American Cinema of the 1930s

INA RAE HARK is a professor of English and film studies at the University of South Carolina.

Probably no decade saw as many changes in the Hollywood film industry and its product as the 1930s did. By 1939, popularly called "Hollywood's Greatest Year," films like Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz used both color and sound to spectacular effect, and remain American icons today. The "mature oligopoly" that was the studio system had not only weathered the Depression and become part of mainstream culture through the establishment and enforcement of the Production Code, it was a well-oiled, vertically integrated industrial powerhouse. The ten original essays in American Cinema of the 1930s focus on sixty diverse films of the decade, including Dracula, The Public Enemy, Trouble in Paradise, 42nd Street, King Kong, Imitation of Life, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Swing Time, Angels with Dirty Faces, Nothing Sacred, Jezebel, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Stagecoach.

1930 : Movies and social difference / Aaron Baker 1931 : Movies and the voice / Cynthia Erb 1932 : Movies and transgression / David Lugowski 1933 : Movies and the New Deal in entertainment / Martin Rubin 1934 : Movies and the marginalized / Charlene Regester 1935 : Movies and the resistance to tyranny / Ina Rae Hark 1936 : Movies and the possibility of transcendence / Susan Ohmer 1937 : Movies and new constructions of the American star / Allen Larson 1938 : Movies and whistling in the dark / Sam B. Girgus 1939 : Movies and American culture in the annus mirabilis / Charles Maland Select Academy Awards, 1930-1939