Movies of the 1930s – Page 2 – Classic Film Freak

Tag: Movies of the 1930s

The decade of the 1930s in film involved many significant films. 1939 was one of the biggest years (and still is one of the greatest years) in Hollywood.

Many full-length films were produced during the decade of the 1930s. The 1930s were a decade of political turmoil and economic problems; the great depression had affected the entire world, and Europe was dealing with both the fallout of World War I and the economic hardships of the time, both of which resulted in the rise of fascist political movements. The uncertainty of the era resulted in widespread popularity of fantastical, escapist fare. Swashbuckling adventures and the safe scares of the Universal Horror films were highly successful during this period.

The studio system was at its highest with studios having great control over a film’s creative decision. This included the creation of the Hay’s Code, which was the first large scale attempt at organized censorship of Hollywood films.

This was also a decade in which many memorable stars made their careers and saw their earliest starring roles.

1930 also marks the beginning of what is considered to be the ‘golden age’ of Hollywood, a period which lasted through at least the 1940s.

– Excerpt from the wiki page 1930s in Film.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns,” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
—opening of The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Considering that anything close to sophisticated film scoring hadn’t been around all that long, 1936 was a reasonably good music year for the movies. The clear, hands down winner of the Best Score Oscar was Erich Wolfgang Korngold for Anthony Adverse. Fellow Warner Brothers composer Max Steiner received two nominations, for The Charge of the Light Brigade and The Garden of Allah for the Selznick Studios. The two other nominees were Werner Janssen for The General Died at Dawn and Nathaniel Shilkret for Winterset. Though now generally forgotten, both men had not only distinguished music careers but long, productive lives.

Also in 1936, director Charlie Chaplin, who also dabbled at scribbling music, wrote for his Modern Times melodies that were transformed into score form by composer David Raksin and orchestrator Eddie Powell. Alfred Newman was active that year with Dodsworth and These Three, scores that were pale shadows of his lyrical, polished style to come. More impressive was the work of Virgil Thomson, one of those so-called “serious” composers, as distinguished from that other—some say “lower”—breed of men who write film music. As Steiner often did, Thomson incorporated popular and traditional tunes in an over-all impressive score for the government-sponsored documentary The Plow That Broke the Plains.