American Cinema of the 1930s: Themes and Variations

by Ina Rae Hark

Overview

Probably no decade saw as many changes in the Hollywood film industry and its product as the 1930s did. At the beginning of the decade, the industry was still struggling with the transition to talking pictures. Gangster films and naughty comedies starring Mae West were popular in urban areas, but aroused threats of censorship in the heartland. Whether the film business could survive the economic effects of the Crash was up in the air. 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 toWashington, and Stagecoach .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813540825
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	06/21/2007
Series:	Screen Decades: American Culture/American Cinema
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	16 - 18 Years

About the Author

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

Table of Contents

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

Editorial Reviews

There is nothing like this series. Screen Decades firmly situates American cinema in the realms of material culture, popular culture, cultural narrative, reception analysis, and industrial history.”

American Quarterly

“There is nothing like this series. Screen Decades firmly situates American cinema in the realms of material culture, popular culture, cultural narrative, reception analysis, and industrial history.”

From the Publisher