how were movies made in the 1930s ?
Answers
Year
Event and Significance
1930s
The most popular film genres of the time were musicals, gangster films, newspaper movies, westerns, comedies, melodramas and horror movies.
1930
Warner Bros. inaugurated the crime-gangster film, with director Mervyn LeRoy's Little Caesar (1930) (starring Edward G. Robinson as a small-time hood) - the first talkie gangster film. It has often been called the grandfather of the modern crime film (the prototype of future gangster films), and is one of the most well-known and best of the early classical gangster films. Edward G. Robinson created a quintessential portrayal of an underworld character, ruthless gangster Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello.
1930s-40s
This was the era which has been predominantly referred to as "The Golden Age of Hollywood" by film critics and historians, and considered the apex of film history. (Some have extended the time period into the 50s). The "Golden Age" came to a close with the breakup of the studios and declining attendance from challenges brought by shopping centers and television.
1930
Public pressure (mainly from the Catholic Church) applied further censorship guidelines and clearly outlined what was acceptable (and unacceptable) in films within the industry. Pre-marital sex, alcoholism, immoral and criminal activity, among other subjects, led to the establishment and adoption of the Motion Picture Production Code. As head of the MPPDA, William Hays established this new code of decency, known in short as the Production Code or Hays Code.
1930
The Marx Brothers starred in Animal Crackers (1930) - it was the second of many classic Marx Brothers films (their first film was The Cocoanuts (1929), also for Paramount Studios). It was also the last of their films to be taken from one of their stage successes and the last to be filmed on the East Coast on Astoria sound stages before they transferred to Hollywood.
1930
Greta Garbo starred in her first talkie, MGM's Anna Christie (1930), advertised with the tagline: GARBO TALKS! The Best Actress-nominated actress, in the role of the title character, spoke her first line of dialogue with: "Give me a whisky, ginger ale on the side. And don't be stingy, baby." The film, the second screen version of Eugene O'Neill's 1922 play about the Minnesota-raised Swedish girl and ex-prostitute, was co-produced by Irving Thalberg and directed/produced by Clarence Brown.
1930
Unknown Berlin, Germany stage revue actress Marlene Dietrich starred in her first Josef von Sternberg film, The Blue Angel (1930), playing the role of cabaret singer Lola-Lola and performing her signature song: "Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It)." Her performance in the first major German sound film led to a contract with Paramount in the US. She became von Sternberg's ingenue and ultimately starred in seven of his productions, including Morocco (1930), Dishonored (1931), Shanghai Express (1932), Blonde Venus (1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934), and The Devil Is a Woman (1935).
1930
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) was the first major anti-war film of the sound era, faithfully based upon the timeless, best-selling 1929 novel by Erich Maria Remarque. Although it won the Academy Award for Best Picture, it was criticized as being propagandistic and anti-militaristic. For its perceived anti-German message, it was denounced by the Nazi government in Berlin of the 30s and subsequently banned there.
1930
The first feature-length prison film was released, MGM's The Big House (1930), starring Wallace Beery in a breakthrough role (following the death of Lon Chaney, Sr. who was scheduled to be the main lead actor).
1930
Ex-Disney employee Ub Iwerks' (and Iwerks Studios) first animated film Fiddlesticks (1930) (featuring the cartoon character of Flip the Frog in his first screen appearance before a series from 1930-1933) was the first complete sound cartoon to be shot in two-strip Technicolor.
1930
The animated Disney character of Pluto was introduced in the Mickey Mouse cartoon The Chain Gang (1930).
1930
Two ex-Disney animators -- Hugh Harman (1903-1982) and Rudolf Ising (1903-1992), began to make the first cartoons for Warner Bros. They drew the 5-minute pilot film named Bosko The TalkInk Kid (1929) - the first synchronized talking animated short/cartoon (as opposed to a cartoon with a soundtrack), with a little black boy character named Bosko who actually spoke dialogue. The Bosko pilot film was the impetus for the birth of Warners Bros.' Looney Tunes. The black and white Sinkin' in the Bathtub, with Bosko in the starring role, was the earliest talking 'Looney Tune', originally released in April of 1930.
The 1930s decade (and most of the 1940s as well) has been nostalgically labeled "The Golden Age of Hollywood" (although most of the output of the decade was black-and-white). The 30s was also the decade of the sound and color revolutions and the advance of the 'talkies', and the further development of film genres (gangster films, musicals, newspaper-reporting films, historical biopics, social-realism films, lighthearted screwball comedies, westerns and horror to name a few). It was the era in which the silent period ended, with many silent film stars not making the transition to sound (e.g., Vilmy Banky, John Gilbert, and Norma Talmadge). By 1933, the economic effects of the Depression were being strongly felt, especially in decreased movie theatre attendance.