CONVENTION CITY

'Convention City' is a 1933 pre-Code film that was ordered destroyed by Jack Warner, head of Warner Bros., due to the film being banned due to the Production Code, which took effect 1 July 1934. No copies of the film are known to exist, although there are reportedly Vitaphone discs of the soundtrack.
It was directed by Archie Mayo, written by Robert Lord, and starred Joan Blondell, Guy Kibbee, Dick Powell, Mary Astor, and Adolphe Menjou.
The plot revolved around drunk and sexed-up employees of the Honeywell Rubber Company at a convention in Atlantic City, and had reportedly had no redeeming social elements. Dr. James Wingate, chair of the Motion Picture Division of the State of New York Department of Education — which oversaw the state's censorship board — described it as "a pretty rowdy picture, dealing largely with drunkenness, blackmail, and lechery, and without any particularly sympathetic characters or elements."^[1] Script changes, suggested by Wingate, Jason S. Joy (director of the Studio Relations Committee), and production head Hal Wallis were nominally incorporated into the script. When ''Convention City'' was released, it averaged twenty cuts per state board.
Because of the lewdness of the film and lack of influence of the Studio Relations Committee, which was supposed to control objectionable content, ''Convention City'' and films like it led to the creation of Production Code Administration, led by Joseph I. Breen.
In 1936, Jack Warner attempted to re-release ''Convention City'' in a censored form, but Joseph I. Breen deemed it beyond redemption in any form. Warner, not wanting to refuse distribution of a film in his possession, systematically destroyed all prints, the original camera negative, and the fine-grain positive.^[2] While it is possible that a print of the film exists, it seems unlikely.

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External links

References

External links

★ ''Convention City'' at IMDB

References

1. Vieira, Page 151
2. Vieira

Mark A. Vieira, ''Sin In Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood'' (New York: Abrams, 1999)