‘More stars than there are in heaven!’

‘You know, you haven’t stopped talking since I came here? You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle’ — So quips Groucho Marx in the madcap 1933 comedy Duck Soup. And indeed the 1930s was the film decade that didn’t stop talking, dancing, or singing, instead pushing through incredible technology leaps to create better, brighter, BIGGER films. This is the era when the film industry seemed to explode in all directions. The industry aspect of this is important, as studios (MGM, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros, RKO and Universal being the main players) really expand and dominate production, ‘owning’ certain actors and directors. ‘Big studios’ paired up with their ‘big names’ makes for a grand and impressive period. Ask anyone about the 30s and names like Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Mae West, Cary Grant, Judy Garland, Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are bound to be mentioned with a certain kind of nostalgic awe; these Gods and Goddesses of the screen, inhabiting their Golden Age of celebrity. So much so, that MGM boasted of containing ‘more stars than there are in heaven.’ 

Yet this divine grandeur and glamour is balanced out by an almost giddy, excited race to new film techniques, defying the effect of the Depression. The ‘talkies’ were here to stay, and becoming increasingly sophisticated, but what marks the 30s out is the development of Technicolor; the first feature-length live action colour film generally accepted to be Becky Sharp in 1935. This is matched two years later by a film more likely to be familiar to our readers; the first full-colour animated feature, Walt Disney’s hept-acular spectacular Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937.) This is not to say that everyone relished the new, and it was with a certain defiant melancholy that Charlie Chaplin made his two films in the 30s City Lights (1931) and the bittersweet Modern Times (1936) forming a farewell to the much loved ‘Little Tramp.’ Both retain the dialogue-through-title-cards technique of the traditional silent films, but don’t entirely resist the opportunities for sound effects and music. And although he wouldn’t speak any lines till the 40s, Chaplin’s literal voice is heard in a gibberish song of Modern Times. To Chaplin perhaps, noise exists in the modern mechanical world, but is simply as noise, as nonsense compared to the purity of his silent physical expression.  

To me, physical expression in the 30s instead takes its exuberant form in the work of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, who span onto the screen in 1933 in Flying Down to Rio, and continued to be the dancing darlings of RKO for 8 other films. Although their last film together wouldn’t be until 1949, the phenomenon of ‘Fred and Ginger’ really exists in a glorious window from 1933-39. Two sparkling spot of pure magic gliding, tapping and charming their way through these brief six years, and yet surely fixing themselves forever into film history. Even those not quite so enthused by Top Hat (1935) Swing Time (1936) or Shall We Dance (1937) can fail to avoid the cultural influence. The most subtle, or even surprising, of which exists in the iconic songs introduced by the pair. You would have to be somewhat reclusive to have never heard any of ‘Cheek to Cheek’ (Top Hat, 1935) ‘Let’s Face the Music and Dance’ (Follow the Fleet,1936) ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ (Swing Time, 1936) or ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me’  (Shall We Dance, 1937.) The 30s was a decade full to bursting of song, dance, colour and innovation. This almost tips into the 40s, bubbling over with what has to be one of the greatest years for classic, innovative and stunning film production, in 1939; the advent of the Blockbuster. This year brought films truly to be remembered; Wizard of Oz, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Of Mice and Men, Wuthering Heights (certainly worth a notice for the sheer genius casting of Lawrence Olivier) and Gone With the Wind (which was only knocked off its highest grossing box office podium in 1965.) In today’s world of 3-D, 4-D and computer-generated-everything, these early triumphs may appear low-tech and simple. But I can’t help but reply ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.’