Re: Shadow Ticket—Pre-Code

[Mark Kohut]

Well, I am one of those others who does think that Thomas Pynchon, whose
known deep influences
on Gravity's Rainbow contain freudian-trained Erich Fromm but even more
Norman O. Brown who gave
Pynchon all the Freud he needed---Brown's book starts with saying he read
all of Freud to get to his thesis--
to see cultural sexualizing of women of all ages and not least
pedophilia.....It pervades the Westren world
I think it is safe to say....and it perforce moves into the Lolita complex
and lower than 12 in much of our societies.
And,in fact, is not even confined to the Western world....

That riff on Shirley Temple is more archetypal, in my opinion, than Loltia
herself...

And is only one reason why Pynchon is one of the deepest artists of our
time. A vision that gets to the end...


On Mon, May 4, 2026 at 11:49 AM Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com> wrote:

> me: Pynchon hasn't specifically written about filmmaking in the Hays Code
> era, has he?
>
> Robin: Have you heard of a little pamphlet called Gravity's Rainbow?
>
> I don't recall any mentions in GR of directors working around censorship
> during the Hays Code period (during which GR takes place). Maybe I've
> forgotten some passing references? The whole Greta/ Gerhardt von Goll
> sequence of course doesn't qualify. Neither do mentions of King Kong,
> Marlene Dietrich or Bianca's sexualized Shirley Temple routine. Pynchon
> (and others) may believe that Shirley Temple's movies were pedophile-coded.
> I think it's more a case of  (paraphrasing) "Did the baby smile or does it
> have gas. Which do you want it to be?"
>
> me: In a way, it's a more fascinating time, especially the 1950s. Not so
> much the blacklisting, which he covers in Vineland, but the work-arounds
> directors had to create to indicate that sex had happened.
>
> Robin: I guess "it's too soon to know". For me the Pre-Code era is more
> interesting because of what they did leave in, how much they did "show",
> how much they were taunting would-be censors. One of those anarchist
> interregnums that Pynchon seems to love.
>
> I love pre-code movies. Some of my favorites are Baby Face (1933), Female
> (1933) and Ann Vickers (1933), thought the last one already succumbed to
> censorship, changing an abortion to a miscarriage more from pressure from
> the Catholic Council than from the Hays Code, which started to censor in
> 1934.
>
> Censorship wasn't just sexual. *Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet* (1940) is a
> case in point. The Warner Brothers studio actually daringly allowed a
> single mention of the word "syphilis" late in the movie, but they wouldn't
> let the director highlight Ehrlich's Jewishness, because the US hadn't
> entered the war and they wanted to stay neutral. This was despite the
> film's Jewish star Edward G. Robinson's appeals, and those of the Jewish
> screenwriter Norman Burnside, who said: "There isn't a man or woman alive
> who isn't afraid of syphilis, and let them know that a little kike named
> Ehrlich tamed the scourge. And maybe they can persuade their hoodlum
> friends to keep their fists off Ehrlich's coreligionists."
>
> After the war, when anti-semitism was fair game, the film *Crossfire*
> (1947), which was actually about homophobia, pretended that it was about
> anti-semitism.
>
> The queer-coded workarounds have been well-documented, including the scene
> lampooned in *Hail, Caesar*, which was the "Ain't There Anyone Here For
> Love" swimming pool scene in *Gentlemen Prefer Blondes* (1953).
>
> The all-time greatest, in my opinion, sex work-around was in Phantom Lady
> (1944), directed by Robert Siodmak who learned the craft in the German
> silent film industry of the 1920s. The story is hokey, concerning a nice
> girl from the Midwest who goes undercover to prove her boss innocent of
> murder. Since the film couldn't even imply that she would sleep with jazz
> drummer Elisha Cook, Jr. he simulates a sexual encounter in the amazing
> jazz club sequence. The censors apparently didn't get it.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMQQoztfUqI
>
> I think the best place for Pynchon to cover this would have been *The
> Crying of Lot 49*. Where a dissident postal system side-steps the
> government, directors side-stepping censorship would have fit right in.
>
> Laura
>
> On Sun, May 3, 2026 at 4:47 PM Robin Landseadel <
> robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > On 05/03/2026 9:25 AM PDT Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > "Some great stuff here, Robin. I didn't know that the Pynchon family's
> > fortune was tied in with the early motion picture biz. So Thessalie's
> > comment has a lot more depth. And you make a good case for the titular
> > ticket to be a movie ticket, rather than the transatlantic ticket I
> assumed
> > it was.
> >
> > It's both and more, as usual. The "Ticket" aspect still applies to the
> > P.I. gig. The "Shadow" aspect implies "Noir". The cover is of a very
> > shadowy theater district in downtown Budapest.
> >
> >
> > Is the thesis  talkies ushered in, or at least enabled, the rise of
> > fascism? Just as literacy led to assassination during the Kirghiz Light
> > episode in GR. Or is it a less direct: talkies = Depression = rising
> > fascism? Anyway, something to think about on a re-read."
> >
> > I am concerned with what was happening with the historical and
> present-day
> > Pynchon family at any given time in all of his novels.
> >
> > Here's an example—when Pynchon and Company went down in 1931,
> > it was E. A. Pierce, at the time the biggest brokerage on Wall Street,
> who
> > picked up what was left of Pynchon and Co. E. A. Pierce was later folded
> > into Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated. I remember their
> > TV ads, back around 1964. "Warpe, Wistful, Kubitschek and McMingus"
> scans a
> > lot like that oft repeated company name. Pierce Inverarity had a
> > whitewashed bust of Jay Gould, Oedipa wondered if that was how he died,
> > crushed by the only ikon in the house. One could easily pass over that
> > reference. Jay Gould was infamous as the most unscrupulous figure in the
> > history of large-scaled finance. He came before the notably unscrupulous
> > Rockefellers became one of the primary arbiters of global finance,
> pushing
> > for big oil. According to Charles Hollander, the Rockefellers (Nouveau
> > Riche) squeezed out the Morgans (Old Money) by stock market manipulations
> > such as these. Pynchon & Co. was collateral damage—or maybe not. They
> were
> > a big fish in a big pond, after all, and when they went down, everybody
> got
> > soaked by the splash.
> >
> > What drives me batty is the fact that I can't find a book that covers the
> > subject of Pynchon and Company specifically, knowing that they were
> > important on a number of levels including the development of railroads,
> > electricity, boating, aeronautics and other forward-looking investments.
> > From all the articles I read almost two decades ago I know there is more
> > than enough information to assemble one awesome historical family
> biography
> > out of newspaper clippings, magazine articles and Pynchon and Company
> > publications. But for some reason, this history remains submerged.
> >
> > I'd say Pynchon Family history otherwise comes into play in CoL49, in
> part
> > because we are looking at the estate of the man or corporation that
> bought
> > what was left of Pynchon and company. Tax stamps are collectible, Pynchon
> > and Company had a tax stamp scandal early on, you'd be surprised what
> this
> > sort of a collectible could bring to an auction, and so on. Of course,
> this
> > is all metaphor. Pierce Inverarity is not E. A. Pierce and Company but I
> > posit that Pierce Inverarity is a stand-in for E A. Pierce and Company.
> >
> > This connection to family history goes deeper; American "waste" laws
> > differ from UK waste laws. The law that defines the difference is
> Pynchon v
> > Stearns:
> >
> > Question - Pynchon vs. Stearns 1846
> > <https://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/2007-December/103663.html>
> >
> > One could say, as an historical event, the fall of Pynchon and Company
> was
> > tied to the rise of fascism, but that argument would make sense to me
> > mainly due to the rise of the Rockefellers and everything that went with
> > creating world-wide dependency on oil and the aftereffects of the rise of
> > those interests in global politics. Not so much due to P & C falling
> apart
> > as what developed in its wake.
> >
> > You read the book six times! I struggled to get through it once, but now
> > it might be interesting to read it again, with your perspective in mind.
> >
> > I know we were all expecting some grand finale. And because I initially
> > found the book so flat, at least on my first four times around, that it
> > took real effort to read it. The fourth time around I had the novel on
> the
> > nightstand and would absorb it before going to sleep, around four pages
> at
> > a time. Once that happened, I skimmed though the book looking for
> > references to cinema, remembering that Pynchon and Co. went down in part
> > because so much debt was tied up in Fox Films. Like Thessalie Wayward
> sez .
> > . .
> >
> > Then I gave it one more shot, gazing at all the contents as if they are
> > being presented as a Pre-Code movie, seeing as the contents all seem to
> > belong in a Pre-Code movie and how the references to Pre-Code movies,
> > stars, songs in movies are all pointed and specific, focusing on the
> > exemplars of Pre-Code cinema. I'd go so far as to suggest that Pynchon
> > conceived Shadow Ticket as a movie, explaining the quality of the dialog
> > and how the dialog is typographically laid out, the length and surface
> > complexity of the novel, its, as I wrote before, *mise-en-scène*.
> >
> > I'm a sucker for Pynchon's witchy fortune tellers, all really cute/hot
> > ladies, all of them always right. Thessalie Wayward is no exception.
> >
> > "Thessalie, if you ain't just the spit of that Joan Blondell."
> >
> > "Widely remarked on, and don't change the subject."
> >
> > Note that Thessalie is a region in the north of Greece, notable for its
> > ancient history and mythical status. I know the general region of north
> > Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria as magical places. Remember how Bulgaria is
> > presented in Against the Day? In any case, here is probably Joan
> Blondell's
> > one scene that best demonstrates what an icon of the Pre-Code era Ms.
> > Blondell was/is and what images were on Hicks' mind, no doubt:
> >
> > https://youtu.be/R9Ey-H02KOU?si=ceTLJpkQqiQz-CLs
> >
> > What was the whole motorcycle sequence about? In old movies, motorcycles
> > were often a comical element, no? Thinking of Duck Soup, maybe.
> >
> > Don't know, haven't sussed everything out save that the motorcycle
> > sequence does make for a fine motorized chase, just the thing to end a
> > movie. You can ask PTA.
> >
> > A couple of nights ago I rewatched Hail, Caesar! (2016) and couldn't help
> > but think of Shadow Ticket when the actor played by Channing Tatum
> defects
> > to the Soviet Union via submarine.
> >
> > Good Point!
> >
> >
> > The film is marred, in my opinion, by poor editing (script and footage),
> > but it has some comic elements, such as the Marxist kidnappers and the
> > overtly queer-coded dance number, that seem as if they could have come
> from
> > a Pynchon novel.
> >
> > The editing scene surely belongs.
> >
> > https://youtu.be/Rxix0rZuuY0?si=sv4vWqaSiEQsuZmb
> >
> >
> > Pynchon hasn't specifically written about filmmaking in the Hays Code
> era,
> > has he?
> >
> > Have you heard of a little pamphlet called Gravity's Rainbow?
> >
> > In a way, it's a more fascinating time, especially the 1950s. Not so much
> > the blacklisting, which he covers in Vineland, but the work-arounds
> > directors had to create to indicate that sex had happened.
> >
> > I guess "it's too soon to know". For me the Pre-Code era is more
> > interesting because of what they did leave in, how much they did "show",
> > how much they were taunting would-be censors. One of those anarchist
> > interregnums that Pynchon seems to love.
> >
> >
> > On a side rant, I think the Coen brothers would have been much better
> > suited than PTA as Pynchon's official adaptors.
> >
> > I'd love to see the Michelangelo Antonioni version of CoL 49, but that
> > ship has sailed.
> >
> > I like Inherent Vice, the movie. It's got enough confusion to require at
> > least three viewings. Martin Short as Dr. Rudy Blatnoyd was perfect.
> > Haven't seen OBAA yet, kinda dreading it as so much of what I love about
> > Vineland are the period specifics.
> >
> > In any case, my sense now is that Shadow Ticket is the necessary prequel
> > to Gravity's Rainbow and very much in that spirit. The research is there,
> > the relation is clear. There's an awful lot about movies in GR and it's
> > clear that I need to re-read it in light of Shadow Ticket.
> >
> > Like the young girl sez, "There must be a pony in here somewhere!"
> >
> >
> > Laura
> >
> >
> --
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>