It's just that the vehicles aren't there. These days it's common for an actress to emerge, make a strong impression, and then disappear for a few years. Even some of today's more coveted women's roles are just plain weird. She plays a senator hoping to be confirmed as vice president when rumors surface that she was once the willing focus of a gang bang back in college. Allen refuses to confirm or deny the report, standing on the principle, I guess, that it's nobody's business if the vice president is or ever has been the whore of Babylon.
Every era wants to believe that it has reached the apex of modernity and enlightenment.
And yet to see pre-Code films is to realize that women are worse off on screen today than they were 70 years ago. There is nothing wrong with her. She's desirable, even admirable, while in modern films, if a woman chooses to have sex with a man for purely carnal reasons, she has to be revealed as either evil or crazy. That film was actually praised by some last year as a feminist breakthrough. Men love this kind of irony.