PopSmart

They put up with the same crap from men that women have been putting up with for years: philandering, hypocrisy, brutality, alcoholism, possessiveness and other general forms of oppression.

They were the women of the “Pre-Code” era of Hollywood, which has always been a bit of a misnomer in that they existed during the early days of the Hays Code but didn’t come under real scrutiny until about four years in. But from about 1930-1934, Hollywood pushed the envelope as much as it could, and the result was female characters who were never more audacious, never more daring, never more independent. For the second time, Turner Classic Movies tonight pays tribute to these films and their heroines with the next installment of Forbidden Hollywood, with the screening of five mini-classics: The Divorcee (1930), A Free Soul (1931), Three on a Match (1932), Female (1933) and Night Nurse (1931). Following the 8 p.m. screening of The Divorcee, TCM will premiere Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood, a 68-minute documentary about the period, followed by Night Nurse, Three on a Match and Female, then a replaying of Thou Shalt Not, and finally A Free Soul.

On Tuesday, Warner Home Video releases the Pre-Code films and the documentary as a three-disc TCM Archives release (pictured), including commentary on The Divorcee and Night Nurse by film historians Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta.

TCM and Warner Home Video already broke out some of the big dogs with 2006’s trilogy: Baby Face (also with Stanwyck), Red-Headed Woman and Waterloo Bridge.

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