We are all familiar with the limits of the Golden Age Hollywood happy ending: lovers united in marriage, criminals punished, women returned to home and hearth. Once upon a time, the dream factory used to have a much racier imagination. A celebration of pre-Hays Code cinema, subtitled Rules Are Made to Be Broken, launches this month at the Cinema Rediscovered festival in Bristol, recalling the days before conservative censorship held sway over the biggest mass entertainment medium of the 20th century. It was a far more exciting time to be a woman on screen, or in the audience, than we would see for decades.
