Free Republic

There's a cherished myth that the films made before the enforcement of Will Hays' Motion Picture Production Code in 1934 are a lost paradise of moviemaking: a frank, honest, adult cinematic universe that we were only able to return to with the abandonment of the Code in the '60s and the emergence of a school of movie radicals – the "raging bulls" of Peter Biskind's famous book – who blew away the fusty moral cobwebs from Hollywood. Part of this is a reaction to Joseph Breen, the man who Hays put in charge, and who ruled over the production offices...

BEFORE the censors cracked down in mid-1934, Hollywood unleashed a flood of sexy, taboo-busting movies to lure audiences during the Great Depression. Six elusive titles -- most have never been shown on TV -- turn up in "The Pre-Code Hollywood Collection," out tomorrow, which vividly shows just how far the financially struggling studios were willing to push the envelope. Paramount especially seems to have gone out of its way to flout the Production Code Administration (PCA), whose myriad prohibitions weren't seriously enforced until Catholic groups threatened a boycott.