Tweet Talkies Peaked in '32?

So, the last few words in Everson's "American Silent Cinema":-

In fact, in many ways the pictorial/aural sophistication of that year [1932] has never been equalled since. The silent cinema, progressing steadily, peaked late; the sound cinema, learning from the silent, peaked early. The reasons are complex, debatable, and perhaps ultimately a little depressing - but belong in another book.

In the interest of furthering my education in the classic era, I'm interested in your opinions on what these reasons might be, if, in fact, you agree with the original statement on '32 being THE year.

So, the last few words in Everson's "American Silent Cinema":-

In fact, in many ways the pictorial/aural sophistication of that year [1932] has never been equalled since. The silent cinema, progressing steadily, peaked late; the sound cinema, learning from the silent, peaked early. The reasons are complex, debatable, and perhaps ultimately a little depressing - but belong in another book.

In the interest of furthering my education in the classic era, I'm interested in your opinions on what these reasons might be, if, in fact, you agree with the original statement on '32 being THE year.

Meh, the more I read of what Everson has written the more I disagree with him.

I'm not sure about '32 specifically, but I think Everson has a point about talkies peaking in the pre-code era. Once the Hayes office censors clamped down, movies - with notable exceptions by Hitchcock and others flying under the radar - were never again as smart, the female characters never again as bright, capable and independent. And in the intervening years, when all the bawdy naughtiness had been suppressed - and repressed for some three decades - the lifting of censorship in the '60s released a more voyeuristic cinema that no doubt would have developed along a different and more natural evolutionary path in its absence. Then in the '70s and early '80s we had the counter-revolution with Spielbergian and Lucasian sweetness and light. I always get depressed whenever I think about what might have been.

I'm not sure about '32 specifically, but I think Everson has a point about talkies peaking in the pre-code era. Once the Hayes office censors clamped down, movies - with notable exceptions by Hitchcock and others flying under the radar - were never again as smart, the female characters never again as bright, capable and independent. And in the intervening years, when all the bawdy naughtiness had been suppressed - and repressed for some three decades - the lifting of censorship in the '60s released a more voyeuristic cinema that no doubt would have developed along a different and more natural evolutionary path in its absence. Then in the '70s and early '80s we had the counter-revolution with Spielbergian and Lucasian sweetness and light. I always get depressed whenever I think about what might have been.

I have no problem with Bette Davis's films. I think that Now, Voyager kicks most films made before 1932 to the curb. Everson was a unique and interesting man, but I don't have to agree with everything he said.

I'm not sure about '32 specifically, but I think Everson has a point about talkies peaking in the pre-code era. Once the Hayes office censors clamped down, movies - with notable exceptions by Hitchcock and others flying under the radar - were never again as smart, the female characters never again as bright, capable and independent.

That's it, without a doubt. These early talkies are the pictures I dote on, so, except in his singling out '32, rather than a more general range of '31-'33, I'd say I agreed wholeheartedly. Actually, my supreme favorites are the ur-musicals of '29 & '30, but perhaps Everson just wasn't musically-minded. Speaking generally, I don't see any dramatic change in the overall "look" of pictures till '35, due not only to the Code but to changes in popular culture--changing fashions, the rise of swing, etc. Thereafter, with some exceptions, it's all downhill as far as I'm concerned.

Why do you think he's so specific about '32? He doesn't actually say in the book. Like you guys, I love that era most but would pick '29 - '34 as a general guide.

He'd have to answer that question, but since even the "authorities" generalize from their own preferences, his singling out of '32 might have resulted from the mere fact that his own personal favorites were made in that year.

He'd have to answer that question, but since even the "authorities" generalize from their own preferences, his singling out of '32 might have resulted from the mere fact that his own personal favorites were made in that year.

Yes, that's the only reason that occurred to me.
What I wondered was whether or not some of you may have come across further writings by him, elaborating on the '32 idea.

I don't see any dramatic change in the overall "look" of pictures till '35, due not only to the Code but to changes in popular culture--changing fashions, the rise of swing, etc. Thereafter, with some exceptions, it's all downhill as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not sure what Everson meant by "pictorial/aural sophistication." Maybe he was talking about aesthetics only. But I think the censorship issue is still relevant because what could and could not be photographed and said changed radically after 1933.

Any art requires patrons and popular art intended for the masses -- like motion pictures -- are a highly complex collaborative art that must please its audience. Critics -- Professor Everson among them -- often fail to distinguish between their personal taste and excellence. When we make judgments about excellence we must take care to distinguish these two issues; however, critics or teachers, all of whom must compress their issues enormously learn to think in shorthand. A critic has a limited number of words to write his essay. A teacher has a few hours in between screening movies, to make points. Points are made in simple, absolute terms, audiences think simply in terms of appeals to authority and all too soon, people make absolute statements, others nod and everyone thinks things are supposed to be that way. Personally, I have my taste, and exercise it freely; I can also frequently recognize technical competence. Do enough movies competently and you've got something.

So what happened in 1932? Sound had been fully integrated, stories were getting complicated, the Pre-Code movement -- best thing to call it -- was in full swing. Silent pictures and sound were, in the hands of the better operators, fully integrated.

Then people stopped going to the movie theaters.

Think about the effects of the Depression on the movie industry and the films made. There was no money. Every major film studio except MGM and Columbia went through some form of receivership. Changes had to be made.

Improvement in anything requires two sets of questions: what can we do better? and What have we been doing wrong? For the theater to flourish as an art it must first succeed as a business and business was failing and the more extreme the artists, at this point, the greater the failure. It was not, therefore, a matter of what could the film makers do better, but of what they were doing wrong. Add in the enforcement of the Code a couple of years later and film ran into a brick wall.

A lot of things went out. Eventually the film makers learned to do things better, more slyly, more subtly. Look at any Preston Sturges picture through HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO and ask how he got those past the Breen office. (I think he had pictures of Joe Breen naked with J. Edgar Hoover in the Donkey Act in Tijuana)This is competence at an enormously high level. Examples of such competence -- great art -- have appeared frequently throughout the cinema ever since.

The issue with Professor Everson, as with every critic, is that he is not terribly interested in these stories. He isn't interested, he isn't having a good time, and therefore they are objectively inferior, quod erat demonstrandum. Do you think that his students argued with him in class? Any who disagreed and could argue the point tellingly -- well, they wanted a good grade. I admire Everson, I think he did much good work, but I don't think he was God. Except that after all those years of people nodding, he forgot that.

Bob

But I think the censorship issue is still relevant because what could and could not be photographed and said changed radically after 1933.

Bear in mind that Breen wasn't actually handed his axe by the industry until July of '34, so producers had the first six months of that year to continue wallowing in sin & depravity.

But I think the censorship issue is still relevant because what could and could not be photographed and said changed radically after 1933.

Bear in mind that Breen wasn't actually handed his axe by the industry until July of '34, so producers had the first six months of that year to continue wallowing in sin & depravity.

Right, the year of The Thin Man. And just think of what happened to poor Nora Charles after Breen started wielding his axe. In '34 she was matching Nick drink for drink and wisecrack for wisecrack. By the '40s she was just another ditsy housewife. It was pathetic.

And Tarzan's mate Jane wasn't the jungle nymph she had been, just another helpmeet keeping up the tree house while Tarzan had to go out and find a son in an airplane crash site.

[Mike Gebert]

Jon Mirsalis once argued on AMS, and I find his case pretty compelling, that the movies went kind of dull in the latter half of the 1930s. Certainly I think few of us (maybe a Sonja Henie fan) would name as many favorites from 1935-1938 as from 1931-4. I think you can provide your own answer for why that might be— the Code, Mayer replacing Thalberg, the urgency of the Depression being somewhat lessened, whatever— but for whatever reason, though there are many individual films one might love (Capra, Errol Flynn) and the professional sheen was as shiny as could be, the argument is rarely made that Hollywood was quite as fermentingly creative and fascinating in the latter part of the decade. Suddenly in 1939 things seem to coalesce and through the war period you have movies that seem to revive the best of both worlds, the smoothness of the late 30s with the irreverence and topical urgency of the early 30s. It's very hard to think of someone working in the late 30s whose best work came then rather than the early 40s.

And in fact Everson makes that exact argument, that the movies got a lot better for those reasons suddenly in 1939. So while I agree that to some extent this is shaping history to match one's personal likes, I also agree with his historical outline and think it isn't just one person's quirky taste. That said, at the level of specific films, give me 1933 (King Kong, Duck Soup, The Stranger's Return etc.) over 1932...

And just think of what happened to poor Nora Charles after Breen started wielding his axe. In '34 she was matching Nick drink for drink and wisecrack for wisecrack. By the '40s she was just another ditsy housewife. It was pathetic.

And Tarzan's mate Jane wasn't the jungle nymph she had been, just another helpmeet keeping up the tree house while Tarzan had to go out and find a son in an airplane crash site.

Lots of early talkie players lost their oomph after the Code kicked in: Jean Harlow, Wheeler & Woolsey, Maurice Chevalier, Mae West, etc. etc.

And don't forget the cartoons -- Breen also ruined the Fleischer Studio's top female star. Thanks to the victory of the bluenoses in Hollywood, Betty Boop was transformed from a delightful little sexpot into a goody two-shoes schoolmarm, complete with a puppy and a cute grandpa.

Certainly I think few of us (maybe a Sonja Henie fan) would name as many favorites from 1935-1938 as from 1931-4.

I'm no fan of Sonja (though her amazing popularity astounds me!), but the years '35-'38 just happened to be the career high point of one extraordinary talent: Eleanor Powell. Even her high, thin voice I love. But she's almost the only exception to my general lack of enthusiasm for this period.

Everson is right as rain in calling 1932 the peak year for Hollywood films. Part of the reason for this situation is economic. 1932 was the rockbottom year of the Depression, Broadway was on the skids (as shown at the start of "Gold Diggers of 1933") and only Hollywood was forking over big money to buy the rights to books like "Grand Hotel" and to pay high salaries to playwrights, news reporters and authors to write for the movies. In 1932, talkies were still new, there was no cookie cutter approach to making movies. The people who made movies were under pressure to be original and, in the case of studio production heads Thalberg and Zanuck, they had plenty of experience making silent films, experience which they transferred over to making sound films. So, 1932 was a "lightning in a bottle" year, when the talent and advances in technology were there to enable Hollywood to turn out creative movies by the score. I think 1933 was a close second for Hollywood, then the roof caved in with the onset of Joe Breen's brand of rigid censorship in July 1934. Hollywood in 1932 made movies fast. "The Match King" was in movie theaters in the same year, 1932, as when Ivar Krueger (the real Match King) killed himself. For many movies made in 1932, the problem was that they vanished from sight until TCM started showing them again to a wide audience almost 75 years later. The cliche that applies to many of these 1932 movies is "that they stand the test of time." The clothing and cars may be antiquated, but movies like 1932's "Night Court" or "The Hatchet Man" will still hold your interest.

[Christopher Jacobs]

Another aspect about 1932 that stands out is that the widespread 1929-30-31 fad for avoiding background mood music unless it was part of the scene, like a radio or live band, finally ran its course and was abandoned. Films like THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, A FAREWELL TO ARMS, and others again dared to use rich music scores underscoring many scenes, and many more films than in the previous three years were also more comfortable with the moving camera shots and faster editing that all but disappeared in many early talkies (there were always exceptions). Combined with the strict enforcement of the Production Code still being a couple of years off, the year 1932 (and 1933) suddenly was producing films that looked much more sophisticated and modern technically than 1929-31 and much more modern thematically and dramatically than 1935-38, and often hold up better today.

....the problem was that they vanished from sight until TCM started showing them again to a wide audience almost 75 years later.

Only to viewers in America sadly, in much of the rest of the world early silents are probably less accessible than the minutes of the North Korean politburo, especially if you live outside the few cities that have active film archives.

I'd pretty much agree with the early '30s being the talkie peak, as far as my personal interest... It's not just that American precodes have a freer scripting advantage over the later talkies; they also have a more rough-hewn look, a bit 'closer to life' and grittier than the blander, glossier films of the later '30s. Stylistically, a lot is left over from the late silents too - it can be instructive to turn off the sound, and all of a sudden a film looks just like 1928 again. The sexiness is appealing too, of course - especially considering how much more conservative (even stodgy-looking) the women's fashions became over the decade. For a single year, I might single out '33 over '32, but '31-34 are pretty much a golden era for me.

It's worth looking at this internationally, too; for film style wasn't limited to the US. For instance, I'd consider 1931 the peak year for German talkies, with films like M, KAMERADSCHAFT, THREEPENNY OPERA, MAEDCHEN IN UNIFORM all coming out the same year... Germany had a different kind of "precode era" than the US did, and could be even bolder in its films.

Stylistically, a lot is left over from the late silents too - it can be instructive to turn off the sound, and all of a sudden a film looks just like 1928 again.

That's another point Everson made in American Silent Film, that the advent of talkies make the late silents much more experimental visually as well as less inhibited in dealing with controversial subject matter. By 1932 it had become obvious that talking film had to reassert the visual power of the silents, so there was a re-emergence of style in this period. But after '34, when the subject matter of so many films had been watered down, all there was left was style. Hence the emphasis after that period on gloss and glamor. It had existed before, but now it had become the main attraction. Story and characterization became standardized and conventional.

Another aspect about 1932 that stands out is that the widespread 1929-30-31 fad for avoiding background mood music unless it was part of the scene, like a radio or live band, finally ran its course and was abandoned. Films like THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, A FAREWELL TO ARMS, and others again dared to use rich music scores underscoring many scenes

This absense of background music in some pictures is an editorial choice that has always intrigued me, because sometimes, in fact often, it seems entirely "right" for that particular dramatic situation, just as ill-chosen music can be, & all too often is, an annoying distraction. For those scenes of greatest tension between a couple, for ex., I think I'd lean toward avoiding it. It's impossible, however, to make any blanket pronouncement, because some one out of a thousand possible musical selections might make all the difference. I'm referring here only to talkies of course; for silents, the music absolutely must, as Rodney says, "do the talking."

I have to believe most classic film fans are truly schizophrenic. The majority of them deride modern cinema as being not worthy to pop their corn. They state that the only true classic films occurred during the silents up to the 1960s. But when push comes to shove they really enjoy those produced from the 30s to the 50s. On the other hand things began to change after the war years so when it comes right down to it the 1930s were truly the classic era for film lovers. On the other hand, 1939 has been over rated for decades and nothing was right in the Industry after Thalberg died, so now the general consensus is the vaunted Pre-codes -- that glorious decade....er....three years of salacious film-making that titillates per-pubescent mindsets.

I'm sure if this thread goes on any longer the cinema will have peaked in 1896, when the aesthetics of filmmaking was at it's purest forms.

I have to believe most classic film fans are truly schizophrenic. The majority of them deride modern cinema as being not worthy to pop their corn. They state that the only true classic films occurred during the silents up to the 1960s. But when push comes to shove they really enjoy those produced from the 30s to the 50s. On the other hand things began to change after the war years so when it comes right down to it the 1930s were truly the classic era for film lovers. On the other hand, 1939 has been over rated for decades and nothing was right in the Industry after Thalberg died, so now the general consensus is the vaunted Pre-codes -- that glorious decade....er....three years of salacious film-making that titillates per-pubescent mindsets.

I'm sure if this thread goes on any longer the cinema will have peaked in 1896, when the aesthetics of filmmaking was at it's purest forms.

I don't think anyone is saying that there was no quality cinema after 1934. There was plenty. But the path cinema followed would have been different if not for the production code. And although it's nothing more that rank speculation, I believe movies would have been much better. Gone With the Wind would have been just as big a blockbuster, but would have been frank about more than Rhett just not giving a damn. Film noir would still have been as murky and morally ambiguous, but without the hypocrisy. You could have prostitutes as characters without calling them dance hall girls. Fritz Lang always felt hampered by the moral strictures of the production code. Without it, who knows? He may have produced movies as good as any of his German films. What's wrong with speculating about how much better classic film might have been?

[Christopher Jacobs]

I'm sure if this thread goes on any longer the cinema will have peaked in 1896, when the aesthetics of filmmaking was at it's purest forms.

Nah, it was 1912. The arrival of feature-length productions was the beginning of the end! People just don't have attention-spans long enough to sit in a theatre for an hour or more!

As long as we're questioning Everson's opinion on 1932, I have to challenge the idea that silents peaked late--the years from 1915-24 was filled with accomplished and well-crafted movies from all the major studios that stand very nicely on their own merits.

The whole business of assigning greatness to particular years isn't all that rewarding, if you ask me. In the period under discussion, most films released in January and February were actually written and filmed late the preceding year, and anything that came out in November and December didn't reach most of its audience until the next. Historical waters, especially in the arts, are just a lot muddier than books make them appear.

-HA

I have to believe most classic film fans are truly schizophrenic.

Not me--I always take my Thorazine regularly. And what "titillates [my own] per-pubescent mindset" is the straight & snappy talk, and gritty reality (of which the "bawdy naughtiness" Mitch Farish refers to above is an essential & legitmate part) of that lost antediluvian world submerged by the Code--where a spirited woman could protest the "life-sentence" she knew childbearing would impose on her, where Jews could make fun of Goys, & vice versa, where Franklin Pangborn could flaunt his limp wrist, & on & on. There was, actually, quite enough glory in those "three years" (in fact, almost 6) to make them, in retrospect, seem like a decade.

....the problem was that they vanished from sight until TCM started showing them again to a wide audience almost 75 years later.

Only to viewers in America sadly, in much of the rest of the world early silents are probably less accessible than the minutes of the North Korean politburo, especially if you live outside the few cities that have active film archives.

I presume you mean "early talkies" but, yes, I totally agree.

I have to believe most classic film fans are truly schizophrenic. On the other hand, 1939 has been over rated for decades and nothing was right in the Industry after Thalberg died, so now the general consensus is the vaunted Pre-codes -- that glorious decade....er....three years of salacious film-making that titillates per-pubescent mindsets.

I have to vehemently disagree with the "salacious film-making that titillates per-pubescent mindsets" view of precode film, which really borders on slander. One thing I notice in precodes which makes me favor them is that adults act more as adults - women liked having sex even with the consequences, and they were allowed to be independent, ambitious and have careers. Women could be a man's equal and not be coded lesbian. The Code did much to infantilize women (it damaged some actresses careers, ISTM), and the Code did rather less to rid films of racism, no matter what the rules of the Code were.

I don't consider 1932 the peak year, but the first really good year of talkies, and the '30s the decade I find most interesting.

But if there had not been a Production Code crackdown, would we be seeing many of these 1931-early '34 films today? Surely had there been no cut-off date, we wouldn't be so interested in these films now. They wouldn't be "Pre-Code" films, they'd just be films that came out in the early 30s. And why should we seperate film history from the greater societal picture? Wasn't a code crackdown inevitable, given what most people found acceptable at the time? And what about the Hepburn and Rosiland Russell "Career Woman" films later? In these films, the Woman kept her career at the fadeout, as opposed to Pre-Code heroines who usually quit at the end.

Wasn't a code crackdown inevitable, given what most people found acceptable at the time?

Yes and no. On the one hand, various religious and civic leaders had been growing more and more critical of movie content in the years prior to 1934, but OTOH, the very popularity (i.e. audience acceptance) of films they objected to finally spurred them into action. It's possible that Mae West, more than any other factor, was the proverbial camel-breaking straw, particularly among the Catholic hierarchy. By April 1934, occasional objections to film content from bishops and sodalities had turned into boycott threats and finally the formation of the Legion of Decency. Without the Legion and the threat of a Catholic boycott, the "pre-code" (really pre-Breen) years likely wouldn't have ended when they did.

-HA