What was the first Hollywood studio picture where the premarital aspect of sex wasn't presented as an issue?

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Not necessarily showing a full sex scene. Just one where it was clear they'd had sex, but the fact of it being before marriage wasn't anything noteworthy?

Alba, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 18:58 (eleven years ago) link

I'm not sure, but there might be a difference between characters who don't find it noteworthy vs. the film/filmmakers. (I'm imagining a hypothetical film made in the 1960s whose raison d'etre would've been to depict the changing attitudes of the times.)

jaymc, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 19:26 (eleven years ago) link

knocked up

zero dark (s1ocki), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 19:30 (eleven years ago) link

have no idea but i suspect there are probably pre-code examples of this?

administrator galina (Matt P), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 19:31 (eleven years ago) link

It's also hard to tell in retrospect what a film thinks is noteworthy. Like, is the sex in Breathless being depicted as illicit?

jim, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 19:34 (eleven years ago) link

Otto Preminger's The Moon is Blue (1953) is generally considered to be the first American movie to break at least some of the cinematic taboos surrounding pre-marital sex:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Is_Blue

Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 19:35 (eleven years ago) link

not the first but John & Mary from 1969 comes to mind

buzza, Tuesday, 5 February 2013 19:39 (eleven years ago) link

knocked up

That was the first thing that came to my mind too. Or The Sin of Nora Moran.

Zero Dark 33⅓: The Final Insult (Eric H.), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 19:41 (eleven years ago) link

I think it's very heavily implied if not made crystal clear that Bogart nails Dorothy Malone's bookshop proprietor in The Big Sleep and very little is made of it.

Gollum: "Hot, Ready and Smeagol!" (Phil D.), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 19:43 (eleven years ago) link

I guess there must have been some pre-Hays Code movies which played fast and loose, but can't think of one at the moment.

fun loving and xtremely tolrant (Billy Dods), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 19:54 (eleven years ago) link

This site http://www.filmsite.org/sexualfilms2.html would suggest 'Our Dancing Daughters' from 1928 starring Joan Crawford.

fun loving and xtremely tolrant (Billy Dods), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 19:59 (eleven years ago) link

as noted, dozens of pre-hayes code stuff, pick one, how about this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDfRzke3R9E

unprepared guitar (Edward III), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 20:12 (eleven years ago) link

it takes a real man to tame this kind of female lol

unprepared guitar (Edward III), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 20:14 (eleven years ago) link


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