DVD pick of the week: Hollywood before the code

Decades after being first denigrated and then forgotten, the glorious class of films known as pre-Code are finally getting the attention they deserve, especially in the world of DVDs.

Early sound films made before the moralistic Production Code was enforced in 1934, these movies were racier and more candid than their successors, dealing with subject matter like drugs, premarital sex, prostitution and suicide that the Code later made taboo.

The Warner Archive Collection has been a pioneer in this reissue area -- their current releases in the “Forbidden Hollywood” series Volumes 4 and 5. They feature ever-watchable stars like William Powell in “Lawyer Man,” James Cagney in “Hard To Handle,” Barbara Stanwyck in “Ladies They Talk About” and Warren William, a.k.a. “The King of pre-Code,” in “The Mind Reader.” (These manufactured-on-demand DVD sets can be ordered at www.WarnerArchive.com or www.wbshop.com).

Newer to the pre-Code world is Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, which has partnered with Turner Classic Movies to release a handsome set called “The Columbia Pre-Code Collection.” This includes not one but two Stanwyck features (the evocatively titled duo of “Ten Cents A Dance” and “Shopworn”) and also features performers not always seen in pre-Code mode. Jean Harlow stars in “Three Wise Girls,” Carole Lombard in “Virtue,” and John Wayne, of all people, gets into pre-Code trouble as a West Point football star in “Arizona.” Those were the days.

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