Little Caesar (film) in the context of "Mervyn LeRoy"

Glenda Farrell (June 30, 1904 – May 1, 1971) was an American actress. Farrell personified the smart and sassy, wisecracking blonde of the Classic Hollywood films. Her career spanned more than 50 years, and she appeared in numerous Broadway plays, films and television series. She won an Emmy Award in 1963 for Outstanding Supporting Actress for her performance as Martha Morrison in the medical drama television series Ben Casey.

Farrell began acting on stage as a child and continued with various theatre companies and on Broadway before signing with Warner Bros. A signature 1930s Warner Bros. star, Farrell appeared in films such as Little Caesar (1931), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) and Lady for a Day (1933). After leaving Warner Bros. in 1939, Farrell remained active in film, television and theatre throughout the rest of her career.

Pre-Code Hollywood was an era in the American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines (popularly known as the Hays Code) in 1934. Although the Hays Code was adopted in 1930, oversight was poor, and it did not become rigorously enforced until July 1, 1934, with the establishment of the Production Code Administration. Before that date, film content was restricted more by local laws, negotiations between the Studio Relations Committee (SRC) and the major studios, and popular opinion than by strict adherence to the Hays Code, which was often ignored by Hollywood filmmakers.

As a result, some films in the late 1920s and early 1930s depicted or implied sexual innuendo, romantic and sexual relationships between white and black people, mild profanity, illegal drug use, promiscuity, prostitution, infidelity, abortion, intense violence, and homosexuality. Nefarious characters were seen to profit from their deeds, in some cases without significant repercussions. For example, gangsters in films such as The Public Enemy, Little Caesar, and Scarface were seen by many as heroic rather than evil. Strong female characters were ubiquitous in such pre-Code films as Female, Baby Face and Red-Headed Woman, among many others, which featured independent, sexually liberated women. Many of Hollywood's biggest stars, such as Clark Gable, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, and Edward G. Robinson, got their start in the era. Other stars who excelled during this period, however, like Ruth Chatterton and Warren William (sometimes referred to as the "King of Pre-Code", who died in 1948), would be largely forgotten by the general public within a generation.