pre-Code

See also: precode

English

Etymology

From pre- +‎ code.

Adjective

pre-Code (not comparable)

  1. Prior to the introduction of the Hays Code, a set of moral guidelines for the US film industry widely applied between 1934 and 1968.
    • 2005, Richard Barrios, Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall:
      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

Alternative forms

Noun

pre-Code (plural pre-Codes)

  1. A pre-Code movie, especially one that was subsequently banned under the Hays Code.
    • 2013 June 27, Andre Spicer, Helen Hanson, A Companion to Film Noir, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:
      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.
    • 2014 July 15, Mick LaSalle, Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man, Macmillan, →ISBN:
      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.
    • 2024 November 8, Simone O. Elias, Old Films, Young Eyes: A Teenage Take on Hollywood's Golden Age, McFarland, →ISBN, page 113:
      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 watch.

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