film

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The 1930s decade has been nostalgically labeled "The

Golden Age of Hollywood"

❧ The 30s was also the decade of sound and color

revolutions, the advancement of the 'talkies', and the

further development of film genres.

❧ The 30’s was also famous for…

❧ gangster films

❧ musicals

❧ newspaper-reporting films

❧ historical biopics

❧ social-realism films

❧ lighthearted screwball comedies

❧ westerns

❧ horror❧ As the 1930s began, there were a number

of unique firsts.

❧ Young 'platinum blonde' star Jean Harlow

appeared in her first major role in Howard

Hughes' World War I aviation epic, Hell's

Angels (1930); the "Blonde Bombshell"

was signed by MGM in 1932 and soon

became a major star!❧ The first of Hollywood's dramatic prison dramas (a new

❧

subgenre) was produced by MGM, The Big House (1930),

directed by George Hill.

❧ In 1930, the Motion Picture Production Code, administered by

Joseph I. Breen set film guidelines regarding sex, violence,

religion, and crime (not yet strictly enforced until the Production

Code Administration (1934)

❧ B-actor John Wayne made his debut in his first major role in a

western directed by Raoul Walsh, The Big Trail (1930)

❧ Curly-topped, dimpled child star Shirley Temple appeared in her

first films, an Our Gang type series of shorts titled Baby

Burlesks (1933)

THE GOLDEN 30’S

❧

❧ The first appearance of the cartoon

character Popeye was in the Betty Boop

cartoon from Paramount and Max

Fleischer, Popeye the Sailor.

❧ The world's first drive-in theatre opened in

Camden, N.J. in June, 1933; the fourth

drive-in was located on Pico in Los

Angeles, CA and opened in September,

1934.

❧ Walt Disney's 8-minute The Wise Little Hen

(1934) featured the first appearance of

Donald Duck.❧ Most of the early talkies were successful at the

box-office, but many of them were of poor quality.

❧ dialogue-dominated play adaptations, with stilted

acting (from inexperienced performers) and an

unmoving camera or microphone.

❧ Screenwriters were required to place more

emphasis on characters in their scripts.

❧ title-card writers became unemployed

THE SOUND ERA IS

COMING OF AGE

❧

❧ Rouben Mamoulian, a successful Broadway director,

refused to keep the cumbersome sound cameras pinned

to the studio floor, and demonstrated a graceful,

rhythmic, fluid, choreographed flowing style in his films.

❧ his directorial debut film, Applause (1929) we saw one

of the first great American musicals starring legendary

Roaring 20s torch singer Helen Morgan in her first film

role.

❧ Applause also introduced a revolutionary sound

technique: a double-channel soundtrack with

overlapping dialogue.❧ One of the first “color” films was Thomas Edison's

hand-tinted short Annabell's Butterfly Dance.

❧ Two-color (red and green) feature films were the

first color films produced, including the first

two-color feature film The Toll of the Sea, and then

better-known films such as Stage Struck (1925) and

The Black Pirate (1926).

❧ It would take the development of a new three-color

camera, in 1932, to usher in true full-color

Technicolor.

Two-Color and

Three-Color Technicolor

❧

MAJOR STUDIOS (5)

● The American film industry was dominated by five

major corporate-style studios in the 1930s (and into

the 40s).

● Some of them had originally rebelled against the

MPPA (Motion Picture Patents Company).

● The Hollywood studios were totally in control and

at full strength with their escapist "dream

factories" and their "Front Office"; studio head,

production chief, producers, and other assistants.MAJOR STUDIOS (5)

● 20th Century Fox (1935)

● MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)

[1924]

● Paramount (1912)

● Warner Bros. (1923)

● RKO Radio (1928)

❧

THREE OTHER MINOR

STUDIOS

● Columbia (1924) – Still around today