DEEP DIVE: Pre-Code Hollywood, Pt. II — Power and Punishment

This is a watch at home, discuss in person event and the second half of a two-part series on Hollywood just before the Production Code took hold.

Part I explored desire in the open. Part II shifts its focus to power, punishment, and control. Night Nurse exposes corruption beneath professional authority. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang shows the justice system as brutal, indifferent, and inescapable. The Story of Temple Drake confronts sexual violence and social judgment with a frankness that would soon be forbidden.

Together, they reveal the other edge of Pre-Code Hollywood: not freedom, but fallout. Power asserts itself. Ambiguity gives way to punishment. And the movies still refuse to soften the blow—right up until the door quietly closes.

We will meet to discuss our thoughts on Monday, February 23, at Schoolyard Beer Garden. I will try to snag a table upstairs, but watch the comments for our exact location. Please try to watch all three before attending.

Here is the list of films with instructions on how to find them.

NIGHT NURSE (1931, William A. Wellman, USA)
Night Nurse starts as a fast, sharp hospital drama and gradually turns ugly. Barbara Stanwyck’s nurse moves through a world where money and credentials matter more than doing the right thing, and where vulnerable children are treated as obstacles rather than lives at stake. The film never reassures us that the system will fix itself.

• Rent from YouTube
• Rent from Prime Video

I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932, Mervyn LeRoy, USA)
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang strips away any comforting idea that the justice system exists to correct mistakes. What begins as a straightforward story of bad luck and misjudgment quickly hardens into something relentless. Paul Muni’s fugitive isn’t undone by personal weakness so much as by a system that refuses to admit error and treats human lives as expendable labor. There’s no moral lesson offered, no balance restored—just the quiet horror of a society that protects its authority at the cost of the people crushed beneath it.

• Watch on Criterion Channel
• Watch for free with ads on Tubi
• Rent from YouTube
• Rent from Prime Video
• Watch for free on Internet Archive

THE STORY OF TEMPLE DRAKE (1933, Stephen Roberts, USA)
The Story of Temple Drake is one of the most unsettling films Hollywood ever released under the Code’s shadow. What begins as a story of privilege and carelessness quickly turns brutal, as violence and humiliation are met not with outrage, but with denial and reputational concern. The film is less interested in punishment than in exposure—showing how quickly sympathy evaporates when a woman’s suffering threatens social order. What makes it so stark is its refusal to soften the aftermath.

• Watch for free with ads on YouTube
• Watch for free on Internet Archive