TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2 (The Divorcee / A Free Soul / Night Nurse / Three on a Match / Female)
by Clarence Brown, Michael Curtiz
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Norma ShearerDirector: Clarence Brown, Michael Curtiz
Brand: TCM Archives
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Black & White, Box set, Color, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 449 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-03-04
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: WARNER HOME VIDEO
Product features:
- THE DIVORCEE (1930): After several blissful years of marriage a woman catches her husband in a compromising position and forces him to confess his infidelities Her solution to the problem is to then try to match him tryst for tryst. Based on the 1929 Ursula Parrott novel ?Ex-wife,? this highly controversial story was first published anonymously, with the author?s name added only after thousands of
Movie Reviews of TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2 (The Divorcee / A Free Soul / Night Nurse / Three on a Match / Female)
Movie Review: Another good set of pre-code gems
Summary: 5 Stars
The announcement of the second set of the Forbidden Hollywood series is welcome. The set falls neatly into 2 groups - the MGM pair and the Warners trio.
The former are well mounted up-market A pictures with the prestigious Norma Shearer. Shearer was the wife of MGM wonderboy producer Irving Thalberg and his management of her limited talent was masterful. Both films carefully showcase her in "modern" stories of liberated women with attitudes to sex which were scandalous in 1930.
- In "The Divorcee", Shearer won the best actress Oscar playing a woman who divorces her husband because he is unfaithful then proceeds to "liberate" herself with other men. The film is a very early talkie with all the associated limitations - stagy, endless talk and some corny acting, including a very mannered Shearer. The disk contains a commentary which notes these limitations, particularly Shearer's.
- "A Free Soul" enhanced Shearer's reputation as THE prototype of the sexually liberated woman in this tale of a woman whose fiance, Leslie Howard, murders her lover, a very raunchy Clark Gable. Lionel Barrymore won an Oscar for his performance as Shearer's lawyer father and deservedly so. This is a much better film than "The Divorcee", demonstrating how quickly Hollywood progressed with talkies - better direction, photography, recording and acting. The story is really interesting with some great twists and Shearer is generally less mannered and accordingly much more effective than the earlier film. She also wears some of the best clothes ever seen on the screen, transforming her dumpy figure into a svelte and sexy one.
The remaining trio reflect Warner's assembly line approach to film making at the time and have shorter running times and faster pace.
- "Night Nurse" is a sordid tale starring the relentless Barbara Stanwyck as a nurse, with great support from Joan Blondell and a particularly nasty Clark Gable whose star quality is impossible to ignore. Stanwyck and Blondell seem to be constantly stripping for the camera and there are some great lines. Blondell says "I used to worry that the hospital would burn down. Now I have to watch myself with matches".
- "Three on a Match" is a very short film which moves with lightening speed. It stars the luminous Ann Dvorak as a bored wife, the reliable Blondell as the heart-of-gold showgirl and an attractive but subdued Bette Davis as a secretary/nanny of all things. The women, who were childhood friends, renew acquaintance at lunch and light their cigarettes with one match, a superstition with ominous consequences. The film's plot involves kidnapping, a subject taken straight from the headlines in 1932, and covers sex and drugs and rock 'n roll, well jazz anyway. Note also the array of great players in supporting or cameo roles, some unbilled - Glenda Farrell in the reform school, Humphrey Bogart as a particularly vicious gangster, Allen Jenkins as one of the gang, Edward Arnold as the head of the kidnappers, Frankie Darro as as a schoolboy and Anne Shirley, billed as Dawn O'Day, playing Dvorak as a child.
- "Female" is the oddest film in the bunch because it stars the sophisticated and dry Ruth Chatterton, a polished diva probably more suited to MGM gloss than gritty Warner's realism. Chatterton plays a business woman competing in a man's world until she meets her nemesis George Brent. The pre-code aspects of the film relate to Chatterton placing her sex life in a compartment with a string of lovers on call, but no time for true love. It is surprising. The film is very funny at times and Brent, who was married to Chatterton at the time, is excellent.
The prints of all the films are good enough, with "Three on a Match" particularly mint. The Warners group contain the original trailers. The set includes a first rate documentary on the pre-code era which neatly captures the intrigue of this short period as talkies evolved. The documentary, produced by TCM, largely confines itself to the products of MGM and Warners which of course are the TCM libraries. "Night Nurse" contains an entertaining commentary shared between 2 relaxed historians.
It is worth noting that the stars of all of these films are women, like the previous Forbidden Hollywood Series. The Hays Code curtailed the actions and attitudes of women, taking them out of the bedroom and boardroom and placing them back in the kitchen and lounge. For men, nothing really changed much. By the way, that's Bette Davis, who was very attractive in those days, on the cover.
More TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2 (The Divorcee / A Free Soul / Night Nurse / Three on a Match / Female) reviews:
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Summary of TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2 (The Divorcee / A Free Soul / Night Nurse / Three on a Match / Female)
THE DIVORCEE (1930): After several blissful years of marriage a woman catches her husband in a compromising position and forces him to confess his infidelities Her solution to the problem is to then try to match him tryst for tryst. Based on the 1929 Ursula Parrott novel "Ex-wife," this highly controversial story was first published anonymously, with the author?s name added only after thousands of copies were sold. A FREE SOUL (1931): Lionel Barrymore shines as Stephen Ashe, a brilliant alcoholic lawyer who successfully defends dashing gangster Ace Wilfong (Clark Gable) on a murder charge only to find that his headstrong daughter, Jan (Norma Shearer), has fallen in love with his client. Jan, a fun-loving socialite seeking freedom from her blue-blood upbring, is only too eager to dump her aristocratic boyfriend (Leslie Howard) for the no-good gangster. Barrymore gives a remarkable Oscar-winning performance culminating in a legendary courtroom scene that is powerful and deeply moving. THREE ON A MATCH (1932): Childhood friends Mary Keaton, Ruth Wescott and Vivian Deverse reunite ten years after high school. Mary is now a chorus girl, level-headed Ruth has a job as a secretary, and sexy Vivian is on the verge of deserting her wealthy husband Henry Kirkwood and their baby in favor of a glamorous gangster. FEMALE (1933): In Michael Curtiz's romantic comedy FEMALE, Ruth Chatterton plays Alison Drake, the iron-fisted president of a motorcar company. Alison oversees the daily operations of her male employees with a predatory gaze and frequently exercises her right to engage with them in any way she deems fit. She meets her match in an equally strong-minded new employee, Jim Thorne (George Brent), and the two engage in a smoldering, contentious, sexually charged duel. NIGHT NURSE (1931): William Wellman's NIGHT NURSE is a sassy, unsentimental comedy about a private pediatric nurse named Lora Hart (Barbara Stanwyck) who, after applying as an apprentice in a family home, discovers there is a plot afoot to starve her two rich, fat, young charges to death. The culprit is the family's chauffeur, Nick (Clark Gable), a villain who plans to marry the kids' dissolute mother and make off with their trust fund. THOU SHALT NOT: SEX, SIN AND CENSORSHIP IN PRE-CODE HOLLYWOOD (2008): Over seventy years later, they've lost none of their power to shock, entertain, and titillate. So-called "pre-Code" movies remain among the most vital films America has ever produced. But why were these films so much more sexually free and socially critical than what came before or after? Who created the Code, and what did it forbid? And why did it finally become a Hollywood commandment? The answer is a fascinating mix of scandal, big business and social history - a unique collision of events that resulted in one of the most dynamic - and delicious - periods in Hollywood history.Similar DVD Movies
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