Posted on 09/09/2018 3:35:18 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
One question that has intrigued me for years is HOW did the John Ford movie starring John Wayne, "Stagecoach," make it past the censors in 1939. Back in those days the Hollywood Code was strictly enforced yet "Stagecoach" clearly featured a prostitute which would have been prohibited. Even worse, she was portrayed in a sympathetic light.
Yeah, I know it did not explicitly say that Dallas the Prostitute, played by Clair Trevor, was a prostitute but the movie left no doubt that was the case. Particularly revealing was the scene in Lordsville when against her objections, the naive Ringo Kid (John Wayne) walked her to her new job and even he realized that Dallas was a hooker which was made obvious by all the hookers hanging out in the section of town where she was going.
Yet somehow, the censors let this pass. Wasn't there at least some sort of objection by the censors (mainly Joseph Bream who was really strict)? Anyway, still amazed that "Stagecoach" made it to the Silver Screen back in those days complete with it's all too obvious prostitute character.
I remember seeing an old photo of all the things you were not supposed to show in a movie. A prostitute in a nighty, is showing the inside of her left thigh, while smoking a cigarette, holding a smoking pistol, over a dead cop. Her left foot is resting on a table with whiskey on it.
dirtiest line ever uttered on TV
BIG BEAVER by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.
You must not watch many old movies. Including Hayes Code (I.e., the Golden Age).
There are plenty references to hookers in old movies under Hayes.
*** “Add in malnutrition and lack of medical care, and you can take your pick as to what finally carried them off” ***
No Penicillin ?
What a lot of people don’t know today is that there was a difference between whores and “saloon girls”, at least in towns like Dodge and Abilene. Saloons were located in the main part of town, and the girls who worked there acted as hostesses. They talked to cowboys who had just got paid and got them to stay and drink and buy them (usually fake) drinks. There was no “upstairs”. The whore houses were located away from the “decent” part of town, on the “wrong side of the tracks”, literally. Railroad workers stopping over would hang their red lanterns outside so they could be found if needed, and that’s where “red light district” comes from. It’s Hollywood, especially movies made since the 1970s that conflated to two; in reality Miss Kitty’s girls wouldn’t have been whores.
It has been a long time since I was in Las Vegas, but the old time saloon girls might be akin to the cute gals passing out the free drinks at the tables? (Do they even do the free drinks anymore for the regular “cheap” tables?).
The foundations of modern medicine are relatively recent. Anesthesia was being mainstreamed in the 1850's; Queen Victoria was a trailblazer for delivering a child while anesthetized, and the Civil War was the first major war fought with the general availability of anesthesia, at least once the wounded got to a field hospital. It therefore marks a dramatic point of acceleration for surgery, as surgeons were now able to take more time and go deeper, as opposed to quick amputations, splinting and bandaging.
The germ theory of disease was just over the horizon. Some of the seminal research was already being done, but Robert Lister would not publish his seminal paper until a few years after the war. The germ theory of disease led to the practice of antisepsis, which was woefully lacking prior to that point. Antisepsis and sterilization would have saved countless lives during the Civil War, but that's 20/20 hindsight.
Antibiotics began to be developed only in the 1920's. The results are still within living memory. I had an uncle (who I of course never met), for example, who died at age 12; a shot of penicillin would have saved him, but it didn't exist.
Blood transfusions come along still later; I'm not going to look it up now. I'm sure someone will be along with the date.
Medicine was still in the dark ages 160 years ago.
Hollywood always promoted prostitution. Congress never got on their case about it because Congress liked the prostitution.
Captain Culpepper was responsible for “closing down all the houses” in IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD, WORLD. No mention what the “houses” were.
That was about 30 years after Stagecoach.
Stagecoach was 1939.
I think your math needs help.
>> Captain Culpepper was responsible for closing down all the houses in ITS A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD, WORLD. No mention what the houses were. <<
Well, then it was already censored.
And that line disappeared when that movie was re-released in theaters back in 1971, just before being shown on TV.
Well, “S h a d o w a c e”...thank you for finding something wrong. Usually those who scour the board looking for things to correct, and grade, are working for the New York Times, or CNN.
It was just idle conversation, about an old western...not an official document headed for the National Archives.
But, I’m just about to be 73, and really don’t give a flying f*** what you think.
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