Complicated Women

Before Hollywood had boundaries, they weren't afraid to push the limits.

Looks at the stereotype-breaking films of the period from 1929, when movies entered the sound era, until 1934 when the Hays Code virtually neutered film content. No longer portrayed as virgins or vamps, the liberated female of the pre-code films had dimensions. Good girls had lovers and babies and held down jobs, while the bad girls were cast in a sympathetic light. And they did it all without apology.

Documentary TV Movie

Jane Fonda

(Self - Narrator (voice))

Frances Dee

(Self - Interviewee)

Karen Morley

(Self - Interviewee)

Kitty Carlisle

(Self - Interviewee)

Mae Madison

(Self - Interviewee)

Mark Vieira

(Self - Interviewee)

Mick LaSalle

(Self - Interviewee)

Molly Haskell

(Self - Interviewee)

Barbara Stanwyck

(Self (archive footage))

Bette Davis

(Self (archive footage))

C. Aubrey Smith

(Self (archive footage))

Chester Morris

(Self (archive footage))

Clark Gable

(Self (archive footage))

Claudette Colbert

(Self (archive footage))

Dolores del Río

(Self (archive footage))

Fred Astaire

(Self (archive footage))

Fredric March

(Self (archive footage))

Gene Raymond

(Self (archive footage))

Ginger Rogers

(Self (archive footage))

Greta Garbo

(Self (archive footage))

Helen Twelvetrees

(Self (archive footage))

Irving Thalberg

(Self (archive footage))

James Cagney

(Self (archive footage))

Jean Harlow

(Self (archive footage))

Joan Blondell

(Self (archive footage))

Joan Crawford

(Self (archive footage))

John Gilbert

(Self (archive footage))

Johnny Weissmüller

(Self (archive footage))

Katharine Hepburn

(Self (archive footage))

Kay Francis

(Self (archive footage))

Leslie Howard

(Self (archive footage))

Lewis Stone

(Self (archive footage))

Loretta Young

(Self (archive footage))

Norma Shearer

(Self (archive footage))

Mae West

(Self (archive footage))

Marlene Dietrich

(Self (archive footage))

Maureen O'Sullivan

(Self (archive footage))

Miriam Hopkins

(Self (archive footage))

Myrna Loy

(Self (archive footage))

Ricardo Cortez

(Self (archive footage))

Robert Montgomery

(Self (archive footage))

Ruth Chatterton

(Self (archive footage))

Tallulah Bankhead

(Self (archive footage))

William H. Hays

(Self (archive footage))

Gilbert Roland

(Self (archive footage))

Lee Phelps

(Self (archive footage))

Nat Pendleton

(Self (archive footage))

Warner Oland

(Self (archive footage))

Maurice Murphy

(Self (archive footage))

Herbert Marshall

(Self (archive footage))

George F. Marion

(Self (archive footage))

Aline MacMahon

(Self (archive footage))

Dorothy Mackaill

(Self (archive footage))

Paul Lukas

(Self (archive footage))

Jack La Rue

(Self (archive footage))

Allen Jenkins

(Self (archive footage))

Olin Howland

(Self (archive footage))

Jean Hersholt

(Self (archive footage))

Ann Harding

(Self (archive footage))

Cary Grant

(Self (archive footage))

William Gargan

(Self (archive footage))

Douglass Dumbrille

(Self (archive footage))

Cecil Cunningham

(Self (archive footage))

Gary Cooper

(Self (archive footage))

Maurice Chevalier

(Self (archive footage))

Virginia Bruce

(Self (archive footage))

Charles Bickford

(Self (archive footage))

Robert Barrat

(Self (archive footage))

John Barrymore

(Self (archive footage))

Lionel Barrymore

(Self (archive footage))

Wallace Beery

(Self (archive footage))