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| Images courtesy of RKO Radio Pictures |
The Pre-Code Hollywood era in American filmmaking which
lasted between the 1920s’ proliferation of sound films and the strict
enforcement of the Hays Code in 1934 is kind of a sky’s-the-limit subgenre unto
itself. Though they were filmed during Tinseltown’s
Golden Age, newly adopted censorship laws enacted by the Code banned a great
number of pictures from exhibition that were deemed too violent or sexually
transgressive, laced with profane language, drug use and other behaviors deemed
‘aberrant’ by the Code. While many
performers of the then-present day Hollywood system got their start within the now
aptly named ‘Pre-Code’ era, much of their filmography was withheld from public
consumption by the censorship laws which remained in effect as the Code was
eventually rebranded the Motion Picture Association of America or the MPAA
which rates and censors films we watch even now.
Among the iterations to fall into the Pre-Code subcategory
was Austrian-British director Paul L. Stein’s 1931 adaptation of Robert W.
Chambers hit 1911 novel The Common Law starring Constance Bennett and
Joel McCrea from Dead End recently screened at the Motor City Cinema
Society. The third screen treatment of
the text and the first for the sound era, it told the story of a young American
expatriate named Valerie West (Constance Bennett) who is looking for a way out
of her half-bored relationship with wealthy dandy Dick Carmedon (Lew Cody) in
Paris. Breaking off relations with him,
she then meets starving American artist John Neville (Joel McCrea) who paints pinups
of naked women and she begins posing nude for him. Over time, the unlikely collaborative duo
begin falling for one another. Unbeknownst
to her, John is the member of a wealthy family and a friend spills the beans of
her past relations with Carmedon, sparking a feud that threatens to break off
their engagement plans for good.
A sexy-naughty romantic drama featuring implied as well as partially
visible nudity, particularly in a kind of bacchanal party of excess recent
viewers of Babylon will recognize in terms of the costuming, set pieces
and rampant nudity. At heart its a down-to-Earth
love story about two figures from seemingly different walks of life who find
liberation in the creative process, but in time-honored Pre-Code fashion it is
loaded with innuendo and double entendre.
Some aspects of the setup, particularly with Lew Cody as the hopeless
hangaround alcoholic ex-lover of Constance Bennett, lean into the screwball
though the film’s best and most memorable scene comes in the form of a quiet
exchange between Valerie and John Neville’s father played by Walter Walker
which cements the film’s heartwarming moral compass. For as illicit and tawdry as the world of The
Common Law may be, you can relate to these two lovebirds finding each other
amid it all.
Featuring luminous nitrate cinematography by Oscar winning The
Phantom of the Opera cameraman Hal Mohr and aided by big-band party
sequences rendered by Casanova Brown composer Arthur Lange, the look and
feel of The Common Law does a nice buildup of set pieces over the course
of the film including culminating on a boat.
Reportedly Constance Bennett and Joel McCrea did in fact have an affair
on set and reportedly, according to co-star Marion Shilling, would venture into
her dressing room and not come out until they were called before the cameras
again. Special mention also goes to the
numerous female extras who were reportedly donned with full body makeup to tone
down the scantiness of their attire though rendered on film it still looks like
nudity, something naturally the Hays Office took umbrage with though the film
got through anyway as the enforcement period hadn’t begun yet.
Released in 1931 by RKO Radio Pictures, the film opened to
enormous critical success and was a commercial hit as well, taking in $713,000
against its $339,000 budget and further cemented Constance Bennett and Joel
McCrea as premier Pre-Code stars.
Bennett is perhaps best remembered for her efforts in the Topper comedies
made between 1937 and 1938 but The Common Law most certainly remains one
of her sexiest and sassiest roles to date.
Joel McCrea’s career also blossomed including landing roles in three
Best Picture nominees with Dead End, Foreign Correspondent and The
More the Merrier but it was interesting to see him in a kind of Savage
Messiah or The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie role as an artist who finds
love in his artistic muse. Sure some of
it is indeed dated if not a little randy but in the end is ultimately a good
Pre-Code era romantic drama still able to tickle one pink with its bawdy
charms.
--Andrew Kotwicki
