← Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
Hollywood's Shocking First Sex Symbols
00:49:16
Loading summary
Transcript198 lines
- [00:00]
A
Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history, like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to History Hit where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries plus new releases every week covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe.
- [00:38]
B
The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up, March Madness is here and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.
- [01:08]
A
Lunch was great, but this traffic is awful. Um, can we stop at a bathroom? Are you alright? I keep having stomach issues after eating like diarrhea, gas and bloating, abdominal pain and sometimes oily stools. Sound familiar? Those stomach issues may actually be a pancreas issue called exocrine pancreatic insufficiency or epi. Creon pancrelipase may help manage epi. Creon is a prescription medicine used to treat people who can't digest food normally because their pancreas doesn't make enough enzymes.
- [01:37]
B
Creon may increase your chance of fibrosing colonopathy, a rare bowel disorder. Tell your doctor if you have a history of intestinal blockage or scarring or thickening of your bowel wall, if you
- [01:43]
C
are allergic to pork or if you
- [01:44]
B
have gout, kidney problems or worsening of painful swollen joints. Call your doctor if you have any unusual or severe gastrointestinal symptoms or allergic reactions. Take Creon as directed by your doctor and always with food. Do not chew capsules as this may cause mouth irritation.
- [01:55]
A
Other side effects may include blood sugar
- [01:56]
B
changes, gas, dizziness, sore throat and cough. These are not all the side effects of Creon. Call 800-633-9110 or visit creoninfo.com to learn more. That's C R E O N info.com
- [02:05]
A
I'm asking my doctor about EPI and
- [02:07]
C
if Creon could help.
- [02:10]
A
Hello my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister and you are back once again listening To Betwixter sheets. Come in, come in. Find somewhere comfortable to plonk yourself. But I do have to tell you, and I have to keep telling you, this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults, other adults, about adults things and adulty wake or rage, newspaper, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I have to keep telling you that because if anyone happens to get offended, we need to be able to go, well, tough tits and fair dues, we did tell you. Right, on with the show. Hello, betwixters. You've joined me on a cavernous MGM soundstage in 1931. Huge overhead lights are burning powder, dust floats in the air, and the cameras are beginning to whir for a scene. But this is Hollywood pre code, pre Hays Code, pre censorship. And it's a very different world than the one you might be thinking of. And given that this is nearly 100 years before our present day, you might be surprised at the brazen sexuality on offer. You can't see me but can you hear me clutching my pearls? And as you'll find out in today's episode, the women who lit up early Hollywood were pioneers in bringing sexuality to the big screen. Screen. But who were they? And why did the sensors come crashing down on them in the way that they did? Well, stick around and we will find out. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex, scandal and society, with me, Kate Lister. When you think of old Hollywood movies, you'd be forgiven for thinking of delicate women falling into the arms of big, burly men. It's all a bit swoony and, well, it's a bit silly. But what it wasn't was raunchy. I mean, it was kind of raunchy in a very tame way, but it certainly wasn't hot and sexy stuff. It's suggestive at best, but that was Hollywood after the Hays Code was brought in. The women we're talking about today, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo and Jean Harlow, were the women before that. They were the reason this code was needed because they brought sexuality to the big screen in a way that felt confident, modern, and in many cases, quite shocking. I'm serious. I'm not easy to shock, but they managed it. But how much of this was their own doing? Or was it a product of powerful producers? It's a fascinating and entertaining world to go back to. And helping us do that today is the marvellous journalist and author Mick LaSalle. Right, without further ado, let's crack on. Hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's Only Miglasal. How are you doing?
- [05:09]
C
I'm fine. How are you?
- [05:11]
A
I'm doing fantastically well because I get to talk to you and I get to talk to you about an actress who. This is a terrible confession to someone who's done as much work on this area as you have but somebody that I don't know an awful lot about. Norma Shearer.
- [05:25]
C
Well, I mean, she's not as famous as a lot of them.
- [05:28]
A
No. Oh, I'm so glad you said that. Am I just being really ignorant that I'd not heard of her before and my producers hadn't heard of her before?
- [05:34]
C
Yeah.
- [05:35]
A
So before I opened with the question, why has nobody heard of her? I thought I'd just check that that was an actual thing.
- [05:41]
C
I think it's a few reasons, but I think maybe the main reason. I like to say there's a few reasons. Well, one reason is that the movies that she is best known for or at least was best known for, which was the Women, which is with Joan Crawford, where she plays kind of a saintly character which is totally against the pattern of her whole career. And the other was Romeo and Juliet, where she's terrible in it. Yeah, she's awful. I mean, she's 35 and she's playing Juliet and she's just. She's just not good.
- [06:12]
A
Oh, no.
- [06:13]
C
Yeah. And so for years, that was what was shown on television. Then the other reason is that she was married to Irving Thalberg who was the big producer, actually the head of production at mgm. And when he married her, she was already famous. But a lot of people just assume, oh, she only became a star because she was married to the boss. That's the other thing. And then she had. Because she was presenting as the first lady of mgm. And I think that the next generation of film critics had it in for her and just kind of minimized her achievement. But I think also, too, it's like the revenge against the true feminist. And one of the ways that revenge was taken on her, I think, was to just deny that she was the thing that she really was which was the principal trailblazer at this time for women in film. Her and Greta Garbo, to an extent. But Shearer was really important. And can I tell you how I got. Got interested?
- [07:11]
A
Please do. Yes.
- [07:12]
C
Okay. So this is what happened, is that I really liked movies from the pre Code period. It's the period when movies weren't censored in the United States.
- [07:22]
A
That's the Hays Code.
- [07:23]
C
Right, right. And it was not censored from 1929 or so, when talkies came in, up to July 1, 1934, when all of a sudden they. The censorship really came in. And so it was a really good age for women in movies, and it was pretty good age for men in movies, too. And so I loved those movies. But when I was, like, my early 20s, Norma Shearer died. And I remember reading her obituary, which was written in the LA Times, and it was all about what a bad actress she was. I mean, I know. I don't know how you do a hit piece on somebody who just died. My God. Yeah. So I had this weird background. I had seen every Pre Code movie that I could see, but I avoided everything with Norma Shearer because I just know, oh, well, she's the one. She's the one who's no good. Right?
- [08:12]
A
Right. Yeah.
- [08:13]
C
So anyway, so I have this background where I know pre code, but I don't know Norma Shearer. And for some reason, there was a cat that I had to feed, and the cat was very neurotic because his people were on vacation. So I decided to watch a movie with the cat rather than just feed the cat because I'd basically run out of any Pre cuts you got. I got a movie called the Divorcee with Norma Shearer, and I put that on with the cat. You know, I had the cat there and I started watching it, and I almost fell off the couch because it was really, really daring. I thought, what is going on? And so then I watched another Norma Shearer movie, and it was the same thing. And so then I. So then I went to the library to read all the books about how great Norman Shearer is, and there was nothing there. And then I started reading, like, I would go to the index and look up Normanshear, and it was all about how she was lousy. She had played the perpetual virgin on screen, which I thought, this is nuts. You know, this didn't happen. But I thought, maybe I'm crazy. So I went and I got varieties from, like, 1930 and 31, 32, instead of just reading how she was regarded in her own time. And I found that I was right, that she was considered, like, a real trailblazer. And so then. So I thought, okay, I'm gonna have to write a book now. You know, I didn't, like, want to write a book. I just thought, I gotta.
- [09:38]
A
But there's an injustice there, isn't there? Like, that's not fair. Of course you had to write a book, and I'm so glad you did.
- [09:45]
C
Yeah, that's Exactly. It is. It was a feeling of like, this is like so unfair. And I'm the only one who knows this. I'm the only one who knows. And so I really felt kind of obsessed with getting the story out. But then in the process I realized that there was a whole story about the women from this period and that became the book that I wrote. But Shearer and then a little bit to a lesser extent, Garbo are the most important people in the book. But the era itself, the precoat era, was an amazing era for women in cinema. But she was at the head of. She was the trailblazer. She was at the head of it.
- [10:27]
A
I watched the Divorcee last night. That is spicy. If I had pearls, I might have clutched them. I'm not easily shocked. Do you know what? It wasn't the content that shocked me. I've seen far worse. I didn't expect that from a movie of that. That scene where she's shouting her ex husband. She's like, you'll be the only man who's not allowed into my bedroom from now on. And it was like, no. Really?
- [10:52]
C
Yes. And the scene that made me almost fall off the couch was when basically she finds out that her husband has had a one night stand with this woman. And he says, oh, it doesn't mean a thing. Doesn't mean a thing. And he goes off on a business trip and she kind of, interestingly, not in a spirit of revenge, but more like in a. In a spirit of inquiry, you know, he's like, decides to go out and have sex with his best friend. And then when he comes home from this business trip, acting just like a guy. I mean, that whole way he's acting like I can see any guy behaving like that, just wanting to sweep it under the rug and just forget it.
- [11:30]
A
Hello, darling. Everything's fine. How have you been? All fine, nothing to see here.
- [11:35]
C
And she says, like, you know, you, you like, you like a boy who's been spanked and kissed is all happy again. And he says, yeah, I feel just that way. It kind of misses the point of the. What she's saying. But the part that made me like fall off the couch was when she says, I've balanced our accounts.
- [11:51]
A
What a turn of phrase.
- [11:53]
C
I've balanced our accounts. And, and. Oh, that. Yeah, that was. And then the other one, though, is the one you're talking about. You're the only man in the world that my door is closed to.
- [12:02]
A
I know, it's, it's. I mean, this is what your book is about. It's so interesting is this pre code style of filming, which was markedly different to what was happening after the code. And you look at it and I guess it's because all we've seen for such a long time is stuff that happened after that censorship came in and they sort of. They just almost pretended that the other stuff didn't happen. It wasn't played, it wasn't advertised, it just kind of faded away. And when you watch it, there are women having premarital sex. There's films about abortion, there's film about sex workers. There's films, nudity, Tarzan's mate, people swimming around in the nip. It's like. It's really quite raunchy stuff.
- [12:40]
C
Yeah, it is. It's great. And you know, after that, they couldn't. Those films couldn't be released. And in some cases when they were re released because, you know, they had no anticipation of TV or home video or anything like that. When they were released, they were released cut. And then some cases the studios threw out the negative, the original negative of what was cut. But the good news is that most of the time that was able to be recovered. But the even better news is that the most risque films were the ones that were deemed uneditable. You know, it was just like too much. So as a result, those. They remained in great condition. You know, they remain intact because they couldn't be edited into harmlessness.
- [13:23]
A
I was just about to ask you about Babyface and I've just remembered I was supposed to be talking to you about normal shirts.
- [13:28]
C
No, no, but I mean, Baby Face, we could talk about Baby Face. You know, Babyface is great.
- [13:32]
A
I love that film. That's. Was that one of the ones that managed to survive that. That was uncuttable.
- [13:38]
C
Yeah, that is. That was uncuttable. But what's really weird about Babyface is that, okay, so back in those days, there were seven censorship boards. This is during the pre code period. There were seven censorship boards in seven different states. Basically, when you made a movie, what you were worried about is getting cut by the census report. So they were a lot more liberal than what followed. But the census report that they were most afraid of was New York because it was just a huge market, it was a big estate at the time. Babyface, we didn't know this until like 2003. We knew the version that we had and that was pretty far out there. But then it was discovered in a tin can somewhere was the original version. That's from, you know, that was. That that was made before the New York census got to it. And so that, that's the one. That's probably the one that you saw, because that's the one you see these days.
- [14:35]
A
Yep. Young working girl hustling away to the, to the very top, using only her, her looks and wit and.
- [14:41]
C
Well, let me ask you this. Did you. Because, Because I. I know the movie pretty well. How long did you see it? Because you may not.
- [14:47]
A
It was a while ago.
- [14:47]
C
It's a while ago. Okay, well, this one point where she has sex with a guy on a train. Like the guy wants to throw her off the train because she's like stowing away on the train with a friend and she has sex with the guy on the train. And that is not in the version that we had up to 2003. That's the scene that was in. But anyway, Babyface. Babyface to me is like pre code 101. Like if you want to get somebody into pre code movies, you show them Baby face. And that, that does it because that's so much fun. And Barbara Stanwyck is a blast in that.
- [15:21]
A
Like unrepentantly unlikable, but likable with it.
- [15:25]
C
Yeah, yeah. Her pre coats are really fun. I mean, she's one of my favorites. That's great. There's a movie called Night Nurse that's really a blast. Her and Joan Blondell, she's just great. She's a lot of fun. She's real hard boiled.
- [15:39]
A
Right. I'm gonna ask you about Norma Shearer now. Cause I've had my little side quest already. So let's talk about where she came from. What were her origins? Because one of the other remarkable things about her is like, if you don't know who she is, go and Google her. Look at a picture. She's not immediately someone that would strike you as that's a movie star. She doesn't have that Greta Garbo or Jean Harlow look. So how does she get into the talkies?
- [16:02]
C
Okay, so what happens with her? She was born in 1902. We're pretty sure it was 1902. And she's from Canada. She's from an English speaking suburb of Montreal called Westmount. And she's from an upper middle class background. But then her father lost all the money when she was about 18 and she was thinking of becoming like a concert pianist. But then they sold the family piano and they took the money and the three women, the mother and the two and two sisters. Norma and her older sister went to New York to make it in movies and also to make it on Broadway just to do anything she could do. And her mother didn't really get anywhere and her sister didn't get anywhere. But Shearer, you know, started, you know, getting a little bit of a foothold. She tells a story. She was very ambitious. She was very smart. She tells a story where they told all these girls to show up, all these pretty girls to show up. And they were gonna pick eight of them to be chorus girls. And so the guy was walking down the line and saying, okay, yeah, you, you, you. And she realized that he was never going to get to her. So she just started, like, doing a crossing set. So the guy turned around and then she just gave him a big smile and he walked over and said, okay, sister, you win. You're in it. So she. She was kind of smart that way. And then around 1922, when she was about 20 years old, she made a couple of movies. I saw one of them. The other one, I think, is Lost. I don't know how anybody could tell from these movies that she was good. Irving Thalberg saw her and wanted to sign her. He thought he saw something. And then she went out to Hollywood and met Thalberg. She thought Thalberg was Thalberg's office boy because he was so young. He was like, 23, 24.
- [17:50]
A
Oh, God. Wow, that is young.
- [17:51]
C
He's really young. How is she? And she. Yes, she was three years younger than he was. So she was like. Yes, he was like, 20. He was like 24, and she was like, 21. And he started putting her in movies and she became a pretty big silent actress. There's a great film that she made, was her first really great film called lady of the Night. That's just a masterpiece and kind of was undiscovered for a very long time. But it's a wonderful movie. She has two roles. She plays a young rich woman and then this girl from the streets, practically. And what's the beauty of the movie? The genius of the movie is that nobody realizes that they look alike, you know, so one person has money and one person has no money. And the world sees them completely differently as a result. So that's a great film. But anyway, so she was just kind of gradually getting more and more important. By 1927, I think she was probably the biggest star at MGM of the women although she was since supplanted by Greta Garbo. So Garbo then became the biggest star. But the one thing that is, I think that her. The fact that she looked, you Know, she was very pretty and everything, but she looked, like, normal pretty. Yeah.
- [19:02]
A
Yes, that's a good way of describing it.
- [19:03]
C
Yeah. She was, like, normal person pretty, whereas, like, Greta Garbo is, like, you know, like goddess pretty. You can't imagine Garbo in your classroom or something like that.
- [19:12]
A
Imagine turning up to work as an actress and seeing Garbo on site. I'm just going home.
- [19:17]
C
Oh, this just, you know, so I. I met a guy who. Who knew Garbo, you know, is like an old timer. When I was a young guy, I was like, 30 years ago. He said, you know, Garbo, whatever she had was on screen. He said, I thought she was kind of. He said, it's just one guy, you know. He said she was kind of like a sallow gal. He said. And he said the one that really struck him as, like, being amazing in person, in other words, being more amazing in color than in black and white, was Gene Harlow. He said Gene Harlow was amazing.
- [19:48]
A
I've heard stories about how. Well, I've heard lots of stories about how people dislodged actresses, but how the set would just be absolutely crowded with people just when Jean Harlow was even coming out of a trailer just to watch her walking across the set.
- [20:00]
C
Yeah, yeah. Somebody said that in the documentary based on my book. That was Karen Morley. And she was actually reasonably big herself. I mean, not like huge, like viral or something, but she was really respectable actress time anyway, so she. Because she, like, looked normal and also because she seemed to have, like, a lot of integrity about her, just seemed like a good person. She started getting cast as, you know, ingenue, which she didn't particularly like, although in some of those roles she was able to do something with it. But, you know, she basically wanted to be bad. You know, she wanted to play the new woman of the time, but. And at the same time, Greta Garbo had come to the United States and she wanted to play good women, and she was always cast as evil. In the beginning, she was like a vamp and recognized lives. And so they both. Because they were both huge stars, they were able to, you know, complain. And, like, Garvo just went on strike, and I didn't know that. Yeah, Garville went on strike for, like, a year or. No, about eight months.
- [21:06]
A
Wow.
- [21:06]
C
In fact, some people think she really didn't go on strike. She actually had a baby. Yeah. Because she. She really disappeared. You know, like, she stayed home. But in any case, she. She went on strike. And when Garbo came back, the terms of the Deal was that she got to play good women, but she played a different kind of good woman. She played, like, a good woman who started off really bad. I would fall in love with a guy and then you know, kind of convert to goodness. Okay, so she still had all the power of being bad the first two thirds of the movie. Right. Shearer, when talkies came in, she really used that. She lobbied for kind of risque roles. And first role she played was in the talkies was a kept woman in a movie called the Trial of Mary Dugan, and that was a big hit. And so she kept on, like, would be on the, you know, look out for these properties. The movie, you said the divorce was, like, the most important in terms of changing her image. But basically, if you look at it, you can look at it this way. The portrayals of women, even through the silent period, despite some nuances here and there, was that they were good women and they were bad women. You know, and a good woman was a virgin and bad woman was sexually active. Garbo and Shearer both kind of rebelled, but they. They did rebel against that. And basically what happened out of that was that Garbo got to play good, bad women and Shira got to play bad, good women. And as time goes on, there are a lot more good, bad women. Like, there's a lot of movies about prostitutes. Like, a ton of movies.
- [22:36]
A
Yeah, loads. I mean, you've done surprising.
- [22:38]
C
Yeah, you've done. I mean, you've done, like, tremendous work on this subject. Right. So you would really like this. This is fascinating. Okay. In the beginning of the pre code era, you started seeing a lot of movies about prostitutes. Like, practically every actress except for one I can think of played a prostitute.
- [22:58]
A
Wow.
- [22:59]
C
Yeah. I mean, they all play prostitutes. I mean, I'm counting Shearer in this because she played a kept woman. So that's like a press. That's like the highest entity for prostitute. Right. So it's like a courtesan. They all played prostitutes. And then around 1932, the prostitute sort of disappears. And for years, because these movies were not available, people, like, I would read critics saying things like, well, the code was coming in and movies were getting more conservative. It's not true, the code, but actually when the code came in, movies getting crazier and crazier and crazier. And then the code came in like an axe. So that's not true. What really happens is that the prostitute movies weren't. Even though the women were playing prostitutes, they weren't really about prostitution. They certainly weren't about the realities of prostitution. What they really were about was about what was going on with women at the time. It was about sex. It was about sex being okay. And so what happened in the beginning of the era, in order to tell stories about modern women and sex, they felt that what they needed to do was, was to say, okay, this is something on the fringes of society. So this is. This is prostitution. This is on the fringes. But by the time you get to, like late 1932 and 1933, you don't have to pretend anymore. And so you can start making movies about women, regular women who are sexually active without having to have the COVID story of prostitution as the excuse.
- [24:29]
A
Yes, that makes sense. It's a narrative device to allow them to have this kind of conversation, but without actually going, they also just quite like having sex. It gives you the freedom to actually. You don't have to say that.
- [24:41]
C
But the thing is, is that all those prostitution moves and it's a wonderful one called Waterloo Bridge with May Clark, who's an actress nobody even knows anymore except for getting a cheddar grapefruit shoving her face by James Cagney in a movie one time. But that's the only thing she's remembered for. Yeah, it's really a shame. But anyway, Waterloo Bridge, there's a whole bunch of these movies. The message is the same. The message of these movies, the movies are always on the side of the one. Always, always, always. The woman isn't apologizing for her life. And the message is that virginity doesn't matter anymore. You know, get over it. Chastity is not the same as virtue. And that's the whole message of these movies over and over and over and over again. It's really great.
- [25:28]
A
I'll be back with Mick after this short break.
- [25:40]
B
The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up, March Madness is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment in a
- [26:10]
C
world where swords were sharp and hygiene was actually probably better than you think it is.
- [26:16]
A
Two fearless historians, me, Matt Lewis, and me, Dr. Ellis or Yanaga, dive head first into the mud. Blood and very strange customs of the Middle Ages.
- [26:27]
C
So for plagues, crusades, and Viking raids, and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts.
- [26:52]
A
What was the one with Tallulah Bankhead in. The premise was that she turned to sex work out of desperation, but actually accidentally tried to pick up her husband's brother.
- [26:59]
C
Yes.
- [26:59]
A
And then it's. Then it's a whole thing. And. But then at the end, the husband, instead of, like, going, get thee to a nunnery, you strumpet, he just goes, well, I had wondered where the money was coming from, and basically forgives her.
- [27:10]
C
Yes. Oh, I'm so glad you saw that. That's really good you saw that. That's. That's.
- [27:14]
A
I love Tallulah. I'm a big Tallulah fan.
- [27:16]
C
Okay, now that is not pre code 101. That's like pret. Pre code 301. I mean, that's pretty obscure. Okay. That's called Faithless. And, yeah, that's okay. When that movie got released, some of the critics complained that Robert Montgomery, he plays the husband who says he was, like, sick, he was injured, and she was. The only thing she could do is the depression. And she was like. She starts off that movie really, like, selfish and kind of money hungry and. Yeah. And so actually, her becoming a prostitute is like. Is like this great gift. It's like this sacrifice. And so he says, yeah, I was wondering where the money come from. Must have taken a lot to keep me alive.
- [27:56]
A
That's it. Yes. It must have taken a lot to keep me alive.
- [27:59]
C
Yeah, that's. Anyhow, so one of the critics I remember complained that he was, like, such a spineless guy that he could put up with his wife being a prostitute. But that's, you know, kind of missing the point of the movie. It was not like she was out having a good time. She was trying to keep this man alive. It was the only thing. Yeah, that's. That's a good movie.
- [28:19]
A
Obviously, Norma Shearer played this role as well. Not the one that Tallulah Bankhead did, but this kind of selling sex as a kind of a sort of a starter role to ease an audience into the fact that women are actually having sex.
- [28:33]
C
That's right. Yeah. But Norma Shearer is ahead of it, though, because she started playing normal women who are having sex.
- [28:40]
A
So was she the first.
- [28:42]
C
Yes, she was the first to make it acceptable and chic to be not a virgin and not married on screen. She made the movies to look For Fidelis is like. Strangers May Kiss is a movie from 1931 where she gets disappointed in love. I mean, she takes a chance and goes with this guy who dumps her. And so now she's like. And everybody knows that she was with this guy. It's a little bit embarrassing. So she just goes to Europe. That's one of the conventions of pre code movies, by the way, is that if a woman, American woman, goes to Europe, she has sex with everybody.
- [29:23]
A
It's like the best gap year.
- [29:25]
C
Yeah, it is. Yeah. So she goes to all these different countries, has sex with everybody, and she says, I'm in a nordry wallowing, and I love it. She said, and then another movie called A Free Soul. Free Soul is interesting because at the time I wrote Complicated Women, I was able to say, this is the kind of thing you needn't even see in. In modern movies. But now you see it. She plays this woman. She's this young woman whose father is a defense attorney for a crook who's played by Clark Gable. And there's this wonderful moment where she sets eyes on Gable for the first time, and it's like, oh, she wants to have sex with him. I mean, she just looks at him like. Like, oh, wow. Like she met him. Yeah, that was. That was it. And so she does. And at one point in the movie, when she first meets him, she's wearing a dress that. You don't get this on TV so much, but you get this in a movie theater. You could see through the dress. Like, I've seen this at festivals where people, like, gasp in the room, like, I can't believe this. And it was recognized at the time. People wrote about it, like, you know, she would say in interviews, like, one time she said, the morals of yesterday are no more. They're as dead as the day they were lived.
- [30:31]
A
So she really recognized that that was. That this was a shifting public opinion. It wasn't just Hollywood that was doing this. The wider public opinion was shifting, too.
- [30:40]
C
Yeah, that's what she felt. She said, economic independence has put women on the same footing as women, on the same footing as man. So she knew what she was doing, what her movies were saying, and also. And other people did, too, because she would be written about like, she's Norma Shearer's. Oh, and also, too, when the censors wanted to come in, there was this Catholic newspaper, because Catholics are really behind the censorship thing in a big way. And this Catholic newspaper said it seems typical of Hollywood morality that a husband as production manager should Constantly cast his charming wife in the role of a loose and immoral woman. In this case, she has an affair. Some of the movie called Riptide. In this case, she has an affair before marriage and an elaborate affair after marriage. We advise strong guard over all pictures which feature Norma Shearer. They're doing more than almost any other type of picture to undermine the moral code and the producer's code. That's 1934.
- [31:38]
A
That's not good. Yeah, so that's pretty strong stuff. That's just. That's basically rallying Catholics to say, you can't go and see this woman in a film.
- [31:47]
C
You know, I don't know if you've heard this, but it's kind of a famous thing among, you know, geeks who are interested in some history that around 1937, about three years after the code, people like Marlena Dietrich and all these great actresses, Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, were identified in some article as box office poison. Like they couldn't sell a ticket.
- [32:09]
A
Wow.
- [32:10]
C
But the one question that nobody's ever asked is why. Why were they suddenly boxed over as poison? Well, the reason why this box office poison is because their films were neutered. You know, they were like these really, you know, trailblazing sexy women who were in the advance guard of what was going on. And suddenly, you know, their movies were. They had to play Pollyanna's and, you know, Marlena Dietrich played a nun.
- [32:38]
A
She's a very good nun. But that's just such a contrast.
- [32:41]
C
Oh. Between the two, it was ridiculous. Tab Dietrich. Because I, you know, I didn't go to Catholic school, but I did the Catholic construction once a week. And I don't remember Dietrich in a habit at any point. Nobody was like, Molly the Dietrich? No, no. Ridiculous.
- [32:56]
A
So Norma Shearer, she's. She's starring in these movies. They seem to be critically well received, apart from this kind of growing moral fear around it.
- [33:05]
C
Yes.
- [33:06]
A
When was it that the code actually came in? Because it was. It wasn't quite overnight, but there was a definite bam.
- [33:12]
C
Now, there's a definite different. That's the one thing that the definite ban aspect is something that I really, you know, like, I didn't realize. But the problem is that when people were writing about these movies for years and years, they hadn't really had a chance to, like, see all of them. And they suddenly became available in the early 90s because of a child called Turner Classic Movies. And that's when it became very obvious that the movies are getting more and more scale, like Greg Garbo in a movie that was released in late 33, early 34, plays a bisexual. And it's. And it's not, you know, that's Queen Christina. And it's. Everybody knows that. That's what it is. And Thalberg even said to the writers, let's, you know, let's do this, but let's be subtle about it anyway. So the question you're asking is when it happened all at once on July 1, 1934. But how it happened is because, you know Will Hays, it's called the Hays Code. Will Hays couldn't care less about censorship. He didn't care about that. The guy who cared about it was a guy named Joseph Green. And he was brought in. He got himself into the position of head of this thing called the studio Relations committee. And Breen was the one who, in his job in the studio Relations committee was to mediate with the seven censorship boards on behalf of the studio to get the studio's product store. But he didn't do that, of course. What he did instead was he conspired with the Catholic cardinals to get them to establish a rating system to make it so that Catholics were told that if you saw. If you saw this movie or that movie, you're going to go to hell.
- [34:49]
A
Wow.
- [34:50]
C
Yeah. There was an A rating, which is. Okay, you can go. A B rating. Like, you can go. We're not praised about it. And C is if you see this movie, you're going to hell.
- [34:59]
A
That's a hell of a rating system. Like, that's like, what, 18 plus now we've got like 15 with advisory, and this one. You're going to hell.
- [35:07]
C
Yeah, I know. It's really like a pitchfork should be the thing. I know. Anyway, so this is what's funny, though. This is what's funny. What Catholics, of course, they got this list at church. They'd get this list on Saturday. They'd look, they'd say, oh, I'm gonna go to hell if I see this movie. And they'd go to that movie.
- [35:22]
A
Of course they would.
- [35:23]
C
Of course. Because they know that that's. That's going to be.
- [35:26]
A
That's the good movie.
- [35:28]
C
That's a good movie. But this. The studio heads were terrified about this. They were terrified. In fact. In fact. In fact, there was a cardinal in Philadelphia, which is a big market, who said that on pain of. Of. Of mortal sin, you can't go to the movies anymore. So they were really terrified. And they were all. And all these guys, they were all worried. They were, you know, every One of them, except Darrell Zanuck, was Jewish. And this is at a time when, you know, they were really worrying about antisemitism. And I mean, with good reason, obviously, if you know history. And by the way, Joseph Breen, the guy who was administering code, was a raving anti Semite. I mean, his correspondence, it wasn't just, like, things he said, things he put in print, things he wrote to people. He just saw the studio heads as, like, these really evil Jews who are going to destroy, you know, the.
- [36:20]
A
Everyone's morals.
- [36:21]
C
Yeah. To just correct morals. So the studio heads are just kind of paranoid about this and say this. Just. They just decided to. They agreed with. They agreed to Breen's terms, which was that they wouldn't release a movie without his approval. And so he remained the head of deciding what gets done for 19 years. That's a long time.
- [36:43]
A
Really is. And the rules were so strict. Like, they'd had this code in place before, but it was voluntary now. It was basically not voluntary. And it wasn't just like, you can't show people shagging out with no clothes on. It was that no nudity at all. Subjects like adultery can't even be discussed. Nothing sexually suggestive at all. Certainly no loose women. Subjects like abortion are absolutely out. I mean, it was real. Nothing gay. Nothing even vaguely gay. That's all gone as well.
- [37:13]
C
Yeah, nothing gay. The portrayal of homosexuality in movies is interesting because if people, like, if you're gay and you're trying to look to see, like, did anybody know I existed? You know, that kind of thing. You can find a lot of gay stuff in movies, especially, for some reason, movies from the Fox Corporation. A lot of it is just like really, really bad stereotype stuff like guys mincing around like a tailor saying, oh, you know, wait, where are we going to put the gun and give room for a bulge? And so, you know, just, like, flittering around. It's nothing flattering, but at least they exist, you know. But occasionally you look at something that was like, you know, like Greta Garbo and Queen Christina is clearly. I mean, it's. It's. She has a girlfriend that she kisses. I mean, there's no hiding it in that kind of, like, humane presentation of gender and sexual preference, and you wouldn't see that again for another 40 years. No, that was gone.
- [38:08]
A
It's a real betrayal. It was a real betrayal. Awful. What's Norma Shearer up to during this part? I mean, she must have just been sat there going, well, what the hell am I supposed to do? Now I'm Hollywood's bad girl.
- [38:19]
C
I know. Well, yeah. Well, what happened is that the next one we shamed was the Barrett's of Rempole street, which was pretty good, actually. Yeah, it's not bad. It's actually all right. And then she. She takes two years off, during which time she has a second child. First child she had. She made a movie called Let Us Be Gay, which. Gay and indifferent. Not in the mind, I was going to say.
- [38:41]
A
Now, that's overt.
- [38:43]
C
Yeah. But she made another when she got pregnant in 1930 and decided to really just go into a movie really quick since there would be something while she was out. And then in 1905, she just took the year off and said she went two years not making the movie. They should play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. She was terrible.
- [39:00]
A
Why was she terrible? Was it like. What was terrible about it?
- [39:03]
C
She's not like, uniformly terrible the whole movie. But first of all, especially now, because what we're used to with, like, Leonardo DiCaprio or Olivia Hussey, that. That's the one that's. That's. To me, that's diversion. Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, you know, the teenagers. And she's there. She's like. I think she was 33 or 34 when she made it. So first off, that looks weird. Romeo is 43. Mercutio is like 55 in a wheelchair. So. Right. Yeah, it's right off top. But also, she kind of is sort of fluttery and seems to have a kind of fluttery sense of like, who is. They can't see I'm trying to flutter on the podcast. But, you know, she's.
- [39:43]
A
I can see it. I can see it's fluttering. It's kind of like. So, like, you're saying that she was sort of like flighty and flaky and not really committing to the gravitas.
- [39:51]
C
No, no, no, she is committed to the gravitas. She's, like, achingly poignant in every moment and has this kind of sweetness to it. No sexuality, certainly no rawness. No. No raw emotion and no nothing of being a teenager. It was just more like precious and. And it's not very good. And then. Then she was in Rancho. Net.
- [40:12]
A
My producers just sent me a picture of the Romeo and Juliet. Yes, that does look a bit weird.
- [40:16]
C
It looks a little weird.
- [40:17]
A
Just even from the. Still that's. They look a little. They're not teenagers.
- [40:21]
C
Yeah, no, they're not teenagers. Romeo has a receding hairline. I mean, it's Leslie Howard, It's. It's like. I mean, it's. It's. It's bad when you realize that that's the way you're going.
- [40:33]
A
Yeah.
- [40:33]
C
And you're only 17. It's pretty sad, anyway, that she made sure it was Marie Antoinette. You know, there's a French actress, Natalie by. You know her at all?
- [40:43]
A
No, I don't know her.
- [40:44]
C
No, She's. She's wonderful. Wonderful French actress. Been around for years. But anyway, I was just thinking about her. It's like, there's certain people. You don't put them in a period piece. You know, there's certain people that are like. You wouldn't put, like, Jennifer Aniston in a movie set in 1600.
- [41:03]
A
Do you know what. I know exactly what you mean, because I saw Wuthering Heights the other night, and I know there'll be people out there who violently disagree with me, but I just couldn't buy into Margot Robbie being a teenager from 1800. Well, I thought it was an exact thing.
- [41:17]
C
No, no. Yeah, it's exactly that. I mean, that movie.
- [41:20]
A
That's only me. That's only my opinion.
- [41:21]
C
Oh, Wuthering height. I mean, Wuthering height. My favorite part of the movie, I thought was absolutely hilarious is when Heathrow is going for a walk in the moors and finds Margot Robbie masturbating. The moors. It was like I said, well, is this what they do in England?
- [41:34]
A
Dressed as a milkmaid?
- [41:36]
C
I guess this is. Yeah, we've always wondered.
- [41:38]
A
That's exactly what we do in England.
- [41:40]
C
Yeah.
- [41:40]
A
I'm not too far from the moors. In fact, I was just doing it today, wandering around.
- [41:45]
C
I was just laughing out loud. I could not believe it. I said, oh, this is the fog. And this what you do on the moors? Did you masturbate?
- [41:52]
A
This is what we do. We have instructions from. From teenage years that you go out on the moor if you want to master it. Now, that was a strange moment, that movie.
- [41:59]
C
That movie's ridiculous.
- [42:01]
A
It's wild.
- [42:02]
C
I thought that was. That was totally all they do. I mean, part of the thing of Heathcliff and Kathy is that they never get to have sex. I mean, it's like.
- [42:12]
A
It's true. It's true. And she really goes for it, doesn't she? I mean, they have. There's a sex montage. I don't know if anyone. Sorry, I'm spoiling this for people now. There's an actual sex montage like Rocky, but they're shagging all over the place.
- [42:26]
C
It's so. It's ridiculous. It's like they get to the point where we're tired of them having sex and we're wondering.
- [42:32]
A
I never thought that I would say there was. There's enough of Jacob Elardi having sex on screen, thank you very much. But I got there, I was just like, no, take it down a notch.
- [42:41]
C
Oh, it's so ridiculous. Well, anyway, I think. I think Shearer is one of those people. She doesn't really. She doesn't belong in a ball gown, you know, from 1780. It's just not her. And then she made the women and then people, you know, because that was the movie that everybody saw because she plays the woman whose husband is cheating on her with Joan Crawford, who hated their gods. Joan Crawford didn't like Norma Shearer.
- [43:04]
A
She didn't like anybody. Joan Crawford.
- [43:06]
C
You're absolutely right. She didn't like any. She didn't like Gene Harlow and everybody loved Gene Harlow. Yeah. John Crawford didn't like anybody.
- [43:17]
A
I'll be back with Mick after this short break.
- [43:29]
B
The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up. March Madness is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real. Time, scores, race, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.
- [43:59]
C
In a world where swords were sharp
- [44:01]
A
and hygiene was actually probably better than
- [44:04]
C
you think it is.
- [44:05]
A
Two fearless historians, me, Matt Lewis, and me, Dr. Eleanor Yanaga, dive headfirst into the mud, blood and very strange customs of the Middle Ages.
- [44:16]
C
So for plague leagues, crusades and Viking raids and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, subscribe to Gone Medieval from history Hit wherever you get your podcasts.
- [44:41]
A
What's happening in Namashira's personal life? Because didn't her husband die quite young?
- [44:45]
C
Her personal life, she was, you know, devoted to her husband and. But you know, her husband did the what people thought, you know, Herman was kind of a sickly guy. He, he had a heart condition from having. Think he's having had a thick rheumatic fever. He wasn't expected to, you know, you know, like make to become an old person certainly. And he was also always exhausted. He worked work like 16 hour days. So people believe that the kind of the sexual ardor that she showed in her films, especially with Clark Gable, was as a result of. Even though as soon as the camera turned off, it was like, stop. Like Gable said to his friends, because he was kind of a young actor at this point. He said, I don't know what's going on. This woman's not wearing underwear. Is that supposed to be an interest of realism or something? I don't get it. Like, what's going on? So there's some idea that she was a little bit sexually frustrated when she was with Thalberg, even though she was in love with him, talked about him, like, for years, and called her second husband Irving and all this stuff. But when her husband died after a suitable period of mourning, she definitely started acting like Norma Shearer in a pre code Norma Shearer movie. And she had affairs with a lot of different people. A lot of young guys, too, like James Stewart, Tyrone Power, Shoes. I think Tyrone Power was bi. I don't think he was gay, but I'm not sure. But anyway, she went after Tyrone Power when they were making Marie Antoinette. And then the studio told Tyrone Power that he had to accompany her to the premiere. And he said, I want stunt pay.
- [46:23]
A
Oh, that's bad. You know, you've taken it too far then. That's really bad.
- [46:28]
C
Yeah, you want that stunt pay. So she. And then eventually, in 1942, she married a guy who was 28 years old. He was a ski instructor. And she was frustrated. She would make, you know, she. She made like a sex comedy called. We Were Dancing, it was called. And she was really trying to fight this, Fight the senses on this. Like, come on, you know, this is ridiculous. It was one of those movies where two people meet. Next thing you know, they wake up in bed together. And then because it's 1942, you find out they got married last night, you know.
- [46:56]
A
Of course.
- [46:57]
C
Of course.
- [46:58]
A
Right.
- [46:59]
C
Yeah. So she just. She just retired. She stayed retired. So she. She retired. She was 40, which I guess, you know, is probably typical lot of women at the time anyway, to retire around that age. And she didn't really do much in terms of movies except the two things. She. She discovered Janet Leigh, you know, from Psycho. Yeah, she discovered Janet Lee. She was at a ski resort and saw a picture on the wall and it was the owner's daughter and it was Janet Leigh. And she said she shot a screen test, so she discovered Janet Leigh. And she also discovered. What's the name of that guy? He was the producer, one of the producers of the Godfather. Oh, Evans. Something Evans. And she saw him sitting by A pool. And somebody was making a movie where Irving Thalberg was going to be a character. And she said, he looks like my husband. And so.
- [47:51]
A
Wow.
- [47:51]
C
She. She discovered him and then he eventually. Can't believe I can't remember his first name, but maybe I should useless with this one.
- [47:58]
A
Sorry. No.
- [47:59]
C
Hey, Siri, what is the name? Evan. Oh, Robert Evans.
- [48:03]
A
You don't need Siri.
- [48:03]
C
See, Boom.
- [48:05]
A
It's there, right?
- [48:07]
C
Yeah. As soon as you relax. Anyway, Robert Evans. Anyway, yeah, so. And then he eventually became a producer. So those are two big discoveries. But after that. Now, unfortunately, she started, like, losing her mind at a fairly young age. I mean, not 50, but I mean, she, like in her early 70s, she started showing signs of eccentricity. She would really call her husband Irving and forget who he was. And. And then eventually, when she was in, like, in her late 70s, she was in the motion picture production home, which is the, you know, the home for old people. Wow. And she lost her eyesight. I mean, she. She had a tough last five years and. And she started thinking everybody was Irving. She started calling everybody Irving. So apparently that part of her life was, you know, had tremendous meaning for her. But anyway, I think that what the thing about her is that you have somebody who is a genuine feminist, who's a conscious feminist and kind of an opportunistic feminist, I'm sure. I mean, she probably. She didn't make these movies.
- [49:06]
A
She was a businesswoman. She.
- [49:09]
C
Yeah, she. She wanted to be big, you know, but you have this. This. This feminist, you know, woman who should be an icon, and instead, you know, she's instead written off for being the opposite of what she was.
- [49:24]
A
It's awful, isn't it? Do you think that maybe one of the reasons why she's not as remembered as some of her contemporaries is because she had this sort of slow fade out. Whereas, like, you know, Gene Harlow died young, Live fast, die young. And to give it that, it could be.
- [49:40]
C
I really think it's just the movies that were available. But I tell you something, things have changed in the last 25 years. She's not going to be like Bette Davis in terms of being known, but at least, yeah, there's something of a resurgence, I would say, among the people who have heard of Norma Shearer. They have now heard of her for the right reasons. The misunderstanding about who she was is gone now. It's just like, you know, it's a question of whether her movies catch on. I would say that the disadvantage that she has is that her best movies were in the early 30s. The movies aren't until you get to 33, 34. They're not as technically smooth, like, you know, you. So divorce. I mean, that looks like an old movie, you know. It does. Yeah, it does. And especially the beginning, like, until it really gets going, like when they're all in that house. If I imagine that some people are going to hear this, and they're going to go out, rent a divorce, and give up after 10 minutes.
- [50:36]
A
Stay with it.
- [50:38]
C
Stay with it. Yeah, because she. Because she's. She's not even that good in the beginning. Like, you just try to figure out what she's doing and then. Then you realize, oh, I get it. Yeah, she's really good. Yeah. Stay. Stay with the movie. Because it gets. It gets there, and it gets there fairly soon. Once. Once they get to New York, at least she's known for what she should be known for. Now, that's. That's the important thing, whether people like her or not, you know, it's up to them.
- [51:00]
A
And now we know what she should be known for, too. Thank you so much, Mick. You've been an absolute treat to talk to.
- [51:06]
C
Well, it's a treat to talk to you. You know, I. I read your book. I've listened to your. I listened to your podcast. I know the podcast. I. I definitely. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, I listen to the whole. You did the whole. You're doing the whole thing on breakups now and you do.
- [51:18]
A
Yes.
- [51:19]
C
Yeah.
- [51:20]
A
But there's a few in Hollywood history you could get to grips with.
- [51:22]
C
And. Didn't you do, like. Didn't you do a. Hope I Hope I'm Not Taking Somebody else. Didn't you do something about all the Wives of Henry viii?
- [51:29]
A
Yes, we did.
- [51:30]
C
Yeah, we did.
- [51:32]
A
That was a good series, wasn't it? That was. Yeah. Wow.
- [51:35]
C
I was looking forward to that. Yeah. I would jump on that every time there's a new episode. That was just terrific and interesting, too. Catherine Parr, right? Yes.
- [51:43]
A
Yeah, I was surprised with that one, too. I didn't know very much about her. Yeah. Not quite the Tudor frump that we all think that she is.
- [51:50]
C
Yeah. Yeah. It's like, she's the boring one, right? And then it turns out, no, she's not the boring one.
- [51:55]
A
With nice jewels as well. I remember that one.
- [51:58]
C
What is it, you guys in England, not talking about Harry. I mean, he was a psycho.
- [52:06]
A
He was. He was a complete maniac. There's absolutely no two ways about it. Yeah, just an awful, awful, fat serial killer who just. There's no defending him at all. He's hideous.
- [52:17]
C
I mean, he almost, he almost killed Catherine Parr.
- [52:19]
A
Yep, he did. Lucky any of them. Lucky to have got out alive. Quite frankly. He was beyond hideous. He has no friends on this show, quite frankly.
- [52:28]
C
Good, good. That's good.
- [52:30]
A
If people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?
- [52:33]
C
Well, I'm the film critic emeritus of the Chronicle, but I'm still in the San Francisco Chronicle. I have a column called esque Mick LaSalle comes out every Sunday. You can look for it. I have a few books out there if you're interested. But yeah, I could be found, but mostly in print. You could just, you know, google my name. You can. You'll get a bunch of stuff will pop up.
- [52:52]
A
Well, thank you so much for popping up here. You've been marvelous.
- [52:56]
C
Oh, thank you. It's just an absolute pleasure to meet you.
- [53:02]
A
Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to Mick for joining us. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to like, review and follow along whatever it is you get. Your podcasts Coming up, we will be finding out the truth about superstar of early Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin. And if you would like us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us@betwixtistoryhit.com this podcast was edited by Tim Arstle and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddie Chick. Join me again. Betwixt sheets the history of sex, scandal and society. A podcast by history hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.
- [53:40]
B
The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up, March Madness is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real time scores, breaking news and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.
- [54:10]
C
Planning a wedding shouldn't feel overwhelming.
- [54:12]
A
The Knot brings everything together in one place. Vendors who get your vibe, a custom planning checklist, guest list, tools, and a free wedding website that syncs with it all. So instead of juggling a dozen apps and spreadsheets, you can actually enjoy getting married. Get started@thenot.com audio the knot. Let's plan your wedding together.