Complicated Women : Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood

Rating:
Summary: I COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN
Review: What an exciting story -- and what an amazing thing: In the early thirties, American actresses were making incredibly modern movies that would be considered daring even by TODAY'S standards. LaSalle's book is witty, funny, a total page-turner, passionate and well-documented. I usually read in order to doze off at night, but this kept me turning pages -- I did not want to put it down. And I wasn't even familiar with this era of film. What an enlightenment, and what a pleasure to read. I'd recommend this as a gift to anyone, but especially to women, because they need to know this story!

Rating:
Summary: Hooray for Mick!
Review: While reading LaSalle's Complicated Women, I found myself lusting to see the movies he describes. Luckily many of them belong to Turner Classic movies. I just taped and watched four of them: Stanwyck's Baby Face; Kay Francis' Mary Stevens, MD; Tallulah Bankhead in Faithless; and Dorothy Mackaill's Safe in Hell. I couldn't believe my eyes! Stanwyck as a women prostituted by her own father who sleeps her way to the top of the corporation? Francis as a woman doctor who has an illegitimate child? Bankhead as a former rich girl who hits the street to make money for her injured husband's medical bills? And Mackaill as a call girl hiding out from the cops in Tortuga? And none of them had to die for their sins, even though they may have repented their behavior? I was born in 1932 and grew up with the movies of the late 30's and 1940's. I was familiar with some of those women stars, but I never saw such stories in post-Code films. The modernity of the pre-Code movies is astounding; the strong women who are their protagonists were lost for 30 years. I can't help feeling cheated by what the post-Code movies taught me about women and men and their "proper" relationships. Hooray for Mick!