Forbidden Hollywood Collection. Volume 7

Locations
Call Number: DVD Drama Forbidden
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 1st Floor 2-week checkout	DVD Drama Forbidden	2-week checkout	On Shelf

Title from container.
The hatchet man and Skyscraper souls originally released as theatrical films in 1932. Employees' entrance and Ex-lady originally released as theatrical films in 1933.
Disc 1: The hatchet man (1932, 73 min.) -- Disc 2: Skyscraper souls (1932, 98 min.) -- Disc 3: Employees' entrance (1933, 75 min.) -- Disc 4: Ex-lady (1933, 67 min.)
Hatchet man: Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Dudley Digges.
Skyscraper souls: Warren William, Maureen O'Sullivan, Gregory Ratoff, Anita Page, Verree Teasdale, Jean Hersholt, Norman Foster, George Barbier.
Employees' entrance: Warren William, Loretta Young, Wallace Ford, Alice White, Allen Jenkins.
Ex-lady: Bette Davis, Gene Raymond, Monroe Owsley, Frank McHugh, Claire Dood, Kay Strozzi.
The hatchet man: A Tong executioner allows his wife to run off with a gangster only to learn she's been sold into prostitution.
Skyscraper souls: A financier stops at nothing to gain control of a 100-story office building and a naive young woman.
Employees' entrance: A tyrannical department store manager chases after profits and a young woman.
Ex-lady: An artist who doesn't believe in marriage reluctantly weds her lover only to discover he's seeing another woman.
DVD, full screen (1.37:1) presentation; Dolby Digital mono.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Hatchet Man submitted by willow on August 18, 2015, 1:46pm Hatchet Man takes place in San Francisco and involves Chinese gangsters, arranged marriage, opium dens, and selling women into prostitution. The cast is almost entirely white.

Loretta Young's makeup apparently took two hours, as described in Photoplay magazine: "The first step is accomplished by pulling the skin back from Loretta’s eyes and pasting it down firmly with spirit gum and fish skin – not adhesive tape. The fish skin is then covered by makeup. Lips are made larger, eyes and nose are lined. The finished job might make you think Loretta was Anna May Wong."

Decide for yourself!

Skyscraper Souls submitted by rossorr on November 25, 2023, 11:06am Skyscraper Souls is probably the standout here—certainly the most ambitious (and longest) of the four, with numerous character actors and subplots in addition to the central love [?] triangle. (Both suitors are troubling creeps.)

Hatchet Man's yellowface and cultural stereotypes are fairly excruciating, although Edward G Robinson wisely tones down the chinaman schtick.

Ex-Lady is a bit wooden (apparently derived from a stage play) but surprisingly "modern" for asking whether a non-monogamous marriage could work. (Features glam 25-year-old Bette Davis.)