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Tod Browning’s “Freaks”

Before R-ratings, anti-heroes and gratuitous violence and nudity in mainstream Hollywood movies, there was the Hays Code. As a form of self-policing the industry, virtually every movie released up until 1968 needed that stamp of approval if it wanted distribution. And while it helped produce all of Old Hollywood’s true classics for several decades, it often included ridiculous rulings like not being able to show or flush a toilet on screen, not allowing married couples to be shown sleeping in the same bad or always making sure criminals, even protagonists of the movie, got punished in the end.

But before the Hays Code was nothing, and it was a gloriously weird, scandalous time for the movies. Certain Hollywood films in the early ’30s as “talkies” were rapidly taking hold have since been labeled “Pre-Code” films that never received Hollywood’s stamp of approval.

Every Friday in September,...

I must have been about 12 years old when I first saw Tarzan and His Mate. I loved the Tarzan movies. Tarzan was the undisputed King of the Jungle and was the greatest, Cheetah was man’s best friend, Boy was annoying, and Jane was the Queen of the Jungle and a young male’s introduction to the allure of the female. The uncensored version, with a naked Jane silhouetted while changing clothes in a backlit tent and the spectacular underwater ballet scene would have been a revelation to me; Tarzan and Jane are frolicking in their favorite swimming hole, Tarzan in his usual loincloth and Jane naked – not naked from the waste up, or presumed naked as they hid her behind some lake flora or rocks – Jane was naked.

Madam Satan

Most film fans knowledge of Pre-Code Hollywood movies doesn’t go much further than King Kong, Frankenstein, and a few other titles.

Review by Sam Moffitt

I love silent films! I have to say that from the beginning I have been fascinated with the silent years of film making. When I was growing up in the St. Louis area in the sixties there was a syndicated show called Who’s The Funnyman? Hosted by Cliff Norton this was a kid’s show which presented silent slapstick comedies, Hal Roach, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, Harold Lloyd, The Keystone Cops. These were short versions, cut to fit a Saturday morning time slot and with voice over by Mr. Norton. He would always introduce the films as a record of his family members, cousins, uncles, brothers, sisters, and describe the predicaments we could see being acted out on camera.

How I loved that show! It made me want to see the complete films, I could tell they had been edited just as Channel...

News.

Above: Harris Savides. Photo by Brigette Lancombe for Interview magazine.

We were saddened and shocked to hear of the passing of one of film's great cinematographers, Harris Savides. Our brief note includes an indelible clip from Gerry, one of his collaborations with Gus Van Sant. David Hudson has rounded up commentary at Fandor.

One of Savides' chief collaborators, director David Fincher, is also in the news with an animated film project that's appealing to Kickstarter to get funded.

Two big trailer debuts have sprung on us over the last week. One's the second trailer for Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained:

...and the other is the first full trailer for Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty:

Filmmaker Jon Jost has started a petition calling for Ray Carney to return underground director Mark Rappaport's film materials. As the petition explains:

"In 2005, when Mark Rappaport moved to France, Ray Carney,...

Above: Clara Bow in a publicity still for Call Her Savage. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art.

Opening October and running through November at the Museum of Modern Art is the much anticipated 10th edition of the To Save and Project International Festival of Film Preservation. One of the major highlights is a gorgeous 35mm print of John Francis Dillon's Call Her Savage (1932), starring Clara Bow and shot by Lee Garmes. The film will open the series, on October 11, and be followed that evening with a screening of another must see restoration, Raoul Walsh's Wild Girl.

Before attending the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival, the question in the back of my mind was, "With all the classic repertory theaters in Los Angeles, and all the chances to see classic films in 35mm or even 70mm on the big screen, what can TCM offer that the other screening series can't?"

The answer, I soon discovered, is that TCM offers a real festival experience. Attending only two sessions, I spent over 12 hours going from screening to screening, watching movies, studying the schedule closely and making hard decisions about what to see, all without a single break. And though I never found time to eat, at the day's end I emerged with the pleasant, gorged feeling experienced after any satisfying film festival.

The most incredible event was the program titled "A Trip to the Moon and Other Trips through Time, Color and Space." I was attracted to the screening by...

Latest Additions Include Star-Studded Appearances, Noted Film Historians,

An Opening-Night Poolside Screening of High Society (1956)

And a Vanity Fair Showcase of Architecture in Film

Complete Schedule for 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival

Now Available at http://www.tcm.com/festival

With just over two weeks left before opening day, the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival continues to expand its already-packed slate with new events and live appearances:

On opening night of the festival, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel will be the site of a poolside screening of the lavish Cole Porter musical High Society (1956), starring Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. Actresses Maud Adams and Eunice Gayson will attend a 50th Anniversary screening of the James Bond classic Dr. No (1962) and participate in a conversation about being “Bond Girls.” Filmmaker Mel Brooks will be on hand to introduce his brilliant parody Young Frankenstein (1974). Filmmaker John Carpenter will introduce his favorite film, the...

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has unveiled additional programming and events for the 2012 edition of the TCM Classic Film Festival, including a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Paramount Pictures. Robert Evans, longtime producer and former head of production for Paramount, is set to take part in the tribute, which will focus on the studio’s 1970s renaissance. In addition, the TCM Classic Film Festival is slated to include a look at The Noir Style, a tribute to legendary costume designer Travis Banton, a look at art deco in the movies, a collection of early cinematic rarities and much more.

TCM.s own Robert Osborne will once again serve as official host for the four-day, star-studded event, which will take pace Thursday, April 12 . Sunday, April 15, 2012, in Hollywood. Passes are on sale now through the official festival website: http://www.tcm.com/festival.

The Paramount Renaissance

The TCM Classic Film Festival will...

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will open the 2012 edition of the TCM Classic Film Festival with the world premiere of a new 40th anniversary restoration of Bob Fosse’s Cabaret (1972). TCM’s own Robert Osborne, who serves as official host for the festival, will introduce Cabaret to kick off the four-day, star-studded event, which will take pace Thursday, April 12 - Sunday, April 15, 2012, in Hollywood. Passes are set to go on sale Wednesday, Nov. 9, at 10 a.m. (Et) through the official festival website: http://www.tcm.com/festival.

One of the most acclaimed films of its era, Cabaret stars Oscar®-winner Liza Minnelli as an American singer looking for love and success in pre-World War II Berlin. Michael York and Academy Award® winner Joel Grey co-star in the film, which earned Fosse an Oscar for Best Director and serves as a perfect showcase for his unique choreography and imaginative visual style.

Cabaret...

Each year New York residents can look forward to two essential series programmed at the Film Forum, noirs and pre-Coders (that is, films made before the strict enforcing of the Motion Picture Production Code). These near-annual retrospective traditions are refreshed and re-varied and re-repeated for neophytes and cinephiles alike, giving all the chance to see and see again great film on film. Many titles in this year's Essential Pre-Codeseries, running an epic July 15 - August 11, are old favorites and some ache to be new discoveries; all in all there are far too many racy, slipshod, patter-filled celluloid splendors to be covered by one critic alone. Faced with such a bounty, I've enlisted the kind help of some friends and colleagues, asking them to sent in short pieces on their favorites in an incomplete but also in-progress survey and guide to one of the summer's most sought-after series. In this entry: what's playing Friday,...

President Obama may know that Lindsay Lohan is in the clink, but although Natasha Lyonne says her heart goes out to the blighted actress, she is trying not to think about it. Five years after her own meltdown made headlines and was mercilessly picked over by Gawker jackals, she is working, relatively content and a total scream to talk to.

Lyonne is following up her role as Deborah (that's Deh-bor-ah) Tennis, a deranged theater manager-turned-director of stylish snuff films in "All About Evil" (a horror romp directed by San Francisco camp guru -- and drag queen -- Joshua Grannell), with a couple of theater gigs, one an eight-month stint, the longest commitment she has ever made. "Knowing that I'm going to be able to show up is insane to me," she says, adding that she's hoping that she will emerge from the New Group production of "Blood From a Stone...