Blogging "Before the Code" - Update 1

David D'Arcy weighs in on a few selections from the series at GreenCine Daily. On The Bowery:

The Bowery opens in a bar called "Nigger Joe's," and from there to the end, not a single stereotype is spared - Jewish tailors swarm around an unsuspecting buyer of a suit, an Irish hoodlum played by Jackie Cooper sets "the Chinks" on fire, and the Irish break into drunken brawls every few minutes. There's a turf battle between two gangsters - Chuck Conners (Wallace Beery), a bloated boss who turns out to have a soft heart, and Steve Brodie (George Raft), a sharpy who moves like an acrobat. Each of them runs a private fire brigade that makes money when someone's house burns down. (If you ever believed in Bush's vision of privatizing essential services, you won't after this.)

Earlier:

"In large part, Hoopla works because [Clara Bow] is not really required to transform at all -- it's the men who have to come around and see her for who she really is, and to accept the fact that she can sell her sexuality for a living without losing her soul -- or even weakening her marriage." -- Me

"Using dissolves, sound bridges, long takes, and character punctuating close-ups, Brown blessed Quick Millions with both gutter swagger realism and pulp expediency. It is the most undervalued directorial debut in the history of American film." -- Bruce Bennett (reposted from the NY Sun)

"Born to be Bad, (starring Loretta Young as a mother out of wedlock and Cary Grant as the married man who falls for her) and Coming Out Party (the arrival of a debutante carrying her immigrant boyfriend’s child) are just a few in the program demonstrating the racial and sexual quandaries present during the Great Depression -- not to mention the anxiety felt by many Americans over the changing depiction of urban life in America." -- Jessica Freeman-Slade @ The Reeler

Semi-related: Peoria Pundit reminds us what 30-something Norma Shearer looked like as Marie Antoinette.