Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 3 [4 Discs]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Third collection of pre-Hayes-Code films that were considered too racy during their day (early 1930's). Hollywood created their own Code of conduct for the movies so the Government wouldn't. This volume contains shorts, cartoons, trailers, and these films: Other Men's Women, Purchase Price, Frisco Jenny, Midnight Mary, Heroes For Sale, and Wild Boys of the Road, plus audio commentaries from notable film historians.

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 4
• Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Subtitle: Eng/Fre
• Features:
  • Bonus Disc 4 With 2 Insightful Documentary Profiles: Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick and The Men Who Made the Movies: William A. Wellman
  • Expert Commentaries on 3 Movies
  • Vintage Era Shorts and Cartoons
  • Theatrical Trailers on All 6 Movies

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Alec Baldwin - Narrator
       Donald Cook - Dan Reynolds
       Aline MacMahon - Mary Dennis
       Andy Devine - Sam Travers
       Anne Hovey - Lola
       Arthur Hohl - Dr. Heckel
       Grant Mitchell - George W. Gibson
       Claire McDowell - Mrs. Smith
       Clarence H. Wilson - Justice of the Peace
       Charles Grapewin - Mr. Cadmust
       Crauford Kent - Peters
       Charles Grapewin - Clerk
       Adrian Morris - Buggie Maylin
       Adele Watson - Mrs. Tipton
       Minna Gombell - Aunt Carrie
       Willard Robertson - Captain of Detectives
       Anne Shirley - A Farmer's Daughter

• Director:

  William Wellman, Todd Robinson

• Producer:

  Raymond Griffith, Lucien Hubbard, Robert R. Presnell, Sr.

• Screenwriter:

  Maude Fulton, William K. Wells, Robert Lord, Wilson Mizner

• Screen Story:

  Lillie Hayward, John Francis Larkin, Gerald Beaumont

• Screenwriter:

  Gene Markey, Kathryn Scola, Earl W. Baldwin, Todd Robinson

• Cinematographer:

  Barney "Chick" McGill, Sidney Hickox, James Van Trees, Arthur Todd

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Leo F. Forbstein

• Composer (Music Score):

  Louis Silvers

• Songwriter:

  Sidney Clare

• Composer (Music Score):

  Leo F. Forbstein

• Songwriter:

  Peter Tinturin, Charles Tobias

• Composer (Music Score):

  Dr. William Axt

• Editor:

  Edward McDermott, William Holmes, James Morley, William S. Gray, Howard P. Bretherton, Thomas Pratt

• Art Director:

  Jack Okey, Robert M. Haas, Esdras Hartley

• Associate Producer:

  Frank T. Thompson

• Costume Designer:

  Orry-Kelly, Adrian, Earl Luick

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Robert B. Lee

• Makeup:

  Perc Westmore

• Short Story Author:

  Arthur Stringer, Anita Loos, Daniel Ahearn

• Interviewer:

  Frank T. Thompson

REVIEWS:

• At one point near the beginning of William Wellman's Midnight Mary, a down-and-out Loretta Young passes by a marquee advertising a Joan Crawford movie. An apt reminder indeed that this kind of romantic gangster melodrama masquerading as social commentary was in many ways pioneered by Crawford. Joan must have been otherwise engaged, however, and MGM instead borrowed Loretta Young from Fox. It didn't much matter; Mary Martin of Midnight Mary is yet another unfortunate victim of circumstances, a little more vulnerable, perhaps, due to Young's kinder, gentler interpretation, but it is still more or less the same Mary that had appeared on countless screens in the early '30s. Franchot Tone (soon to be the husband of Joan Crawford, incidentally) played the inevitable rich boy in his usual insouciant manner, while Ricardo Cortez, borrowed from Warner Bros., remains his tough-talking self. Also borrowed from Warner was cinematographer James Van Trees, but somehow the gutsy attitude of that studio is absent. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi
• Despite some flaws, William Wellman's bitingly realistic depiction of the bleak prospects awaiting the hordes of teenagers who took to the road in search of work during the Depression remains one of the most memorably affecting features on that era. While talented tough-kid Frankie Darro (as Eddie Smith) is the ostensible star, the film is episodically structured around a group of these rail-riding kids and the ease with which characters are dropped and picked up underlines the randomness of their lives. The film is permeated by the director's characteristic mixture of harshness and tenderness, as comic interludes alternate with scenes of abject desperation. As usual, Wellman was testing the limits of censorship, with a then-shocking suggestion of rape, and in the film's best-known scene, a mutilation which still has the power to disturb. The initial naivete of these kids may seem incredible in a far more cynical age, but Wellman, who had taken to the road himself 20 years earlier, imbues their disillusionment with a depth that feels personal. Although the film is bereft of any political or economic analysis of the causes of the Depression, and the unbelievably positive tacked-on ending seems to bely everything that's gone before, it's difficult to imagine how it could have been otherwise in the Hollywood of the period. It also seems possible that the ubiquitous figure of the cop-as-obstacle spoke to contemporary audiences more eloquently than any analysis. ~ Michael Costello, Rovi