Rules are Made to be Broken season gets underway at Bo'ness cinema

Audiences will be able to see brand new remasters of some of Tinseltown’s spiciest and wittiest movies when the Pre-code Hollywood: Rules are Made to be Broken season gets underway at the Bo’ness Hippodrome on Saturday.

Featuring a starry line-up which includes Joan Blondell, James Cagney, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Norma Shearer and Barbara Stanwyck, the season celebrates the period in the early 1930s when filmmakers were pushing back against a clampdown on themes deemed ‘immoral’.

The season opens on Saturday at 2.30pm with a recorded introduction from one of its curators, the film journalist and historian Pamela Hutchinson and a big screen showing of Blonde Crazy featuring James Cagney and Joan Blondell as a con-artist duo robbing hotel guests where they work. Other films due to be show include Jewel Robbery, Red Headed Woman, A Free Soul and Baby Face. See: www.hippodromecinema.co.uk/news/2021-1/august/pre-code-hollywood-rules-are-made-to-be-broken/.

The programme runs at the Bo’ness cinema into October.

The promotional poster for the new programme of films at Bo'ness Hippodrome.

Alison Strauss Arts Development Officer (Film and Media) and Hippodrome programmer said: “This season is a rare chance to explore newly remastered versions of a selection of films from the time when Hollywood studios were testing the boundaries over what could be shown on screen and to watch the resulting stories, featuring feisty women, attractive rogues, high fashion, hard-living and dialogue that fizzes as they were made to be enjoyed – on a big screen amid an audience.”