pre-Code
A pre-Code movie, especially one that was subsequently banned under the Hays Code.
Adjective
- Prior to the introduction of the Hays Code, a set of moral guidelines for the US film industry widely applied between 1930 and 1968.
- The Sign of the Cross, in certain senses the ultimate pre-Code movie, can still have a queasying ^([sic]) effect on viewers with its arena brutality, and its effect on 1933 audiences was that much stronger - 2005,...
Origin
From pre- + code.
Forms
Noun
- A pre-Code movie, especially one that was subsequently banned under the Hays Code.
- The most brutal pre-Codes take the viewer to Hell, and only sometimes back, just as the noir films did after the war a one-way ticket to oblivion, destruction, and death. - 2013 June 27, Andre Spicer, Helen Hanson, A...
- The good news is that most of the pre-Codes mentioned in these pages are either available on video or can be seen on television. - 2014 July 15, Mick LaSalle, Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the...
- I was surprised that there even were young people at the festival at all and even more surprised by the fact that they liked Pre-Codes more than any other genre - Pre-Codes are the earliest "classic" films you can...