In "Blonde Venus" chemist Ned Faraday is poisoned with Radium and needs an expensive treatment in Germany. Wife Helen returns to night club work to raise the money. In an effort to get enough money sooner, she prostitutes herself to millionaire Nick Townsend. While Ned is away in Europe, she continues with Nick but when Ned returns cured, he discovers her infidelity.

Three top-tier pre-code films from the TCM archives, just recently restored and released.

Contains 6 precode films directed by Willima Wellman. Plus there is a bonus disc with two documentaries on the career of Wellman, probably best remembered for his films about wartime and aviators, but a pretty good precode director too.

Design for Living is the only pre-Code here. Two Americans sharing a flat in Paris, playwright Tom Chambers and painter George Curtis, fall for free-spirited Gilda Farrell. She can't make up her mind which one she prefers, and proposes a "gentleman's agreement": She will move in with them but they will never have sex. But Tom goes to London to work on his play, leaving Gilda alone with George.

Barbara Stanwyck was queen of the pre-codes. A rebel Chinese (Nils Asther) takes in a Catholic woman (Barbara Stanwyck) during a panic in the Chinese Civil War. She is presumed dead by her family and the general will not let her escape. She strangely falls in love with him, but the two are very different people. Interracial love stories were taboo after the code went into effect.

While the Marx Brothers may have enjoyed their greatest commercial successes at MGM, their first films for Paramount offer the purest essence of their genius, undiluted; irreverence, bawdiness, spontaneity, and an 'outside the box' approach to society only possible during the pre-Code years.

"Flying Down to Rio" has many loveable qualities of Pre-Code movies. Racy songs & racier dance numbers, gratuitous dressing scenes, and double-entendre dialogue. Franklin Pangbourne gets plenty of screen-time for a lengthy "sissy" portrayal impossible in the code era. Stereotyped portrayals of blacks and Latinos are tossed - the code era saw all racial stereotypes strictly adhered to.

This pre-code film about a scandal sheet writer utilizes many things seen as obscene or offensive in later years. There is more swearing than one might expect, gang violence, and talk of women who are to have children or "blessed events" conceived before marriage.

New President Judson Hammond is content living out the next 4 years leaving the problems of Depression America to local authorities. After a miraculous recovery from an auto accident, Hammond is ready to take on every social ill and neither Congress, gangsters nor the rest of the world can stop him. Stark view of Depression-era America & an exploration of the advantages of a benevolent dictator.

Another pre-code film featuring a grim look at the harsh reality of prison conditions in the Depression era. Strong performances from everyone involved.

Produced by Howard Hughes. First film to present the gangster as a senseless, moronic, cold-blooded lunatic. Paul Muni plays Tony Camonte (obviously based on Al Capone). It also happens that he's in love with his sister, which just adds to his perversity. Muni is excellent, parading around like some Neanderthal Man, and blasting a machine gun is almost like sex to him - only better.

James Cagney & Joan Blondell were in seven films together, including their first. This 1931 movie is probably the best of those seven. They are two hotel employees that hit the road in search of deep pockets to fleece.

This collection has four good examples of pre-code crime dramas - "Smart Money", "Picture Snatcher", "The Mayor of Hell", and "Lady Killer". The other two films were made after the code. All feature the talents of Cagney, Bogart, and Robinson.

On one level, FREAKS isn't a very good movie. Some of the acting is terribly wooden, and considering the film's short running time of 62 minutes it's obvious that MGM quickly decided that this was a b-picture. On another level, because it so humanizes those we usually avoid, and because it does so without resorting to optical tricks, FREAKS is a movie like no other, before or since.

While not in the same league as other classic horror films from this era, "Doctor X" comes close. If you read about this film, it's startling - rape, murder, dissection, AND cannibalism! A wise cracking reporter on the trail of a derranged supernatural killer? Could it be this film was an influence on both The Night Stalker, & The X-Files? The other films in this set are good, but not pre-code.

Straddles the code/pre-code eras. Nick & Nora only talk like libertines, they are actually a devoted couple. However, there are all kinds of pre-code activities going on in the supporting cast. However, Nick & Nora do drink like fish, even treating hangovers with martinis.

Ernst Lubitsch made 4 great musicals with pre-code themes at Paramount. The four in this set are: The Love Parade (1929) Monte Carlo (1930) The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) One Hour With You (1932)

The first 2 films deliver in action, excitement and romance on a grand level with Maureen O'Sullivan looking absolutely sexy in her abbreviated costume as Jane. Unfortunately, the Hays Office forced all subsequent Weismuller-O'Sullivan Tarzan films to be toned down in the romance department with O'Sullivan getting a more conservative wardrobe and the series was never this good again.

Dennis Carson (Gable) runs a Southeast Asian rubber plantation. Vantine, a "woman of easy virtue" (Harlow), drifts into camp looking for a place to evade the law. One look at Dennis and she falls, hard. Her incessant chatter drives him nuts--and out of sheer impudence she insists on calling him "Fred"--but she finally wears him down.

Six precodes from Paramount never on DVD before including "Murder at the Vanities" and "Search for Beauty". Universal owns all of Paramount's pre-codes.