Complicated Women

The late 1920's and early 1930's - from the advent of the talkies to the enforcement of the Hays Production Code in 1934 - was arguably the golden age of strong, glamorous, frank and complicated roles for women in Hollywood movies. Two performances broke open this trend: Norma Shearer's in The Divorcee (1930), where she bucked her screen ingenue stereotype to break the double standard between men and women specifically regarding sex, and Greta Garbo's as the moral vamp Anna Christie (1930). Following, a number of movies featured complicated women's roles in situations of sexual freedom, power within work - legitimate work or otherwise such as molls or prostitutes - and/or power using sex as is often the case with gold diggers. Among the most talked about roles during this pre-code era are Garbo's performance as the sexually ambiguous and powerful Queen Christina (1933), Miriam Hopkins's performance as the unforgivingly ruthless southern belle in The Story of Temple Drake (1933), and Barbara Stanwyck's performance as the woman who will use her sexuality to get exactly what she wants after others have used it against her in Baby Face (1933). The freedom expressed in such roles would cease for over thirty years with the introduction of the code.