Hollywood and the Great Depression: American Film, Politics and Society in the 1930s

Iwan Morgan; Philip John Davies

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2016

Hollywood and the Great Depression

American Film, Politics and Society in the 1930s

Iwan Morgan and Philip John Davies

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748699933

Overview
Contents

About this book

Examines how Hollywood responded to and reflected the political and social changes that America experienced during the 1930s

In the popular imagination, 1930s Hollywood was a dream factory producing escapist movies to distract the American people from the greatest economic crisis in their nation’s history. But while many films of the period conform to this stereotype, there were a significant number that promoted a message, either explicitly or implicitly, in support of the political, social and economic change broadly associated with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programme. At the same time, Hollywood was in the forefront of challenging traditional gender roles, both in terms of movie representations of women and the role of women within the studio system. With case studies of actors like Shirley Temple, Cary Grant and Fred Astaire, as well as a selection of films that reflect politics and society in the Depression decade, this fascinating book examines how the challenges of the Great Depression impacted on Hollywood and how it responded to them.

Topics covered include:

How Hollywood offered positive representations of working women
Congressional investigations of big-studio monopolization over movie distribution
How three different types of musical genres related in different ways to the Great Depression – the Warner Bros Great Depression Musicals of 1933, the Astaire/Rogers movies, and the MGM ‘kids’ musicals of the late 1930s
The problems of independent production exemplified in King Vidor’s Our Daily Bread
Cary Grant’s success in developing a debonair screen persona amid Depression conditions

Contributors

Harvey G. Cohen, King’s College London
Philip John Davies, British Library
David Eldridge, University of Hull
Peter William Evans, Queen Mary, University of London
Mark Glancy, Queen Mary University of London
Ina Rae Hark, University of South Carolina
Iwan Morgan, University College London
Brian Neve, University of Bath
Ian Scott, University of Manchester
Anna Siomopoulos, Bentley University
J. E. Smyth, University of Warwick
Melvyn Stokes, University College London
Mark Wheeler, London Metropolitan University

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	iii
Figures Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction: Hollywood and the Great Depression Iwan Morgan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I Hollywood Politics and Values
Chapter 1 The Political History of Classical Hollywood: Moguls, Liberals and Radicals in the 1930s Mark Wheeler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
Chapter 2 Columbia Pictures and the Great Depression: A Case Study of Political Writers in Hollywood Ian Scott Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
Chapter 3 Organisation Women and Belle Rebels: Hollywood’s Working Women in the 1930s J. E. Smyth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	66
Chapter 4 The Congressional Battle over Motion Picture Distribution, 1936–40 Catherine Jurca Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	86
Part II Stars
Chapter 5 Shirley Temple and Hollywood’s Colonialist Ideology Ina Rae Hark Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
Chapter 6 Astaire and Rogers: Carefree in Roberta Peter William Evans Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	124
Chapter 7 The ‘Awful Truth’ about Cary Grant Mark Glancy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Part III Movies
Chapter 8 Footlight Parade: The New Deal on Screen Harvey G. Cohen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	161
Chapter 9 Our Daily Bread: ‘Cooperation’, ‘Independence’ and Politics in Mid-1930s Cinema Brian Neve Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
Chapter 10 Embodying the State: Federal Architecture and Masculine Transformation in Hollywood Films of the New Deal Era Anna Siomopoulos Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	198
Chapter 11 ‘We’re Only Kids Now, But Someday . . .’: Hollywood Musicals and the Great Depression ‘Youth Crisis’ David Eldridge Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	216
Chapter 12 Chaplin’s Modern Times and the Great Depression: The Reception of the Film in the US, France and Britain Melvyn Stokes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
Chapter 13 John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln: A Popular Front Hero for the Late 1930s Iwan Morgan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
Notes on the Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	277
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	280

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 296
Illustrations
- Other: 35 B/W illustrations
Keywords: Film, Media & Cultural Studies

eBook

Published: October 18, 2016
ISBN: 9780748699933