Criss Cross, 1949 Original Half Sheet
Criss Cross, 1948
Directed by Robert Soidmak
”All woman are bitches,” I said. She smiled at me. Her eyes were deep and black. “All woman are cheats and liars and bitches,” I told her.
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m a whore.”
“You’re different,” I said. “I mean real women.”
Criss Cross, 1934 by Don Tracy
Spicy.
Don Tracy’s double-crossing armed robbery caper about a down on his luck, love-struck, ex-boxer and his trampy ex-wife gets the “Hollywood” treatment by Soidmak in 1949.
Irving Talberg tried, he really tried. But every effort he made to please the censors and tone down this tarty little tale of a scheming trollope that sleeps her way to the top only made things worse. The Legion of Decency was incensed. The film was
banned. Where it was not banned it was hacked to pieces prior to showing. Red-Headed Woman became one of the infamous “Pre-Code” films that led to the draconian Hays Production code of 1934. The code would remain in effect until 1968 — and separate twin beds reigned on tv and in films across America for the next 30 years. But it’s star, the braless (and occasionally pantiless) Jean Harlow, became an instant Superstar. Thalberg had a Hit.
