While my puppy love for films began as soon as I could walk, my serious love affair started at the age of seven – when 1939’s The Wizard Of Oz aired on the eve of my first Canadian Christmas. And just like that, my fascination for the yester-year was born.

What really intrigues me about Old Hollywood is it’s immortality. The films are such a dated product of their time, but at the same time so timeless and relevant. Most (if not everyone) in these films have left us – yet their mark, their presence, is so staggering that even now, decades and decades later, we find ourselves experiencing the same emotions that the audiences of the 1930s felt – admiration, loss, anger and all and all, a captivation. We miss these stars like we miss our family, and live with a strange hollowness in our hearts – of a time we can never visit, and people we can never meet.  

The “Dirty Thirties” was the beginning of Hollywoodland. Starting right off the 1929’s Great Depression, the films in this decade served as serious escapism for the average American, and established the actor as a ‘STAR’. Women flocked to have their eyebrows and hair styled like Jean Harlow, and men tried to imitate the smooth presence of Gary Cooper. Hollywood made some it’s most iconic films in this decade, such as 1939’s Gone With the Wind and The Wizard Of Oz. The 30s also introduced the Hays Code – a set of moral guidelines introduced in 1930, but that were seriously enforced in 1934. The Hays Code was a serious regulation in films till the late 1960s, influencing everything from plot, costumes, dialogue and even the portrayal of religion and people of colour.  

Through my fifteen years of serious film watching, I have composed a list of just five of my many favourite films from the 1930s. Self-isolation just got interesting. 

(DISCLAIMER: while films like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Sound of Music and Gone With The Wind are indeed iconic, I am concentrating on films that are maybe not as well known, and are typically not included in mainstream lists. Enjoy!)

Dancing Lady (1933) dir. Robert Z. Leonard

Starring two of my all-time favourites, Clark Gable and Joan Crawford play director and dancer Patch Gallagher and Janie “Duchess” Barlow. Duchess is an incredibly talented dancer who has been reduced to stripping as a way of earning a living. That is, till she meets Tod Newton (Franchone Tone), a rich playboy who encourages her talent, and through his connections, lands her a small dancing spot in a show directed by Gallagher. And this, my friends, is where the fun starts. 

As love stories go, this a simple one. But what keeps the audience hooked is the electrifying chemistry between Gable and Crawford, a successful pair that went on to star in EIGHT films! The stars are so young and fresh, the dancing is so much fun, and the film provides such an interesting perspective to the beginnings of Broadway. 

My Man Godfrey (1936) dir. Gregory La Cava

I honestly believe that Carole Lombard was the funniest woman in Hollywood during her time. In this film Lombard and her ex-husband William Powell star as Irene Bullock and Godfrey, a socialite and butler, during the Great Depression.

Godfrey is hired by Irene to be a butler for her eccentric family, after she meets him in a bizarre scavenger hunt scenario. The film is full of classic screwball and slapstick comedy, which Lombard carries with an one-of-a-kind grace. The humor is never vulgar or over-the-top, it simply doesn’t need to be. The dynamic between Powell and Lombard is exciting and feisty, the film is a delight, and is overall a really good time! 

Stage Door (1937) dir. Gregory La Cava

This is the movie that makes you leave home for the glitz and glamour of “Newh Yohk Cithy”. Which is what our main protagonist Terry Randall (Katherine Hepburn) does, and moves into a boarding house filled with other aspiring actresses, played by an ensemble cast of Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick, Constance Collier, Andrea Leeds, Samuel S. Hinds, and (baby and pre-redhead) Lucille Ball! Future fame Eve Arden and Ann Miller also star.

This is an unparalleled film that showcases sisterhood, rivalry, aspiration, desires and the struggles of making it big. The actresses in this film are perfectly cast, and you leave the film with a strange sense of loss, almost like you left your own friends behind.

Jezebel (1938) dir. William Wyler

What can I say about this movie without giving anything away? A true rollercoaster, Jezebel stars Bette Davis (with those eyes!) as spoiled Southern Belle Julie Marsden, and Henry Fonda as her fiance, Preston “Pres” Dillard. Taking place in 1852 New Orleans, the film is truly a world of its own – lush costumes, brilliant acting, and a truly ernest story of a very complex woman, in a very complex time. As the audience follows Julie’s story – and its conclusion – it is up to them to interpret its outcome.   

The Women (1939) dir. George Cukor 

A film truly ahead of its time – The Women is really about women. No really – there’s not a single man in this film! An ensemble cast of Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, Lucile Watson, Mary Boland, Florence Nash, Virginia Grey, Marjorie Main and Phyllis Povah, the film also has Ruth Hussey, Virginia Weidler, Butterfly McQueen, and Hedda Hopper in smaller roles. 

Norma Shearer stars as prim and proper Manhattan socialite Mary Haines, whose husband is having an affair with the young and exciting perfume-counter-girl Crystel Allen (Joan Crawford). Mary finds this out through her cousin Sylvia Fowler (Rosalind Russell), who receives the news as her manicurist’s paints her nails “Jungle Red” (that’s important, I promise). 

This film really is a work of art – as a 21st century viewer, to see these women go to the salon, the gym, shop and and to see their homes – it’s incredibly alluring. The film tackles a simple subject; the story of the wife and the mistress, but tells it in a compelling way. We so badly want to know the women in the story, we want to be friends with them, to laugh and cry with them. While the ending may not be what you expect, this is a film that will stay with you for a very, very, long time.

And that is it for our films of the 1930s! Is there a film from this decade you love? Or maybe you have seen one from this list? Or are now planning on watching one? Let us know the comments below!

(And don’t forget to sign up for email notifications, that way you’ll know when our 1940s list goes up too!)