In my post about the 1934 movie Tarzan And His Mate I mention the Hays Office Production Code. A lot of movies that are today considered pre-Code were actually produced after the code was written in 1930, but before it was enforced. One of the movies that wouldn’t have held up to the code’s restrictions was an early Barbara Stanwyck picture, Night Nurse, from 1931.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/SEP07/NightNurse.flv 400 300]
Movies from the 1930’s are fun to watch. Seeing them on TV while growing up in the 60’s, they seemed to be not just from another era, but almost from another planet. I love their tone, the mannered style of acting, and the high contrast “in-your-face” humanity of the themes and dialog.
One of the very best forgotten movies of the early 30’s is American Madness, directed by Frank Capra. I posted it a year ago using an embedded Windows Media player, which has the advantage of chapter stops. At some point I’ll get around to adding playlists to the Flash video player.
She was just incredibly drunk to the point of having alcohol poisoning. I think Clark Gable’s character was asking to have her stomach pumped. The movie got off to a good start, but ended up being a disappointment. The nursing angle turned out to be an excuse to introduce a totally different story.
What was THAT all about? What was wrong with the girl? Why did she need to be washed? I’ll check it out on imbd.com, I guess. Barbara Stanwyck was one of those lucky actresses whose looks only IMPROVED with age. She was stunning up until the day she died.