Movies on Monday

A snowy day in central New Jersey. Apparently this snow is heading for New England but instead of hopping a ride on Amtrak it decided to dump loads along the way. The schools are closed and I won’t be printing my monthly newsletter today, though the electronic copy is out already.

So I have the entire day to think about Movie Monday.

I’m going to try something a little different with movies for the next few weeks. I’ve spoken about the movies during the worldwide 1930s depression as being kind to the rich in that they helped prevent revolution.

Now that might sound like an over-reaching statement but just look at the history in this time period (she says as she lugs the illustrated history of The 20th Century [JG Press] to the computer:

In the 1930s we had: the rise of fascism; the invasion of Manchuria; the rise of Stalin; Japanese expansionism; the destruction of the Bonus Army’s shantytown; the Spanish Civil War; Mussolini in Italy; the dust bowl in the U.S. - and I’m only up to 1934.

It was a time filled with revolution and violence

Not to say that this history was different than other time periods but mix this with a worldwide depression and you have the proverbial lantern in Mrs. O’Leary’s barn. (I know, I know, this probably an urban legend.)

Plus, everyone seemed to go to the movies during the 1930s. Hollywood turned out an unbelievably large number of movies each year. Hollywood studios had enormous publicity departments with connections to columnists and inexpensive fan magazines. Movies were very cheap and you often got prizes (free dishes, etc.) to attend. After all, this was before television; whose effect on the movie industry in the 1950s is another story.

Taking into account that all movies are POV and many movies are propaganda for good and bad, let’s see what the so-called Great Depression viewer saw.

I’m starting with 1930 though the economic depression really got its stranglehold later in 1932.

These are the highest grossing movies of 1930:

Tom Sawyer - classic Twain; Wiki Answers says this was the top grosser of the year

The Indians are Coming - 12 chapter serial

Raffles - gentleman jewel thief

Anna Christie - “Garbo Speaks” was the promo for this one; couple this with a Eugene O’Neill play about a prostitute and you had to have a winner

Romance - Garbo again; young wealthy man wants to marry an actress; family disapproves

Madame Satan - rich woman, with an unfaithful husband, disguises herself at a masked ball to seduce him and teach him a lesson

The Blue Angel -Marlene Dietrich as a cabaret singer who besots a dignified school teacher and reduces him to poverty and humiliation

The Golden Age - Buñuel’s first film; about the obstacles to true love; surrealistic; banned in some countries

Feet First - a Harold Lloyd comedy

Ingagi - pre-King Kong; Congo expedition discovers virgin sacrifice to a giant gorilla - you know the rest

Of course, Hollywood made a lot more movies than these in 1930 but most follow the typical formula: frothy, light and double-entendred since this was pre-Production Code.

The avant-garde films were either foreign, with foreign backgrounds, and/or based on controversial works: Garbo, Dietrich, O’Neill, Buñuel, etc. Included with these should be All Quiet on the Western Front which is still one of the best anti-war films. Based on the German, Erich Maria Remarque’s novel of the same name, it was a very powerful film in its time (and ours) and grossed well in 1930.

Hollywood movies of 1930 were only a few years away from silent movies. Hollywood was just beginning to talk and stars were being made out of stage actors since they were the ones who already knew how to talk. The real talking Hollywood star (as opposed to the silent Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks, etc.) was just ahead.

Also ahead were the Production Code standards. Next week, before I tackle 1931 movies, let’s look at this Code since it has affected how we look at life based the movies even to this day.