Movie Monday

This was a busy day of Spring Break Children At Home and the day my monthly newsletter gets printed. So I vegged out in the a.m. although I did work on this movie blog over the weekend. What dedication!

This is what I hope will be the second to last posting on how the movies treated the rich during the Great Depression of the 1930s. I’m happy I tacked this question because you learn a lot when you try to answer your own questions. And, I hope anyone interested in the movies has enjoyed these Movie Mondays.

On a slightly related note - wait, it will all tie in - it’s amazing to me that right after Bush II leaves office there’s an American religious poll and the percentage of atheists jumped from like 0.002% to 15%. Did Obama’s victory destroy faith in this country?

So if these new statistics are true (perhaps, they finally decided to ask the right questions) I guess about 15% of America will find it difficult to understand the influence of religion on the movies and the development of the Production Code we have been exploring.

This site:

http://www.allbusiness.com/media-telecommunications/movies-sound-recording/10559097-1.html

answers a question I’ve been wondering about: why did the Production Code “suddenly” kick in around 1934 when it had been in effect since the 1920s?

I learned that 1934 was the year of the “perfect storm”: box office receipts were starting a steady decline; religious zealots were demanding reform of movie immorality; and big city movie-goers were a very conservative lot. On the last point: major conservative denominations (ex. Roman Catholic) made up the movie public of major cities and if a movie was not a hit in a major city it was just not a hit. So Hollywood in 1934 was entering the“recovery” period of the Great Depression (or should it now be called the First Great Depression?) and facing sagging profits; reformers demanding a draconian moral code and movie goers who still listened to the pulpit for entertainment guidance. No wonder Hollywood shied away from controversy or if they filmed controversy it was in the form of a film adaption of “great” or popular literature. An example being the 1934 Imitation of Life which dealt with a white mother and black mother living together and raising children. Of course, the black mother was the servant and the white one the kindly master but it did deal with the black daughter trying to “pass.”

Here's a list of Hollywood's popular movies during the years 1934 through 1937. Some movies fit into two categories. The Academy Award winning picture for the year is bolded:

Adventure Drama:
The Hurricane (1937)
The General Died at Dawn (1936)
Anthony Adverse (1936)
The 39 Steps (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935)
Captain Blood (1935)
Viva Villa! (1934)
Tarzan and His Mate (1934)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
The Lost Patrol (1934)
Cleopatra (1934)
The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)

Animation:
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Biography:
The Life of Emile Zola (1937)
The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)
Rembrandt (1936)

Comedy:
Way Out West (1937)
A Day at the Races (1937)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
It's a Gift (1934)

Comedy/Drama:
Nothing Sacred (1937)
Topper (1937)
The Awful Truth (1937)
My Man Godfrey (1936)
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Libeled Lady (1936)
Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)
It Happened One Night (1934)

Drama (based on classic work):
Captains Courageous (1937)
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Camille (1936)
A Tale of Two Cities (1935)
Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)
Les Miserables (1935)
David Copperfield (1935)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)

Drama (based on popular work):
The Good Earth (1937),
Dodsworth (1936)
Anthony Adverse (1936)
The 39 Steps (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
*Dead End (1937)
Alice Adams (1935)
The Thin Man (1934)
Of Human Bondage (1934)
The Petrified Forest (1936)
Imitation of Life (1934)
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
Lost Horizon (1937)

Drama with disaster:
In Old Chicago (1937)
San Francisco (1936)

Drama with grit:
The Informer (1935)
*Dead End (1937)
Marked Woman (1937)
Fury (1936)

Drama with hankies:
Stella Dallas (1937)
Imitation of Life (1934)

Drama with movie/theater background:
Stage Door (1937)
Dangerous (1935)
A Star is Born (1937)

Drama with Musical Numbers:
Three Smart Girls (1937)
One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937)
The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
Follow the Fleet (1936)
Top Hat (1935)
The Littlest Rebel (1935)
One Night of Love (1934)
The Gay Divorcee (1934)

Horror:
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
The Black Cat (1934)

Melodrama:
Manhattan Melodrama (1934)

Musical:
Maytime (1937)
Swing Time (1936)
Rose Marie (1936)
Naughty Marietta (1935)
The Merry Widow (1934)

Mystery:
The Thin Man (1934)

Silent Chaplin:
Modern Times (1936)

*While there were poor people in a lot of movies (My Man Godfrey's shanty towns) only in Dead End did the hero and heroine stay in poverty at the end.

It's pretty obvious that Hollywood was not tackling the Depression in their movies but were taking cover behind popular and classic works. No more bodice ripping sex for them, the Production Code got them brushing up on their Shakespeare, and Dickens, and Kipling, and.......

Two excellent sites helped me prepare this list:

http://www.filmsite.org/30sintro.html and

http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/BasicSearchInput.jsp

The second one is the Academy Award site and there I learned that 1934 was the 7th Academy Award year and the first time it only honored movies from that year alone.. Also, the category was not “Best Picture” but “Outstanding Production” back then. And, most interesting is that in 1934 and 1935, the Academy still listed the order the winners came in - 1st, 2nd, 3rd.

The picture is becoming clear. The 1930s in the movies started great guns with sex and salaciousness and then moved into proper respect for "great" works.

Next week we'll see how the decade ends. Will the movies start protesting the rich who even in this Depression made money? That's the way of capitalism. Let's see if Hollywood will raise its voice for the little guy before the world is plunged into World War II.