The Scarlet Letter (1934) 11/11/23

Hollywood’s first talkie version of the Nathaniel Hawthorne classic was also the final film of silent superstar Colleen Moore. The dramatization of the Puritan ABCs (what do the B & C stand for?) is also a post-Code downer that puts the shame on Mame Hester Prynne even as it exposes the hypocrisy of colonial intolerance. The disc extras by commentator Jason A. Ney explain how a Poverty Row movie managed such high production values, and why it was reissued in 1965 — as an exploitation shocker. On Blu-ray from Film Masters.
11/11/23