MARY ASTOR | CONVENTION CITY (1933) Rare pre-Code portrait

[Los Angeles: Warner Brothers-First National, 1933]. Vintage original 8 x 10″ (20 x 25 cm.) black-and-white glossy silver gelatin photo. Small tear at right-side blank white margin and minor edge wear. Reinforced with brown tape at the edges on three sides of verso, very good.

Mary Astor is sassy and classy as she displays her jewels, including a very contemporary pair of dangling earrings in a portrait for this now legendary lost film. So scandalized were the censors at the provocativeness of this pre-Code film that the legion of decency condemned it. In fact, it may not have been seen much past its Dec. 1933 release. It could never be reissued and Warners junked the negative in 1948, but it is not certain that all 500 initial prints were destroyed.

The story involved the naughty goings-on when businessmen attend a convention in Atlantic City. Mary Astor seems to have had fun at the time, with gowns by Milo Anderson and Orry-Kelly.