Hollywood and the Great Depression

Abstract

This edited collection draws together the works of film experts in the UK and USA. It challenges the popular memory of 1930s Hollywood as a dream factory producing escapist movies to distract America from the greatest economic crisis in the nation’s history. It demonstrates how Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal reform programme and the emerging threat of fascism in Europe impacted significantly on the politics and output of the film industry. The opening section, on Hollywood politics and values, explores the political division between moguls, liberals and radicals, analyses how Columbia Pictures’ screenwriters injected politics into their scripts, shows how the film industry challenged traditional gender roles with regard to on-screen representation of women and their role in the studio system, and assesses the significance of the congressional battle over studio domination of motion picture distribution in the late 1930s. Another section offering case studies of stars - Shirley Temple, Cary Grant, and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers – links these actors to the times when they found fame. Finally, a section on the movies of the Depression decade (Footlight Parade; Our Daily Bread; Gabriel over the White House; Mr Smith Goes to Washington; the MGM youth musicals featuring Mickey Rooney; Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times; and John Ford’s Young Mr Lincoln) illustrates Hollywood’s response to the political issues of the era.