“Forbidden Hollywood,” Warner Archive’s made-to-order DVD series featuring Pre-Code films, sounds like good, clean – well, dirty – fun. Pre-Code films, made from the late ’20s until 1934, when the ...

They might seem tame by today’s standards, but there was a time in Hollywood when the men were bad and the women were badder. Today it’s known as the “pre-Code” era, and it’s coming to TV this month.

About 20 years ago I was in a kind of partnership with another film historian who told me that, no, there wasn’t a market for a book on pre-code movies. I can only wonder what he thinks today after ...