Pre-Code.com's Essential Pre-Code Films
by eric-52-433468 | created - 2 months ago | updated - 2 months ago | PublicPublished on Pre-Code.com. I have no relationship with that site beyond browsing it. "Please note that this list skips a few movies that have long been categorized as ‘great films’ regardless of the period. . . . I wanted to save this list for the more discerning connoisseur whose goal is to dig a bit deeper into pre-Code Hollywood."
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1. Baby Face (1933)
Approved | 71 min | Drama, Romance
A young woman, sexually exploited all her life, decides to turn the tables and exploit the hapless men at a big city bank by gleefully seducing her way to the top.
Director: Alfred E. Green | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Donald Cook, Alphonse Ethier
Votes: 8,169
2. Bad Girl (1931)
Passed | 90 min | Drama, Romance
A man and woman, skeptical about romance, nonetheless fall in love and are wed, but their lack of confidence in the opposite sex haunts their marriage.
Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: James Dunn, Sally Eilers, Minna Gombell, Frank Darien
Votes: 1,604
3. The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1932)
Approved | 88 min | Drama, Romance, War
A Chinese warlord and an engaged Christian missionary fall in love.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Nils Asther, Toshia Mori, Walter Connolly
Votes: 4,302
4. The Black Cat (1934)
Not Rated | 65 min | Crime, Horror, Romance
American honeymooners in Hungary become trapped in the home of a Satan-worshipping priest when the bride is taken there for medical help following a road accident.
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Julie Bishop
Votes: 13,002 | Gross: $0.51M
5. Blonde Venus (1932)
Passed | 93 min | Drama
A cabaret singer takes up with a millionaire to pay for her gravely-ill husband's operation.
Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Marlene Dietrich, Cary Grant, Herbert Marshall, Dickie Moore
Votes: 5,625
6. Call Her Savage (1932)
Passed | 88 min | Drama
Sexy Texas gal storms her way through life, brawling and boozing until her luck runs out, forcing her to learn the errors of her ways.
Director: John Francis Dillon | Stars: Clara Bow, Gilbert Roland, Thelma Todd, Monroe Owsley
Votes: 905
7. Diplomaniacs (1933)
Passed | 61 min | Comedy, Musical
Barbers Willy Nilly and Hercules Glub have opened a barbershop on an Indian reservation, where they have no customers. When suddenly a white man asks for a shave, several Indians of the ... See full summary »
Director: William A. Seiter | Stars: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Marjorie White, Phyllis Barry
Votes: 344
8. The Divorcee (1930)
Passed | 84 min | Romance, Drama
When a woman discovers that her husband has been unfaithful to her, she decides to respond to his infidelities in kind.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Chester Morris, Conrad Nagel
Votes: 3,657
9. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
Passed | 98 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr. Jekyll faces horrible consequences when he lets his dark side run wild with a potion that transforms him into the animalistic Mr. Hyde.
Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Rose Hobart, Holmes Herbert
Votes: 15,813 | Gross: $2.79M
10. Employees' Entrance (1933)
Passed | 75 min | Drama, Romance
A working girl is menaced by her tyrannical employer.
Director: Roy Del Ruth | Stars: Warren William, Loretta Young, Wallace Ford, Alice White
Votes: 1,640
11. Freaks (1932)
Not Rated | 64 min | Drama, Horror
A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates
Votes: 50,631 | Gross: $0.63M
12. Gabriel Over the White House (1933)
Passed | 86 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
A political hack becomes President during the height of the Depression and undergoes a metamorphosis into an incorruptible statesman after a near-fatal accident.
Director: Gregory La Cava | Stars: Walter Huston, Karen Morley, Franchot Tone, Arthur Byron
Votes: 1,398
This movie is pro-Soviet propaganda.
13. Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
Passed | 97 min | Comedy, Drama, Musical
A wealthy composer rescues unemployed Broadway performers with a new play, but insists on remaining anonymous.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Ruby Keeler
Votes: 9,148 | Gross: $4.80M
14. Heroes for Sale (1933)
Passed | 76 min | Drama, Romance, War
A veteran fights drug addiction to make his way in the business world.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Loretta Young, Richard Barthelmess, Aline MacMahon, Gordon Westcott
Votes: 2,515
15. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
Passed | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Wrongly convicted James Allen serves in the intolerable conditions of a Southern chain gang, which later comes back to haunt him.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, Noel Francis
Votes: 14,444 | Gross: $1.42M
16. I'm No Angel (1933)
Passed | 87 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
Circus performer Tira seeks a better life pursuing the company of wealthy New York men with improbable comic complications along the way.
Director: Wesley Ruggles | Stars: Mae West, Cary Grant, Gregory Ratoff, Edward Arnold
Votes: 3,981 | Gross: $6.21M
17. The Lost Patrol (1934)
Passed | 73 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A dozen British soldiers, lost in a Mesopotamian desert during World War I, are menaced by unseen Arab enemies.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Victor McLaglen, Boris Karloff, Wallace Ford, Reginald Denny
Votes: 3,607
18. Murder at the Vanities (1934)
Passed | 89 min | Crime, Music, Musical
A homicide detective with an eye for the ladies, investigating a murder in Earl Carroll's Vanities, allows the music revue to continue during the investigation.
Director: Mitchell Leisen | Stars: Carl Brisson, Victor McLaglen, Jack Oakie, Kitty Carlisle
Votes: 976
19. Night Nurse (1931)
Passed | 72 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A nurse enlists the help of a petty criminal to foil a sinister plot to murder two children.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Ben Lyon, Joan Blondell, Clark Gable
Votes: 4,493
20. Queen Christina (1933)
Approved | 99 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
Queen Christina of Sweden is a popular monarch who is loyal to her country. However, when she falls in love with a Spanish envoy, she must choose between the throne and the man she loves.
Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith, Lewis Stone
Votes: 8,621 | Gross: $0.77M
21. Red Dust (1932)
Passed | 83 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
The owner of a rubber plantation becomes involved with the new wife of one of his employees.
Director: Victor Fleming | Stars: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Gene Raymond, Mary Astor
Votes: 4,932 | Gross: $1.70M
Was remade in 1953, also starring Clark Gable, as Mogambo.
22. Red-Headed Woman (1932)
Passed | 79 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Lillian (Jean Harlow) relentlessly attempts to seduce a married man (Chester Morris).
Director: Jack Conway | Stars: Jean Harlow, Chester Morris, Lewis Stone, Leila Hyams
Votes: 3,537
23. Safe in Hell (1931)
Passed | 73 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
After accidentally killing the man who raped her and forced her into prostitution, a New Orleans woman flees to a Caribbean island. While she awaits her fiancé, the vicious local police chief sets his sights on her.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Dorothy Mackaill, Donald Cook, Ralf Harolde, John Wray
Votes: 2,039
24. Scarface (1932)
PG | 93 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An ambitious and nearly insane violent gangster climbs the ladder of success in the mob, but his weaknesses prove to be his downfall.
Directors: Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson | Stars: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Osgood Perkins
Votes: 30,327
25. The Story of Temple Drake (1933)
Not Rated | 70 min | Drama
A wealthy but neurotic Southern belle finds herself trapped in the hideout of a gang of vicious bootleggers. The gang's leader lusts after her, and is determined not to let anything stand in the way of his having her.
Director: Stephen Roberts | Stars: Miriam Hopkins, William Gargan, Jack La Rue, Florence Eldridge
Votes: 1,842
26. The Sign of the Cross (1932)
Not Rated | 125 min | Drama, History
A Roman soldier becomes torn between his love for a Christian woman and his loyalty to Emperor Nero.
Director: Cecil B. DeMille | Stars: Fredric March, Claudette Colbert, Elissa Landi, Charles Laughton
Votes: 2,702 | Gross: $5.97M
27. Smarty (1934)
Passed | 65 min | Comedy, Romance
Vicki Wallace (Joan Blondell) takes great pleasure in teasing her husband,Tony Wallace (Warren William), who takes no pleasure at all in being teased and it isn't long before he ups and ... See full summary »
Director: Robert Florey | Stars: Joan Blondell, Warren William, Edward Everett Horton, Frank McHugh
Votes: 565
28. Tarzan and His Mate (1934)
Passed | 104 min | Action, Adventure, Romance
The idyllic life of Tarzan and Jane is challenged by men on safari who come seeking ivory, and come seeking Jane as well.
Directors: Cedric Gibbons, James C. McKay, Jack Conway | Stars: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Sullivan, Neil Hamilton, Paul Cavanagh
Votes: 5,572
29. Three on a Match (1932)
Passed | 63 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
Although Vivian Revere is seemingly the most successful of a trio of reunited schoolmates, she throws it away by descending into a life of debauchery and drugs.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, Bette Davis, Warren William
Votes: 4,395
30. Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Passed | 83 min | Comedy, Crime, Romance
A gentleman thief and a lady pickpocket join forces to con a beautiful perfume company owner. Romantic entanglements and jealousies confuse the scheme.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall, Charles Ruggles
Votes: 16,204 | Gross: $1.04M
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