"They took the stereotypes and made them complicated," says Mick LaSalle in Complicated Women (2003), a TCM world premiere documentary directed by Hugh Munro Neely, narrated by Jane Fonda and based on LaSalle's book of the same title. Both book and film look at the phenomenon of "pre-Code women," the freewheeling characters created by American actresses during the years 1929-34. Film historians Mark Vieira and Molly Haskell join veteran actresses Kitty Carlisle, Frances Dee, Mae Madison and Karen Morley in recalling the uninhibited heyday of female stars of the pre-Code period. In addition to the usual suspects - Shearer, Colbert, Stanwyck, Harlow and Mae West - the documentary looks at such other "complicated women" as Greta Garbo, who dared suggest free love and lesbianism onscreen; Joan Blondell, who could get maximum mileage out of a sexy wisecrack; and Maureen O'Sullivan, who swam naked as Jane to Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan.