We're being awfully sh*tty

Perhaps the earliest example of a four-letter word in a Hollywood studio film. This clip from pre-Hayes Code "Skyscraper Souls" (1932), has lovely Maureen O'Sullivan (Mia Farrow's mom) uttering the expletive non-deleted.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• old movie
• film history
• Hollywood History
• Hayes Code
• pre Hayes Code
• Forbidden Hollywood
• cinema history
• Maureen O'Sullivan
• Skyscraper Souls

[feckingtediousgoogl]

Regardless of shitty or silly, it's used tastefully and subtly, it's rather rare in modern cinema for those two qualities.

[mussman717word]

Her character meant to say "shitty," but it came out "shilly," and he thought she said "silly." There you go, everybody, not that hard to understand.

[BetsyBooth22]

@murraymae Skyscraper Souls is an wonderful Pre-Code picture!

[murraymae]

I dont know what theyre trying to say. the characters werent being shitty. But they were being silly. At any rate, a silly scene in a shitty movie.

[WrightsW5]

good one! another good one, Jesse james (tyrone power) film where an old man says wankers.

[SocraticTruths]

Anyone who thinks she didn't say it is an idiot.

[1lubiano]

She says Shilly that is what she says not a big deal or mystery...

[tomitstube]

she says "silly", it was just implied of course she said something else.

i love pre-code hollywood.

[mp01juve]

@Pie2 yes disguised as a drunkardly slur