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Pre-Code sex films


Pre-Code sex films refers to movies made, in the pre-Code Hollywood era, between the introduction of sound in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code in 1934, which contained sexual references and images, that were contrary to the yet to be enforced Hays Code. Pre-Code sex films explored woman's issues, challenged the concept of marriage, and aggressive sexuality was the norm. The sexual subject matter, of the uncensored period, was found within many movie genres, most especially in dramas, crime films, exotic-adventure films, comedies, and musicals.

During the pre-Code period, after the crack down on crime films, production of films featuring prurient elements increased. Studios began putting in extra suggestive material which they knew would never reach theaters. MGM screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart said that "[Joy and Wingate] wouldn't want to take out too much, so you would give them five things to take out to satisfy the Hays Office—and you would get away with murder with what they left in." In 1932, Warner Brothers' policy was that "two out of five stories should be hot", and that nearly all films could benefit by "adding something having to do with ginger." Films such as Laughing Sinners, Safe in Hell, The Devil is Driving, Free Love, Merrily We Go to Hell, Laughter in Hell, and The Road to Ruin were provocative in their mere titles. Studios marketed their films, sometimes dishonestly, by coming up with suggestive tag lines and lurid titles, even going so far as to come up with in house contests for thinking up provocative titles for screenplays. Commonly labeled "sex films" by the censors, these pictures offended taste in more categories than just sexuality. According to a Variety analysis of 440 pictures produced in 1932–33, 352 had "some sex slant", with 145 possessing "questionable sequences", and 44 being "critically sexual"." The trade paper summarized that "over 80% of the world's chief picture output was...flavored with bedroom essence." Attempts to create films for adults only (dubbed "pinking") only served to bring larger audiences of all ages to the cineplex.


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