Baby Face, French Lobby Card
Baby Face, 1933
Directed by Alfred E. Green
Spring Break. Let’s take time to soak in some sunshine, sin and bathtub gin. Served up shameless– please. Like Barbara Stanwyck in Baby Face.
After a transparently draped Jean Harlow boinked her way to the top in MGM’s Red Headed Woman, Hollywood’s studios were determined not to miss the scheming skank gravy train. In 1933 a parade of unrepentant adulterers, brazen boob-flapping strippers, thieving hookers, and unabashed homosexuals lit up the silver screen in an outpouring that tanked the censor ship*.
Iron Man, Original Half Sheet, 1951
If You Care…
Way before Robert Downey Jr. was born, and even thought of donning metal armor and downing massive quantities of pharmaceuticals with no apparent ill affect, there was another Iron Man in town.
In 1951, Universal decided to remake noir great W. R. Burnett’s novel, Iron Man. It had already been made as a Jean Harlow vehicle in 1931. But the boxing story didn’t feature blondes and boobs, so rewrites were necessary. In the end Harlow plays a scheming harlot with a skimpy pre-code wardrobe –what a switch! What a box office success!
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.
