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FORBIDDEN
HOLLYWOOD, COLLECTION: VOLUME ONE (DVD)
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In the top notch release, “Forbidden Hollywood,” we get to see three very rare films with fantastic restoration that were deemed too controversial for public eyes and tucked away for a long time. One of the headliners of the set is Baby Face (1933). Starring Barbara Stanwyck, “Baby Face” is one of the first films to feature a woman as a raw sexual predator, and warranted being re-cut, forced to have a new ending where our character realizes the error of her ways, and had its original print hidden away until 2004 where it was re-discovered. In the set are both versions to be compared and contrasted for the true movie geek. There is the original theatrical version and the uncut version which features Ms. Stanwyck as Lily Powers, a speakeasy waitress who, in one of the main sources of controversy, bears a very close friendship with her African American maid Chico.
“Baby Face” may not seem like much of a shaker now, but it has the honor of being one of the first films featuring a woman as a sexual predator. In one rather interesting sequence, Lily attempts to fight off a flirtatious customer who gets aggressive and clutches her breasts from behind as she smashes him over the head with a bottle. As a form of revenge on the whole of the opposite sex, Lily uses every man she comes across to her advantage keeping them at a sexual grasp, and slyly proceeds to ruin their lives. Stanwyck is in pure form here giving an excellent performance as this femme fatale who uses her street smarts, and sheer sexual allure to get whatever she wants even providing a sexual favor to a conductor who attempts to throw Lily and Chico off a train. It’s not a surprise that “Baby Face” would stir up so much rage and alarm within the censors, because the film is very ahead of its time. It’s sexual without being gratuitous, and sheer hints of promiscuity are innovative. One of more ironic characteristics of Lily is that she’s completely void of any emotion, or conscience, yet when a lover suggests firing Chico, she says in a stone cold demand “No, Chico stays.” Lily is not just a sexual predator, but one who knows how to manipulate people with Chico as her moral center. Although I'm not a fan of the redemption climax, “Baby Face,” is an entertaining and brutally devious drama with Stanwyck giving her pitch perfect precursor to Phyllis Dietrichson.
Within the
set is an informative introduction with Robert Osborne, the
host of Turner Classic Movies Channel, and two more films.
On the flipside, we have
Red-Headed Woman Even in the twenty-first century with breast implants, and plastic surgery, Jean Harlow crossing her legs and flashing a smile is still bound to draw a gasp. Fade out, and the first day on her new job as a secretary transforms into a full on affair with her married boss. Even with a light tone, “Red-Headed Woman” is still a very risqué romance about this red haired seductress seducing her boss to infidelity, and sheer sin. The controversy resulting in the tucking away of this film involves the fact that Harlow’s devious character manages to get away with her crimes, and also appears half naked and giving sexual advances. In spite of the script rewrites’ best efforts to paint Harlow’s film as a dark comedy, it’s still a rather grim film about murder, infidelity, and even features a scene involving Harlow being beaten up, and raped. “Red-Headed Woman” is hardly worth the controversy it stirred up as a rather shrill fractured romance about a woman romancing men around the world. The character Lilian is a brutally petulant villainess, and the film hardly musters enough power to be entertaining. As for Waterloo Bridge (1931), there’s a consistent change of pace for this film. This one is a quaint and rather simplistic piece of romance during war time that features two people for most of the film conversing with one another. “Waterloo Bridge” tells the story of Myra and Roy, two people who meet accidentally and manage to form an uneasy romance. For those entering into it blindly, they won’t see much of what could possibly cause a controversy, and compared to the other two films featured, it’s rather non-threatening. But “Waterloo Bridge,” directed by James Whale, explores the character Myra who happens to be a prostitute. She’s a part time chorus girl who is a prostitute on the side, and only hints at it throughout the course of the story.
Beyond that basic hot
topic, there’s also a scene that takes place in a dressing room with
half naked women, and a hint that Myra had a few sexual rendezvous with
her female neighbor. But “Waterloo Bridge” is an entertaining bit of
melodrama with a set of very good performances by Mae Clarke, and Kent
Douglass, and happens to feature a supporting performance by Bette
Davis, in one of her earliest roles in her career. Set during World “Forbidden Hollywood Collection: Volume One” is a wonderful set of films worthy of both analyses and pure entertainment, because the films within the set are pure filmmaking before Hollywood formed the MPAA that forever changed the face of honest filmmaking, turning it into a more commercial and disingenuous method of directing, and studio interference. The MPAA began as a corporation meant to keep the government from enlisting rules and beat them to the punch, but it backfired by forming an organization that was just as bad, and just as damaging to the art of filmmaking and creativity.
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