cinema

One Way Passage and the Pre-Code Hollywood

Jonathan Arnowitz-Taylor

Jonathan Arnowitz-Taylor

— 2 min read
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One Way Passage and the Pre-Code Hollywood
I see design from many different angles and one of them is how different mediums deal with constraints. Since I feel mastering constraints is the most important (and most liberating) task for the designer. One of my fascinations with the cinema is the effect censorship had on Hollywood, especially examining the pre-code films, which seemed to have more freedom of expression than films today have. Then, seeing how the code closed in on Hollywood and filmmakers adjusted to both comply and rebel against the code, To illustrate this point I am going to write some reviews of some of the pre-code and post code films in America and abroad, starting with the 1932 One Way Passage with with William Powell and Kay Francis. Here's the review: What a splendid film and an unlikely but deserved member of the elite Masterpieces of the cinema. Disarmingly straight forward, it's a great character study, a great plot--and of course necessary for a true masterpiece: a top to bottom great cast and excellent straightforward direction by Tay Garnett. The plot is inegenious with Powell playing a condemned man to hang, who escaped prison and meets up with Kay Francis on a cruise from Hong Kong to San Francisco. She has a terminal illness and they form a romantic duo each not knowing the other's secret. This ingenious plot is enriched by the side plots of those whose lives they intersect: Powell's gang of thieves and Francis's social life and morose doctor, who wants her to take it easy while she wants to live to the fullest what little life is left to her. The film has a humanity and compassion that post code films will be deprived of, As becoming a pre-code film, the gang of thieves are a sympathetic group and ultimately find their own forms of happiness, while the law is ridiculed and eventually capitulating to the rogues. I say I rewatched it, as indeed I had seen it once when a teenager. But my only memory of the film is the last scene--a very touching and memorable moment that someone spoke deeply to my teenage sentiment and spiritual desire.

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