Hollywood’s transition from silent to sound cinema in the early 1930s delivered some of the most risqué films seen onscreen until those of the late 1960s.
‘Forbidden Hollywood’ celebrates this unique period of creative freedom which ended with the reinstatement of traditional moral values through the Motion Picture Production Code in 1934.
Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Depression, struggling Hollywood studios sought to attract audiences by creating films that pushed the boundaries of social acceptability. With a gleeful mix of realism and glamour, these films tackled issues of sexuality and crime, social criticisms and a growing mistrust of authority. Strong women dominated the screen, scorning the prevailing Victorian-era ideals of passivity and purity, while stories about the police and gangsters were ripped straight from newspaper headlines during the Prohibition era.
By 1934, conservative groups — who had railed for years against what they saw as Hollywood’s attack on traditional family values — succeeded in making the film studios adhere to the Production Code’s censorship guidelines, a move that would affect audiences until 1968, when the code was abandoned in favour of a rating system.
‘When I’m good, I’m very good. But when I’m bad, I’m better.’ Mae West as Tira in I’m No Angel 1933
26 September – 2 November 2014
Australian Cinémathèque | Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA)
www.qagoma.qld.gov.au
