Favourite Movies of the 30's
70's is my favourite decade in movies, but the 30's is a close second; The era when modern film-making was born; 20's silent film could sustain slapstick physical comedy like Chaplin and Lloyd and Keaton, but (not that I'm claiming to be an expert) I've seen little beyond that genre, from the era, that really holds up (except Potemkin, maybe). But 30's movies are as watchable now, as ever. Gangster movies with Jimmy Cagney and Bogart and Edward G Robinson are still unfathomably cool. Marx bros are still some of the most timeslessly hillarious stuff ever put on a screen. The Western genre was finding it's feet, and getting into the heyday of the big, studio musical. And the end of the decade saw arguably the best-known, most-watched kid's movies, ever ('Snow White' and 'Oz') and the birth of Disney's Golden Age.
I don't know if it's the youth of the medium at the time, or maybe the on-screen optimism, that served as escapism for the Depression, but even at almost a century old, there's something about 30's movies which feels so fresh and unpretentious, that you just don't see in any other decade.
I don't know if it's the youth of the medium at the time, or maybe the on-screen optimism, that served as escapism for the Depression, but even at almost a century old, there's something about 30's movies which feels so fresh and unpretentious, that you just don't see in any other decade.
List activity
377 views
• 7 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
49 titles