Product Review

In the early 1930s, before Hollywood began enforcing a self-imposed Production Code, many films allowed for extraordinary frankness, including nudity, adultery and prostitution, featured in this restored and remastered three-movie collection. Saucy Jean Harlow shrewdly vamps unwitting exeuctives to get what she wants in Red-Headed Woman (1932; Disc 1), scripted by Anita Loos (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes). James Whale (Frankenstein) directs Waterloo Bridge (1931; Disc 1), starring Mae Clarke in the gritty first film version of the acclaimed wartime romance. Added to the National Film Registry in 2005, Baby Face (1933; Disc 2) stars Barbara Stanwyck as an amoral beauty who sleeps her way to the top. This collection boasts both the Original Theatrical Release and a Prerelease Version, rediscovered and restored by the Library of Congress, before censors of the day demanded the elimination of several scenes.