Pre-Code Does Not Mean “Without Rules”: A Guide to Watching Hollywood from 1930 to 1934 Without Reducing It to Scandal
So-called pre-Code Hollywood was not a brief libertine exception between two orderly eras, but a period of existing rules, uneven enforcement, local censorship, religious pressure and business negotiation. This guide proposes watching its films through the ways they organize desire, work, crime and endings. AI-assisted article.
