Twentieth Century Pictures' May 1934 "Born to be Bad" would never had reached the screen in its current form if it had been released a couple of months later. The Hays Production Code office was undergoing a drastic transformation during the summer of 1934. This controversial film is a story of a young woman with an illegitimate child whose job was to (ahem) entice wholesale buyers to sign contracts for a friend's business.
Despite the relatively tolerant 'pre-code' censorship, the Hay's office still had the studio rewrite, chop and recut the movie before "Born to be Bad" gained a stamp of approval, just under the enforcement wire. The film also involved a loosely 'open marriage' arrangement that created roadblocks from the newly invigorated censors soon after its release.
Loretta Young appears in her career's most brazen role as a young single woman (Lette Strong) who became pregnant at 15. She raised her son, Mickey (Jackie Kelk), to be streetwise, but his education suffered greatly from his truancy. Through a quirk in fate, Mickey is taken in by dairy mogul Malcolm Trevor (Cary Grant), whose wife is unable to have children. During one of the visits to see her son, Lette's seductiveness is too much for Malcomb to resist. She plans to hold the evening's romp over his head to obtain money. But she's foiled by Malcomb confessing to his wife, who has no problem with it because Lette provided the son she always wanted.
One film reviewer highly recommended "Born to be Bad" not only for the stunning gowns Young wore, but to gain "a glimpse at a world that will not appear in Hollywood films for the next 30 years." This was the last film silent actor-turned-director Lowell Sherman would direct after delivering such classics as Mae West's 1933 "She Done Him Wrong" and Katherine Hepburn's Oscar-winning 1933 role in "Morning Glory." He died of double pneumonia at age 46 a few months after his last movie's release.
Despite the relatively tolerant 'pre-code' censorship, the Hay's office still had the studio rewrite, chop and recut the movie before "Born to be Bad" gained a stamp of approval, just under the enforcement wire. The film also involved a loosely 'open marriage' arrangement that created roadblocks from the newly invigorated censors soon after its release.
Loretta Young appears in her career's most brazen role as a young single woman (Lette Strong) who became pregnant at 15. She raised her son, Mickey (Jackie Kelk), to be streetwise, but his education suffered greatly from his truancy. Through a quirk in fate, Mickey is taken in by dairy mogul Malcolm Trevor (Cary Grant), whose wife is unable to have children. During one of the visits to see her son, Lette's seductiveness is too much for Malcomb to resist. She plans to hold the evening's romp over his head to obtain money. But she's foiled by Malcomb confessing to his wife, who has no problem with it because Lette provided the son she always wanted.
One film reviewer highly recommended "Born to be Bad" not only for the stunning gowns Young wore, but to gain "a glimpse at a world that will not appear in Hollywood films for the next 30 years." This was the last film silent actor-turned-director Lowell Sherman would direct after delivering such classics as Mae West's 1933 "She Done Him Wrong" and Katherine Hepburn's Oscar-winning 1933 role in "Morning Glory." He died of double pneumonia at age 46 a few months after his last movie's release.