COMPLICATED WOMEN (2003) B/W 60m dir: Hugh Munro Neely

narrated by Jane Fonda

From Now Playing: A Viewer's Guide to Turner Classic Movies: "'They took the stereotypes and made them complicated,' says Mick LaSalle in Complicated Women (2003), a TCM world premiere documentary directed by Hugh Munro Neely, narrated by Jane Fonda and based on LaSalle's book of the same title. Both book and film look at the phenomenon of 'pre-Code women,' the freewheeling characters created by American actresses during the years 1929-34. Film historians Mark Vieira and Molly Haskell join veteran actresses Kitty Carlisle, Frances Dee, Mae Madison and Karen Morley in recalling the uninhibited heyday of female stars of the pre-Code period. In addition to the usual suspects --- Shearer, Colbert, Stanwyck, Harlow and Mae West --- the documentary looks at such other 'complicated women' as Greta Garbo, who dared suggest free love and lesbianism onscreen; Joan Blondell, who could get maximum mileage out of a sexy wisecrack; and Maureen O'Sullivan, who swam naked as Jane to Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan."

From the San Francisco Chronicle, May 5, 2003:

"Wild women of pre-Code films by Carla Meyer, Chronicle Staff Writer

"Imagine what today's actresses would give for a part as juicy as Frances Dee's in 1933's 'Blood Money.' 'She was everything from kleptomaniac to nymphomaniac,' Dee recalls fondly in 'Complicated Women,' a Turner Classic Movies documentary airing Tuesday night.

"During the brief, storied pre-Code era --- from the rise of talkies in 1929 until the oppressive Production Code of 1934 --- female screen characters caroused, fornicated and even kept their jobs after meeting Mr. Right. 'Complicated Women,' a lively, insightful documentary based on the book by Chronicle Movie Critic Mick LaSalle, captures the rollicking spirit of the pre-Codes while mourning a period of cinematic freedom never quite recaptured.

"How fitting that the program is narrated by Jane Fonda, an actress emblematic of Hollywood's other heyday for women, the 1970s. Fonda's smooth, authoritative tones lend context to the program's many film clips, as does on-camera commentary by LaSalle, author Mark Vieira and feminist critic Molly Haskell.

"But the film clips tell the story, and viewers will want to run out and rent some of these pre-Code movies to see them in their entirety. The pervasiveness of free-spirited women's roles during the period is amazing, ranging from Joan Crawford's naughty stenographer in 1932 Oscar winner 'Grand Hotel' to Barbara Stanwyck's shameless climber in 1933's 'Baby Face,' a B-grade romp that's invigorating in its sheer amorality.

"If 'Complicated Women' has a star, it's Norma Shearer, known best as the wronged wife of 'The Women' before advocates LaSalle and Vieira brought new luster to her pre-Code brilliance. By playing upstanding libertines in films like 'A Free Soul' (1929) and 'The Divorcee" (1930), Shearer made it safe for other ingenues to venture into racy territory. It was the equivalent of Sandra Bullock, a beloved actress of sterling reputation, one day deciding to play junkie prostitutes exclusively. Well-dressed, urbane junkie prostitutes.

"In mores and manner, Shearer's characters seem remarkably modern. Slouchy in slip dresses, Shearer leads from the pelvis while sidling up to male co-stars. Few pre-Code actresses bothered with undergarments, Haskell informs us, and Shearer looks to be the least constrained of all.

"The groundbreaking pre-Code work of Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Mae West has been documented many times before, and they get their due again here. More fascinating are those actresses whose legends were mostly confined to the pre-Codes, like Ruth Chatterton. Radiating maturity and keen intelligence, Chatterton made a believable auto magnate in 1933's 'Female.' Businesslike in the boardroom and the bedroom, where she seduces then dismisses male subordinates.

"Contrast that role with Chatterton's most famous, in 1936's 'Dodsworth.' Made only a few years into the Code, 'Dodsworth' features Chatterton as an auto magnate's wife, and a frivolous one at that.

"'Complicated Women' gleans gossipy tidbits from pre-Code starlets. Interviewed before her recent death, Karen Morley talked affectionately of her 'Dinner at Eight' co-star Jean Harlow: 'She had spectacular breasts, as you probably already know,' said Morley, revealing that Harlow kept her assets camera-ready by applying ice.

"That sort of ingenuity typified pre-Code actresses, who for a short and heady time 70 years ago were allowed to turn their vamps, molls and even good girls into complicated women."