No, folks, don’t get your hopes up. This is not a review of a rediscovered lost film. Instead, it is an essay about a lost film and how it got lost.
Between the dawning of the sound film era in the late 1920s and the July 1934 establishment of the Production Code Administration (PCA) as Hollywood’s official censor, many American films took significant liberties in the presentation of mature subject matter. While profanity and nudity were still verboten, the so-called Pre-Code films were rich in either blatant or barely disguised flaunting of sex, violence and miscreant behavior. Many states and some municipalities had their own censorship boards to demand cuts that were considered offensive to the local censors, but there was no standardized determination regarding what could and could not be shown on the screen.
Once the PCA was enforced by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, films that were released prior to July 1934 needed to be reviewed and certified in order to be allowed back into theatrical release. Many Pre-Code films required editing to remove dialogue and even entire scenes that were considered objectionable under the PCA tenets. On a few occasions, films that once played in hundreds of theaters no more than a year or two earlier were suddenly prevented from being shown again to movie audiences.
Perhaps the most notorious of the Pre-Code films was the 1933 Warner Bros. comedy “Convention City.” Supposedly barred from re-release under PCA guidelines and currently unavailable due to a complete absence of extant prints, it has inspired a riot of speculation on how ribald it must have been. But, not surprisingly, the myth has outrun the facts about the film’s content.
“Convention City” takes place in Atlantic City during an annual business gathering of the Honeywell Rubber Company. The position of sales manager is open and a pair of rival salesmen compete for the job. But this is hardly a fair fight, with the seduction of the company president’s underage daughter as one of the more outrageous acts of career advancement.
It is difficult to determine just how far “Convention City” actually went because it is not clear what was packed in the screenplay for the amusement of the cast and crew, and how much was actually viewed by audiences. The screenplay includes a hint of bestiality (with a conventioneer taking a goat to his hotel room) and references to prostitution, but it is uncertain if any of those segments made it into the final cut.
There is a good chance that they did not. The Breen Office (the informal name given to Hollywood’s censorship machinery) viewed the final cut in 1933 and ruled: “While not as rough as the script indicated, it is nevertheless somewhat low-tone entertainment, long on drinking and rowdiness, but is fortunately free from any actual sex situations.”
Yet James Wingate, the head of the censorship board of New York, found “Convention City” to be a “pretty rowdy picture, dealing largely with drunkeness, blackmail and lechery, and without any particularly sympathetic characters or elements.” Other state censorship boards were equally aghast, and some sources estimate that Convention City averaged about 20 cuts per state censor review.
The cuts were due almost entirely to saucy dialogue. Among the more notable lines from the film were “Here’s one convention where you’ll not come home from with a brassiere in your suitcase!” and “Now you take off that dress and I’ll take off my toupee!” One woman who is an Atlantic City local complains about the attention provided by conventioneers by stating, “And I’m so tired from the Ever-Ready Bandage Company,” to which another woman responds, “Listen, sister, if they tire you, you better leave town before the Hercules Tool Company gets here!”
But Warner Bros. didn’t see anything wrong with the screenplay – notes from studio head Jack L. Warner showed that he was more concerned that costume designer Orry-Kelly was presenting too much cleavage on leading lady Joan Blondell. The film was helmed by Archie Mayo, one of the studio’s ace directors, and the cast was packed with an all-star line-up including Dick Powell, Mary Astor, Adolphe Menjou, Guy Kibbee and Hugh Herbert. The studio opened the film in New York on Christmas Day in 1933, and at a compact 69 minutes “Convention City” was a welcome presence on the studio’s double-feature releases.
Today, all that exists from “Convention City” are publicity stills, the original screenplay and a reel of silent establishing shots that were filmed on location in Atlantic City. The film’s total disappearance has raised a number of conspiracy theories, most of which have been easily debunked.
For starters, there have been claims that Warner Bros. intentionally destroyed all prints of the film after the PCA refused to certify it for a 1936 re-release. However, photographic evidence of movie marquees has proved the film was still being played in theaters as late as 1937. There have been claims that Warner Bros. fielded requests from conventions and other gatherings to rent prints of “Convention City” for private screenings, but that the PCA would not allow it. Actually, the PCA had no authority over non-theatrical screenings – and there are unconfirmed reports that prints of “Convention City” were being shown to American and British troops at military installations as late as 1942.
Also, it is known that “Convention City” was playing in overseas release for nearly a decade after its premiere. The last confirmed public screening was in Spain in 1942, where it was released under the title “Que Semana.” Rumors that a nitrate print from the film’s French release survived in a Parisian private collection have circulated for years, but nothing has been produced to verify this story.
As for the destruction of the film, Warner Bros. records confirm that the negative of “Convention City” was junked on December 27, 1948 – nearly 15 years after its premiere – but not because of the film’s racy content. Instead, the negative had deteriorated due to improper storage and could not be salvaged.
Ron Hutchinson, founder of online site The Vitaphone Project, estimated that at least 500 35mm prints of “Convention City” were struck during the film’s lifetime and that it is possible for a copy or two to turn up. “The initial myth-debunking indicates there was no mass destruction of every print, that it was a popular film worldwide for years after its release, that there was no real reason to destroy it, and that despite its reputation as a raw and risque picture, it had nothing on dozens of other Pre-Codes,” he wrote. “Discoveries of films thought to be lost forever are occurring more and more each year. So now, we just have to find it!”
This essay was adapted from Phil Hall’s book “In Search of Lost Films,” published by BearManor Media.