The Seductive Joys of Pre-Code Movies

And now for something completely different... I'm enjoying "Conversations with Friends," the TV adaptation of the Sally Rooney novel. I particularly like the young actress Alison Oliver, whom I've never seen before. But Jemima Kirke (whom I liked in "Girls") is also strong. My sister Margaret, with whom I've been watching the show, passed along this Harpers Bazaar interview with Kirke, in which she gives a shout-out to pre-Code moves like Warner Bros.' "Three on a Match," starring our father Lyle Talbot, Humphrey Bogart, and Ann Dvorak (see below) — also a young Bette Davis. Great movie, featuring adultery, cocaine addiction, suicide -- all those wonderful pre-Code themes.

Here's Kirke: "My absolute favorite pre-code movies are 'Three on a Match' and 'Blonde Venus,'” she says, an American Spirit cigarette in her hand, a half-drunk smoothie on the table. “They’re my movies. I invented them.”