Dear Mick LaSalle: Sorry, I don’t agree that Zooey Deschanel is “one of the most beautiful women in American movies.” I believe her sister Emily is much more attractive. Zooey just looks kind of creepy.

Larry Oliver, Richmond

Dear Larry Oliver: When I was single and a dashing young blade, I was always thankful for guys like you. You flock around the Emilys and leave the Zooeys in circulation.

Dear Mick: Yes, Mick, Zooey Deschanel is the most beautiful actor working in the United States. You nailed it, buddy. But what do you say we keep this under our collective hats? I wouldn’t want the whole world to suddenly go Zooey-crazy, as her beauty tends to require a certain amount of innocence, yes?

Paul Root, Healdsburg

Dear Paul: Innocence, like sincerity, is a beautiful thing. Once you learn to fake it, you’ve got it made.

Hi Mick LaSalle: I know you’re a fan of early movies, so can you explain to me how “Dinner at Eight” (1933) gets four stars? Anemic, cliche-ridden, melodramatic writing, amateur direction and, with the exception of Jean Harlow and Marie Dressler, absolutely dreadful acting, especially John and Lionel Barrymore.

Dave Wilcox, Walnut Creek

Hi Dave Wilcox: I’ve seen that movie about 10 times. I can hear the soundtrack in my head as I think about it - in fact, I’ll hum it for you, if you listen to this week’s podcast (sfgate.com/ZBZD). But short of writing up a formal review, I wouldn’t know where to begin extolling its qualities. I will say John Barrymore is amazing in it. That scene in which he gradually gets more and more drunk is a brilliant tour de force. It’s just phenomenal how he calibrated that. And how about Lee Tracy as his agent, and their scenes together? Harlow is a delight, and her scenes with Wallace Beery are a riot. And I love Lionel Barrymore in it. He’s an old-time businessman, something out of the 19th century, who knows he’s doomed. Maybe you just weren’t in the mood. Seriously, watch it again in about two years and see what happens.

Dear Mick: I recently finished reading your book “Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood.” It’s amazing to see where we’ve come as a society and how that’s reflected in the movies that are made. It’s easy to see how the church and our patriarchal society wanted to quell the lifestyle of independent, powerful women.

John Hiebert, Fresno

Dear John: With regard to censorship, the haunting question is this: Does controlling the content of movies actually control people’s behavior within a society? It’s one thing to say that censorship doesn’t work, but what if it does? I know women in their 70s and 80s who tell me that they felt like freaks in the 1940s and ’50s because none of the culture’s images of women corresponded with their own emotions and ambitions. Feeling alone and at odds with the mainstream, some of them conformed, buying into what movies and magazines told them was the recipe for happiness. This is precisely what censors assumed would happen, and even if they were right only some of the time, that’s a fact with all kinds of implications. It means that movies are as powerful as the censors thought. It means that it’s essential that the movies never again fall prey to a cabal of narrow-minded hypocrites. But it also means that the people who make movies - being powerful, being the repository of the culture’s dreams - have a responsibility to the culture in which they operate. It means they shouldn’t pump poison into the national bloodstream.

But who decides what is poison? That’s the problem. We’ve tried censorship. It leads to bad art, ignorance and lies. Right now we’re trying freedom, in the hope that - in an unrestrained, market-driven system - not all movies will degenerate into blood sport and pornography. (Of course, the punch line is that, by the time they all become blood sport and pornography, we won’t notice anymore. We’ll just keep defining those terms down until they mean nothing.) Anyway, stay tuned.

To hear Ask Mick LaSalle with commentary, trivia and lots of extras, download his podcast at sfgate.com/podcasts.

Have a question? Ask Mick LaSalle at mlasalle@sfchronicle.com. Include your name and city for publication, and a phone number for verification. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.

sfgate.comZooey Deschanel Images