommend Pre-Code Essentials enough. It taught me a lot about the era, the films and the censoring process. How, for example, once the filmmakers got past the studio censors, they had to deal with the individual states. It’s a wonder these movies were released at all, although much-too-often they were cut in ways that left gaping holes. That history is detailed in an entertaining and easy-to-read style in the book which includes fascinating examples of original letters from censors.
Q&A WITH AUTHOR DANNY REID
Danny Reid found time during a recent book tour to answer some questions. His answers were so thoughtful that they are included fully here. Enjoy.
Question: What makes the horror films in your book “essential” pre-Code movies?
Danny: While there were a number of silent films we would now categorize as horror, it really wasn’t considered a genre of its own until the early 1930s. These “thrillers” that emerged from the success of Tod Browning’s Dracula basically saved Universal and set off a gold rush at all of the movie studios. They all varied wildly in tone and craft – Paramount’s were sexy, Warners were moody two-tone Technicolor creations, Fox’s were weird, and Universal’s soon became iconic. Universal and Paramount’s forays are probably the best (sorry Doctor X fans), as they sought to be both horrific and lurid, both studios giving their directors room enough to really craft their films in ways to push boundaries of what could and couldn’t be shown on the screen.
There were a lot of good options to pick from for our book, but the main ones we hit were innovative in their own regards. James Whale’s Frankenstein took what Browning had started with Dracula and perfected it while making enough changes to the source material to make it exciting and fresh, using silent movie pathos to set the creature apart from what had come before. Mamoullian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde goes a step further, putting you into Jekyll’s shoes quite literally and pushing the envelope in terms of sex and violence. Freaks turns its camera back at its purported evidence, challenging assumptions while at the same time serving as a cautionary tale about arrogance and greed. I Am Suzanne! is about the interior of a woman’s experience, a wacky musical that also serves as body horror, a movie that may not have been a direct inspiration for Black Swan but certainly could have been. Lastly, The Black Cat is the first film that paired up Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, maneuvering both actors with grim determination over the graves of old Europe in a dreamy and blasphemous tale.
Question: It’s interesting to read (in your book) that some films were censored simply because they were “too terrifying.” What do you think censors were afraid of in these instances?
Danny: I think there are a couple of factors here. First, you have to remember a majority of the motion picture audience was women at the time – they were the ones with the time and the money to go to picture shows, and societal panic about what was good for women was a different beast than what it is it today. (Well… maybe not that different.) And, at the same time, there weren’t really ratings systems; you didn’t know what kind of content you were going to get, so you can see how a devoutly religious person may react to how Frankenstein claims the mandate of God or the thinly hinted acts of necrophilia start to become apparent in The Black Cat. Imagine theaters packed full of women and children and then ask yourself, what, exactly, a censor only a couple of generations from the Victorians wouldn’t want them to see or experience, and a lot of these films would fit the bill. The movies were too bold, too sexual, and too exciting.
Question: What is it about Frankenstein that makes it an essential above the other Universal monster films?
Danny: Frankenstein and many of the Universal Monsters originated in the pre-Code era – Dracula, The Invisible Man, and The Mummy all come from this fertile period at the studio. Dracula is a lurid, dry shocker with a fantastic performance from Bela Lugosi and enough subtext about interclass warfare to still titillate. The Invisible Man, besides likely having the highest body count of any of the monsters, is the embodiment of a power fantasy also spends a great deal of the film completely nude. And The Mummy plays into pagan beliefs and mysticism, asking long, haunting questions about the long-tailed mysteries of human existence.
However, I would argue that Frankenstein is probably the most influential and shocking of these. Besides the myriad of pointed censorship it encountered over the years – the girl’s drowning, especially, whose removal changes the context of the film – the film is very sacrilegious. It asks pointed questions about man’s responsibilities to God, to nature, and to each other, and comes away with a deeply pessimistic assessment. Karloff’s performance is revelatory as The Monster, and his portrayal is the most sympathetic and humane of all of the other monsters to come out of the era. There’s a reason Frankenstein got more sequels and spin-offs than his brethren, even as the character would evolve (and devolve) in fits in starts. When you say Frankenstein, it’s Karloff’s version you see in your mind.
(I do want to note we had two Universal horrors in our book though – The Black Cat may not have one of the more famous monsters in it, but its censorship history and the interplay between Karloff and Lugosi is absolutely wild!)
Question: You make the point that despite being censored, some of the horror films have a lasting legacy and continue to influence modern cinema, like “King Kong” and “Dr. Jekyll.” Can you talk about the legacy of pre-Code horror?
Danny: First I wanted to say that I’m back in the U.S. this week and keep looking at theater listings and get excited when I see Frankenstein popping up. It looks like it’s only the new Guillermo Del Toro version, but it’s not uncommon to see a reimagining of the Universal monsters attempt to gather up some steam every decade or so. A lot of these films proved to have fertile ground that could be mined over and over again.
I always think of pre-Code as the films that really defined what synchronized sound could do for a movie. Don’t get me wrong, there are films like Nosferatu and Phantom of the Opera that have some excellent chills, but nowadays we see them with certain soundtracks and decisions made for home video. The filmmakers in 1930 got to make conscious decisions about how they wanted to use noise or lack thereof to build tension. This added dimension gave new atmospheres to film, and gave filmmakers greater control over the audience’s imagination.
The movies of this time also clearly delineated a path for elevated horror, where these pictures give social commentary and leave the audience with sympathies they may not have expected to leave the theater with. While they were being at the same time as dynamite social commentary films like I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, these movies were no less potent in trying to get their own points across, messages that would be neutered by endless sequels and the Production Code’s enforcement in 1934. It would take, in my opinion, decades for horror to recover.
Pre-Code Essentials:
Must-See Cinema from Hollywood’s Untamed Era 1930-1934
by Kim Luperi and Danny Reid is available through Running Press. 256 pages, also available as an ebook and audiobook.
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– Toni Ruberto for Classic Movie Hub
You can read all of Toni’s Monsters and Matinees articles here.
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever and is a member and board chair of the Classic Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and led the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs. She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in the spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto or on Bluesky at @watchingforever.bsky.social
