Grope Rates

A rubber convention gone wild
It's anything other than 'mild'
With girls, guys and gin
It's swirling with sin
The trouble was censors were riled.

Joan Blondell heads the cast of Convention City (Archie Mayo; 1933). Title by first-rate Donald B. Benson. The raciness of Convention City was one of the causes of enforcement of the film production code.

Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants

Responses to censors were varied,
But one film was sentenced and buried
Because it betrays
The code -- Not of Hays --
But that of the men who are married.

Donald B. Benson

Frank McHugh, surrounded by fellow conventioneers in Convention City (Archie Mayo; 1933). The Motion Picture Production Code was known as the "Hays Code" after Will Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America from 1922 to 1945.

Sanitized For Our Protection

When booze-drinking Babbitts convene
They grope and they grab -- It's obscene!
So Jack did agree
Their wives mustn't see
Their out-of-town habits onscreen.

Donald B. Benson

Dick Powell, Mary Astor and Adolf Menjou revel in Convention City (Archie Mayo; 1933). Studio head Jack L. Warner ordered that all prints of the racy sex comedy be destroyed.

Hospitality Sweets

Gee whiz! Are these parties audacious!
The sizzling tarts so curvaceous!
This picture licentious
Proved quickly contentious
For business was far too salacious.

Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, and Guy Kibbee in Convention City (Archie Mayo; 1933). This sex comedy was banned after the Motion Picture Production Code was enacted in 1934, and prints were ordered destroyed by studio head Jack L. Warner. LimerWrecker Donald B. Benson sweetened up our title.

Revel May Care

 

For each gin-addled salesman, a floozy
An insolent gal who'll get boozy
A crowded hotel
Where the rowdy raise hell
This sin-loaded tale is a doozy!

Booze on the table, cash on the floor: Guy Kibbee and Joan Blondell in a suggestive still from Convention City (Archie Mayo; 1933). Several lines of dialog were ordered removed by Motion Picture Production Code censors, including the following: "Now you take off that dress and I'll take off my toupee, huh!"

Beat the Banned

Outlandish! A salesman's convention
Where randy young gals deserve mention
And rubber yahoos
With tubs full of booze
Demand one's unfailing attention.

The delegates arrive at Convention City (Archie Mayo; 1933), banned after the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced in 1934.. The plot revolves around the convention of the Honeywell Rubber Company in Atlantic City.

Hell Toupée

Films this racy and blue draw attention
Here's a case that caused studio tension
Said Jack Warner, annoyed,
"Have that porn film destroyed!"
It flew in the face of convention.

Guy Kibbee and Joan Blondell live it up in Convention City (Archie Mayo; 1933). Due to its salacious content, Convention City was banned after the Motion Picture Production Code was enacted in 1934. Prints were subsequently ordered to be destroyed by studio head Jack L. Warner. The film is now considered lost.

Gold Figures

As pure and as meek as the lambs
They're helpless and weak when in jams.
But virtue will pay
When hearts they display
(Along with their cheeks and their gams).

Donald B. Benson

Joan Blondell gets up to answer the door in the pre-code musical Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy; 1933).

Diggers With Attitude

 

With randy old characters leering
At dandy canaries, careering
These crafty young honeys
Are after their monies
Their candor is very endearing.

Joan Blondell and Guy Kibbe in a still from Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy; 1933). Title by David Cairns, accepted with gratitude.

Brother Can You Spare a Dame

So fraught were the day's economics,
As naughty were chorines and comics.
'Cause wolves at the door
Demanded much more
Than watered-down westerns with Tommix.

 

Donald B. Benson

The camera passes through the spread legs of chorus girls in the Busby Berkeley choreographed production number "Young and Healthy" in 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon; 1933).

Out-of-Doughboys

Our doughboys return from the war
Find no way to earn, and grow sore 
Gave their all, are forgotten
It's appalling, it's rotten
This show-stopping turn demands MORE!



Joan Blondell delivers the very stirring spoken word in the Remember My Forgotten Man number in Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy; Busby Berkeley). Title by doughy Donald B. Benson.

Wing Man-ic

The queen of bit parts, Toby Wing
On screen she made heartstrings go "zing"
From prop man to mogul
They'd stop and they'd ogle
This "teenager" started to sing.

Dick Powell and uncredited chorus girl Toby Wing, in the Busby Berkeley production number Young and Healthy from 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon; 1933). The 27 year old Powell plays the show's "juvenile" lead, Billy Lawler.

Toby Wing Nut

For fair Toby Wing, here's an ode.
Our fantasy fling of pre-code.
Although she has talents,
What's tipping the balance
Is she's got that thing -- a la mode.

 Donald B. Benson


Perennial chorus girl Toby Wing, here entertaining the swells in Search For Beauty (Erle C. Kenton;1934).