Hollywood's Depression Age

In the early depression 1930-33, Hollywood's first Golden Age produced films the challenged traditional values. According to Robert Sklar, " in the first half decade of the Great Depression, Hollywood's moviemakers perpetrated one of the most remarkable challenges to traditional values in the history of mass commercial entertainment." However, with the creation of the Breen Office and the Production Code in 1934, Hollywood shifted from attack to defense, and affirmed traditional values in the Conservative Age of the later Depression 1934-41 that became a second Golden Age.

Gangster films after Little Caesar

Topical films after Dynamite

War films after All Quiet on the Western Front

Marx Brothers after The Coconuts

Mae West after Night After Night

Horror films after Frankenstein

Fallen Woman films after Anna Christie






Quotes from Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America. New York: Random House, 1976

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revised 10/23/02 by Schoenherr | Depression links | Filmnotes | Hollywood