Inspired by the
recent post about Old Hollywood liberals, I present to you a post about Old Hollywood
movies that were actually progressive back in the day and are still shocking now, many decades later. It’s easy to think of old movies as racist and sexist because, well, many of them are, but as we’ve learned, quite a few people in Hollywood were liberals and progressives and sometimes this showed in their work.
Disclaimer:
+ I’m not saying all of these movies are 100% woke. Just that they tackle at least one socially or politically progressive topic that wasn’t just controversial at the time but still is today.
+ Most of these movies were made while the
Hays Code was in place which censored immoral~ content. If you need a quick historical primer,
Vox has a good video on the topic. It just makes these movies all the more impressive for somehow making it past the censors.
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dir. by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, starring Sidney Poitier (in his commercial film debut), Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Mildred Joanne Smith (in her film debut), Ossie Davis (in his film debut), Ruby Dee
Why it’s progressive: Because this was one of the first Hollywood movies to actually address and condemn racism. Like, this film was so groundbreaking and unrestrained that it was feared that it would incite race riots. It was never shown in the South.
Plot: Dr. Luther Brooks (Sidney Poitier) is a black doctor in a white hospital. When two criminal brothers who also happen to be racists get delivered to the prison station, he still has to treat them. One of them dies under his care and the surviving brother, Ray Biddle (Richard Widmark), blames Dr. Brooks for no reason other than dun dun dun he’s a racist. Dr. Brooks wants to prove his innocence but the hospital doesn’t take his concerns seriously, leading to an escalating chain of events.
“Ain't that asking a lot for us to be better than them when we get killed just trying to prove we're as good?”
Why it’s still relevant: The film doesn’t deal with institutional/systemic racism (although there are allusions to it) but it’s still relevant for its intersectional approach to racism and class. If this film were released today, you can just imagine how the NYT would write a think piece about the economic~ anxiety~ of the poor white folk at the center of it but the movie calls that out for the nonsense it is. It shows that there is a way out of learned prejudice but that there’s no way out of irrational hate.(I have to add one caveat about the movie though: The main villain uses every racist epithet in the book. While it does make the movie quite visceral and shocking, there’s a debate to be had about whether that sort of language is necessary to that degree and it was in fact something the NNPA objected to.)
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dir. by Ernst Lubitsch, starring Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins, Fredric March, Edward Everett Horton
Why it’s progressive: Because it’s pro-polygamy. Forget the tragic negativity of basically every film made ever since that features a love triangle / ménage à trois / whatever you want to call it.
Plot: It’s about three Americans in Paris. Gilda (Miriam Hopkins) meets best friends Tom (Fredric March), a playwright, and George (Gary Cooper), a painter. She falls in love with both of them. They make a “gentlemen’s agreement” where she can be in a relationship with both of them so long as sex is off the table. (And yes, they actually say this point-blank in the movie.) Naturally, jealousy ensues but they’re determined to make it work.
"It's hard to believe I– I loved you both."
Why it’s still relevant: The film was pre-code but it was made on the brink of the enforcement of the code and had some problems getting cleared for release. Just one year later, under the new strict rules, it couldn’t get a certificate for re-release. While the positive outlook this film has on a bohemian~ life style may come across as naïve, it was pretty daring at the time. Actually, the fact that it’s so judgement-free makes it still progressive today. And while the bisexuality of Tom and George that was implied in the play by Noël Coward that the film is (very loosely) based on isn’t hinted at in the movie, it doesn’t seem completely straightwashed either. Case in point: The above quote that’s said by George to Gilda and Tom. Even though it’s meant to come across as platonic, the domestic friendship of George and Tom is definitely pretty unusual as far as on-screen male friendships are concerned and it takes little imagination to supply the erased subtext. The portrayal of Gilda is also progressive and par for the course where pre-code films and their portrayal of liberated women are concerned.
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dir. by Rouben Mamoulian, starring Fredric March, Anna Sten... also, Preston Sturges is one of the credited writers (?!)
Why it’s progressive: Because it’s
socialist af. I can’t stress enough how completely unusual this is for a major Hollywood production, let alone one made in the 1930s. Sure, this was made after the
First Red Scare and before the
Second Red Scare, so there seems to have been a tiny window of opportunity for a film like this, but it’s not like Hollywood ever embraced socialist politics, like, ever. And yet this film somehow exists and while it’s obscure today, it was made by the best crew money could buy at the time (especially noteworthy is the cinematography by the legendary Gregg Toland who’s known for his work on
Citizen Kane).
Plot: This film is an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s last novel Resurrection (1899). It’s about the young nobleman Prince Dmitri Ivanovich Nekhlyudov (Fredric March) who initially champions socialist ideals but gets corrupted during his time in the military. While he’s home on leave, he sleeps with the servant girl Katusha (Anna Sten) who’s been in love with him since forever. He immediately abandons her afterwards, unaware that he has gotten her pregnant. Years later, he meets her again while he’s on jury duty and she is accused of murdering one of her clients, having become destitute and forced into prostitution. Dmitri has to come to terms with the fact that he’s a terrible person and has ruined her life. He must also try to redeem himself by doing everything he can to save her.She calls him out on the selfishness of his attempts to help her because they’re more about his conscience than about her. It’s great. And it gets better. Due to a legal error, the jury actually accidentally sentences Katusha to years of prison labor in Siberia. When Dmitri realizes that he can’t do anything to stop it, he breaks off his engagement to the rich daughter of the judge who presided over the case, gives away all of his lands to his peasants, and joins Katusha for years of prison labor in Siberia. When will your faves? Apparently Hollywood changed the ending from the book but if that’s Hollywood’s idea of a happy ending then idek. They clearly wanted to make it more romantic but it’s not a love story and the film doesn’t even play it as one which just gives more weight to the socialist motivations of Dmitri’s actions of atonement.
"We’re all shells. We’re mannequins. We’re destined for a short life and a bad end. We’re gluttonous and surfeited while all about us millions go hungry."
Why it’s still relevant: In a time where shows like Downton Abbey romanticize the idea of master-servant relationships, this film is the perfect antidote. The moral message of the movie seems to lie somewhere between men are the worst and capitalism is the worst. There’s also some the justice system is the worst and the military is the worst thrown in for good measure. This film is not a socialist film in the vein of Salt of the Earth (which was made by blacklisted members of Hollywood in 1954 and depicted a union strike in New Mexico in a neorealist (and feminist!) way) but unlike Salt of the Earth, this film was actually made by and endorsed by Hollywood. Samuel Goldwyn had intended the film as a star vehicle for the Russian actress Anna Sten who he hoped would be the next Greta Garbo. The film was a flop and some scenes seem to have landed on the cutting room floor but it’s better than the pallid adaptation of Anna Karenina that was made one year later and actually starred Greta Garbo. Also, hilariously enough, Joseph Breen from the Hays office actually loved this film because I guess he was excited by seeing people suffer for having illicit~ sex~ and missed that it was all about issues of class struggle and toxic masculinity.
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dir. by Gregory La Cava, starring Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Andrea Leeds, Eve Arden, Lucille Ball, Ann Miller
Why it’s progressive: Because it’s about female friendship and
female solidarity. It’s about women who want successful careers instead of obligatory marriages. It also subtly calls out the sexist nature of showbusiness and critically alludes to the “casting couch” phenomenon and how women are subjected to predatory men in Hollywood. (There’s a
great Jezebel article that goes into detail about this.)
Plot: The film is about the “Footlight’s Club” – a fictional version of clubs that were common at the time in Hollywood and provided boarding houses for young single women looking to make a living as actresses or dancers; and, as the movie shows, these women were often very vulnerable and exploitable but at the same time witty and assertive (much of the dialogue was ad-libbed). It would be impossible to try and detangle the plot lines of all these women here but let’s just say that the movie starts out with newcomer Terry Randall (Katharine Hepburn) moving in and becoming the roommate of Jean Maitland (Ginger Rogers). At first they clash, not least of all because Terry comes from money and is awfully naïve about what it means to be a struggling actress. But in between courting and/or fending off a predatory producer (Adolphe Menjou) and dealing with the ups and downs of trying to kickstart a career, they start to become friends.
"I don't want to be molded. I believe in acting with my brain."
Why it’s still relevant: What’s the last Hollywood movie you can remember that features an almost all-female cast? ... one that was not a blatant mediocre cash grab? That was actually interested in all of its distinct female characters who were allowed to be both sympathetic and unsympathetic? Where even the thought of applying the Bechdel test is laughable because
women talking to each other about all kinds of stuff is all that the movie is about? Add to that that the movie quite clearly navigates
#metootype of sexual harassment stories, even if it has to do so in a somewhat roundabout way due to the Production Code, and this film just leaps across the decades. (Old Hollywood actually did a bunch of almost all-female movies, e.g.
The Women (1939) and
Caged (1950) and I’ve heard lots of good things about them but I haven’t seen them personally yet.)
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dir. by Stanley Kramer, starring Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly
Why it’s progressive: Because it champions the ideals of enlightenment and is not afraid to speak out against bigotry and anti-intellectualism. Also, Stanley Kramer put his money where his mouth was and, in this case (as well as for The Defiant Ones), hired a blacklisted writer to work on the script.
Plot: It’s a fictionalized account of the Scopes Monkey Trial from the 1920s. Essentially, it’s a courtroom drama about a school teacher (Dick York) who wants to teach the theory of evolution alongside creationism and is taken to task for it by Christian zealots. The publicity of the case gains him a prominent defense lawyer (Spencer Tracy) but also a prominent prosecutor (Fredric March) and soon the courtroom becomes a battleground for larger issues of faith, reason and narrowmindedness.
"Soon, your Honour, with banners flying and with drums beating, we’ll be marching backward. Backward!"
Why it’s still relevant: Okay, first of all you need to see this movie to see Gene Kelly sass everyone around him as he plays an H. L. Mencken-type of irreverent reporter. Second of all, everything this movie says about religion, fanaticism, atheism, the press and the process of democracy is as timely as ever. In fact, I doubt that a movie addressing these questions as frankly as this movie does could even get made today. This film is the epitome of no fucks given.
Honorable mentions: The Defiant Ones; The Best Years of Our Lives; The Hunchback of Notre Dame; Salt of the Earth; Dance, Girl, Dance; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
(+ some directors to check out: Otto Preminger, Stanley Kramer, Frank Capra, Ernst Lubitsch, Dorothy Arzner)
ONTD, what movies did I miss? Do you hate watching old movies because they’re racist, sexist and straight?
Sources: Me + IMDb (
1,
2,
3,
4,
5) + AFI (
1,
2,
3,
4,
5)
