Friends ~
Welcome to the May newsletter — all about Forbidden Cocktails which comes out next Tuesday. Thank you to everyone who has pre-ordered the book already.
Why Pre-Code? I was thrilled to take on a project covering Hollywood movies from 1930-1934 precisely because the subject was difficult and the waters deep. We know the 20s. We know Noir. But in between? The 1930s? That formative period between the roaring Jazz Age party and WWII? When FDR entered office and put and end to Prohibition — but also seemingly everyone was in an unemployment line?
We tend to gloss over that bit with the word DEPRESSION and a wave to Steinbeck.
But Hollywood was really born in the 1930s, starting what would become a Golden Age. When sound came to the movies, so did dialogue —which meant there was an immediate need for great scripts. And great writers. The likes of Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald headed to Hollywood.
The films are known for being brazen, making them fun and louche. But there’s more to them, and that is my personal hook for writing this book. Not to plunge into the deep end too far, but what grabs me most about Pre-Code film is the fact that we can watch America grapple with the three so-called ‘masters of suspicion,’ Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. These were the three thinkers who most shaped the 20th Century - and arguably still shape our world today.
Don’t worry, I don’t go too far into this connection in Forbidden Cocktails — although you can find all three alluded to everywhere in films from 1930-1934. For shorthand, Baby Face contends with Nietzsche; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of most Freudian film ever made; and Marx - well, class consciousness runs through all the movies of the 30s. I am awed how the scripts of the era contend with big questions like: What is natural and unnatural? Is God dead? Is there meaning in the universe or only void? What is evil? What is love?
What I think will grab viewers most about the films in Forbidden Cocktails are two main themes:
First, liberation. When actress Norma Shearer walks on screen in 1930’s The Divorcee demanding equality, she is the modern American woman announcing herself to the world. Here she is: financially independent, able to vote, and boasting a healthy sexual appetite. While it may have taken until the 1960s for her demands to start fully playing out, it starts here. Pre-Code films also give us the first non-judgemental portrayals of homosexuality, the first mixed-race couples, and the list goes on and on. What’s in these movies will wow you.
Second, morality. It is ironic that Pre-Code films were often edited for their immoral content when the main characters - high class or low (although usually low) - demonstrate incredible moral fiber in the face of the hypocrisy, greed, and bigotry in 1930s America. In fact, you could argue that there is a singular message running through these films: trust your own ethical principles because the powers-that-be are off their rockers. Pre-Code characters stay the course, and integrity is often the moving force of the screenplays. In Pre-Code, even the criminals have ethics.
For these reasons, I think viewers will discover that the films in Forbidden Cocktails are not just escapism or of mere historical interest — although they provide an excellent refuge in good scripts, great acting, and fun costumes — but that they are also a source of hope.
Hollywood Pre-Code movies remind us that we have been here before, facing totalitarianism and extreme social discord. The films of the early 1930s show us an eerily similar time, when the corrupt upper classes and do-gooder technocrats simply lack answers and the will to make things right. Outsized rich titans ruled the airwaves and garnered attention to the detriment of everyone else: They had Howard Hughes. We’re stuck with Elon Musk. Then, as now, ominous clouds were gathering. The parallels are many.
But here’s the important part: These films show how we made it through dark times, cocktails in hand.
Give them a watch. Their time has come (again).
Thank you to everyone who has already ordered a copy! ORDER FORBIDDEN COCKTAILS HERE.
Forbidden Cocktails launches May 7. Join us for a book party in New York at Porchlight, May 6. Tickets HERE.
OTHER NEWS
I will be in Los Angeles at the Autry Museum of the American West for Cowboy Cocktails May 16. Tickets HERE.
While in LA, I will be at the great Bar Keeper for a book(s) signing May 17th.
Catch me June 10 for Forbidden Cocktails at M. Judson Booksellers in Greenville, SC. Tickets HERE.
RECIPE
King Kong
Inspired by a giant ape that climbs the Empire State Building, this unique cocktail combines whiskey, amaro, and banana liqueur for a kind of Banana Manhattan. The result is as outsized as Kong and a similarly formidable force with a playful side.
2 ounces bourbon whiskey
3/4 ounce amaro (such as Averna)
3/4 ounce banana liqueur
1 dash Angostura bitters
Stir bourbon, amaro, banana liqueur, and bitters with ice and strain into a rocks glass with a large ice cube.
King Kong (1933)
Few movies enraptured American audiences like King Kong, maybe the most famous of all pre-code films. It is easy to see why, since the blockbuster embodies many of the era’s themes; it is a racial adventure film like Tarzan and His Mate, a nightmare like Frankenstein, and an interspecies love affair similar to Island of Lost Souls. Throw in one of cinema’s most relatable nonhuman stars and it was a recipe for box-office mania.
The ape appears as a coded figure in several early 1930s films, from Blonde Venus (see page 106) to The Sign of the Cross (see page 134), but none so prominently as Kong. He is a monstrous stand-in for audiences’ deep-seated fears of sexual violation—one that plays out before our very eyes between giant Kong and the small, white maiden Ann Darrow (Fay Wray). Never before had special effects worked so well in conjunction with sound technology to create a convincing narrative from what was, essentially, a kinky fever-dream. Filled with gore and sadism, the film flouted censorship while presenting a monster from another world smashing into the heart of civilization.
Kong is also a symbol of the financial and cultural chaos of the Depression. At the time of the film’s release, President Roosevelt had declared a holiday to stop a run on the banks and America was in crisis. Audiences felt the monster was close. It is no accident we witness Kong attacking the Sixth Avenue El right outside Manhattan’s Radio City theater, where the film played to packed houses.
Excerpted from FORBIDDEN COCKTAILS: Libations Inspired by the World of Pre-Code Hollywood by André Darlington. Copyright © 2024. Available from Running Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
See a preview of Forbidden Cocktails in Entertainment Weekly HERE
CHEERS. THANK YOU FOR READING.
Intriguing discussion! Looking eagerly to your newest book, No. 12. Congrats!