Movies 1930s

1
Movies 1930s

• Early cinema
• Feature films, narrative
• Talkies
• Movies major form of entertainment by 1920s
• Mass Culture
• web of national experience
• movies, automobiles, paved roads, radios,
  telephones, mass circulation magazines, chain
  stores,
• Movies
• Number of Theater increase
• 1929 23,000 theaters
• Attendance rises
• 1922 - 40 million
• 1929 -95 million
• 1930 -115 million

2

• Impact on society
• hair styles, clothing, recreation
• sexual behavior
• Depression
• Attendance does fall, but still substantial
• About .25 avg. for ticket, cheap
• Prizes for moviegoers
• Various genres comedy, horror, drama, escapist,
  crime/gangster
• Censorship
• 1920s states adopt laws ban smoking,
  pregnant women not effective
• 1920s film industry self-regulates not
  effective
• Association of Movie Producers
• Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of
  America
• 1930 Will Hays, Postmaster General, overseer
  creation of Production Code Administration (PCA)

3

• Hays Code not effective either producers
  could appeal to other producers
• Dancing, vulgarity, dress, violence,
  miscegenation, depiction of venereal disease,
  childbirth, illegal drug use
• Gangster movies especially bothersome The
  Public Enemy
• Joe Breen takes over as Production Code
  Administrator (1934) strengthens
  implementation of Code
• Theaters could be fined 25,000 for showing a
  film not approved by PCA
• Movies
• Gangster - Little Caesar (1930), The Public
  Enemy (1931), Scarface (1932), The Roaring
  Twenties (1939)
• Horror - Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931),
  Freaks (1932), The Black Cat (1934), The Bride of
  Frankenstein (1935)
• Drama -Red Dust (1932), Mutiny on the Bounty
  (1935), Gone with the Wind (1939)
• Other All Quiet on the Western Front (1930),
  42nd Street (1933), Wizard of Oz (1939)

4

• http//xroads.virginia.edu/1930s/FILM/filmfr.html