Despite what you might think, our grandparents (or great-grandparents) weren’t all prudes or blue-nosed moral crusaders. As evidence, Hollywood, from the silent era until the mid-1930s, often produced feature-length films that dealt explicitly with adult themes, such as premarital sex, criminality, drug abuse, and prostitution. On other occasions, filmmakers titillated audiences with graphic images that included nudity or gruesome acts of violence. Then, when sound was introduced, a whole slew of films and filmmakers tried to capitalize on the public’s interest in the criminal underworld that was created as a result of Prohibition by producing a series of brash and bullet-heavy “talkies” that glorified the exploits of gangsters, such as Paul Muni’s Antonio “Tony” Camonte in 1932’s Scarface.
For years, many civic-minded individuals considered Hollywood to be a bastion of sin, a sort of modern-day Babylon, because of such films. Furthering these stereotypes were real-life criminal cases that involved silver-screen celebrities such as Fatty Arbuckle, who was charged with manslaughter for the death of aspiring actress Virginia Rappe in 1921, and William Desmond Taylor, the director whose salacious 1922 murder created an entire subculture devoted to solving the complex case.
Finally, in 1934, Hollywood tried to rein itself in. Led by former Postmaster General Will Hays, who had earlier drafted up a list of 36 “Don’ts and Be Carefuls,” known more popularly as the “Hays Code,” the movie studios and their moguls began to enforce the Motion Picture Production Code. This strict set of rules dictated on-screen behavior until the late 1960s, when a new generation of filmmakers broke away from the old studio system and began making films that dealt with the interests of the counterculture—sex, drugs, radical politics, and, above all else, rock and roll.
The Motion Picture Production Code unintentionally created a revered film genre known as Pre-Code. From early gangster pictures to horror classics, Pre-Code films often carry a sense of mystery and danger because of later censorship. Often, modern audiences find Pre-Code films less than scandalous, but a select few can still manage to shock even the most cynical of moviegoers.
10 Island Of Lost Souls – 1932
Based on H.G. Wells’s 1896 novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, Island of Lost Souls tells the story of Edward Parker (played by Richard Arlen), a shipwreck survivor who winds up being rescued by a freighter full of captured animals destined for a remote South Seas island. As it turns out, the island belongs to Dr. Moreau (played by Charles Laughton), a mad scientist interested in transforming jungle beasts into humans. Within no time, Parker becomes a prisoner on Moreau’s island and is forced to play a part in Dr. Moreau’s most nauseating plan—the successful consummation of sexual intercourse between a man and Lota (played by Kathleen Burke), a panther that Moreau has successfully turned into a beautiful woman.
When the film premiered, Wells apparently disliked the fact that director Erle C. Kenton and screenwriters Philip Wylie and Waldemar Young emphasized Dr. Moreau’s sexual perversity rather than the novel’s anti-vivisection attitude. That being said, Island of Lost Souls does in fact deal with the controversial issues of eugenics and torture, with Dr. Moreau’s dreaded operating room, called the “House of Pain,” where animals are either painfully transformed into semi-humans or discarded as failures doomed to a life of servitude, serving as the focal point of all evil on the island. Class issues also play a part in the film, and Island of Lost Souls provides an uncomfortable allegory with the warped racial science of the Nazis, as well as Wylie’s own notions of social Darwinism and the innate superiority of certain individuals.
Although the exact reasons were lost during World War II, the British Board of Film Censors banned Island of Lost Souls in 1933. Almost 20 years later, the film received an “X” rating and underwent several cuts in order to be shown to the general public. Finally, in 1996, it was restored to its original version and received a PG rating.
9 Murders In The Zoo – 1933
Murders in the Zoo (1933) was considered notorious in its own time. Directed by A. Edward Sutherland and co-written by the acerbic Wylie, Murders in the Zoo is a shorter full-length film (it lasts just a few minutes over an hour) about an insanely jealous big-game hunter named Eric Gorman (played by horror stalwart Lionel Atwill) and the lengths he goes to in order to exact revenge. Gorman’s jealousy stems from his younger, more attractive wife Evelyn (played by Kathleen Burke) and the various men who pursue her. Viewers get a taste of Gorman’s rage in the very first scene when, while hunting exotic animals for an American zoo in French Indochina, Gorman pounces upon one of Evelyn’s lovers and literally sews his mouth shut. As if this weren’t bad enough, the now mute man dies after being mauled by a tiger.
Once back on American soil, Gorman’s attacks continue unabated, but instead of relying on natural predators, he uses an ingenious murder mechanism that dispenses green mamba venom once it makes contact with skin. Ultimately, Gorman is revealed to be a serial killer, and while trying to evade authorities within the municipal zoo, he suffocates to death when he accidentally locks himself in with a boa constrictor.
Atwill’s performance in Murders in the Zoo earned him the title of “The MENTAL Lon Chaney” from the editors of Motion Picture Magazine, but the film itself was not a hit with censors, who shivered at all of the on-screen brutality. Even today, the film remains disarmingly grisly, even if viewed for its animal cruelty alone.
8 Ingagi – 1930
King Kong is rightfully considered one to be of Hollywood’s greatest creations. Grand in scope and beautiful in execution, King Kong is to many the quintessential Hollywood film. Ingagi, which predates King Kong by three years, is almost the exact opposite. Sometimes referred to as an early example of the “found footage” motif, Ingagi purports to be a documentary about the African travels of Sir Hubert Winstead. While navigating the “Dark Continent,” Winstead comes across many fabulous creatures, such as the Tortadillo. More shocking is the fact that Winstead finds an isolated tribe of women who not only worship gorillas, but who also engage in carnal acts with the large primates.
Obviously, Ingagi is not a real documentary. It is a poorly disguised hoax, with the Tortadillo being a leopard turtle sporting wings and a tail that had been glued on. Although Ingagi does use actual footage taken from an earlier documentary, most of the film was shot in Los Angeles on back lots that were more or less commandeered by Congo Pictures, an independent outfit run by Nat Spitzer. Because of this, Ingagi is a chaotic mess that doesn’t even try to synch up stock footage with its own actors and scenarios.
Despite this, Ingagi was one of the highest-grossing films during the Depression. Audiences flocked to see the film’s final minutes, which feature naked African “ape women,” who were actually white actresses in heavy makeup, being ritually sacrificed to a gorilla. The film’s poster left little room for doubt that its producers wanted to exploit the erotic aspects of this sacrifice to the hilt.
