The 30’s saw a rise in communism and NAZIism resulting in the ruling Kuomintang and the rebel Communist Party of China fighting a civil war for control of China; a Spanish Civil War where the socialist-fascist dictator Francisco Franco (backed by Germany & Italy) fought Soviet-backed communists in Spain resulting in Franco’s nationalist forces defeating the communists; and of course the beginning of WWII in 1939 when German forces attacked Poland. In the US there was a fascist attempt by rich industrialists to overthrow the US government.
In 1932 communist W.Z. Foster predicted in Toward Soviet America the destruction of America’s “education, morality, ethics, science, art, patriotism, religion” was necessary to establish a “New World Order.”
Common throughout the United States from the early 1930’s through the 1960’s were the so-called “Red Squads”. A 1963 report estimated that eventually 300,000 officers were involved in surveillance of political activities. These were local police focused on the same types of people as the FBI. Some of their activities included assassinations of political activists. Here’s an excerpt from the 1963 report:
Keynesianism replaces classical economic theory, the gold is confiscated from regular Americans, the first federal gun law is enacted in the US, and the US saw the end of the alcohol prohibition. The first color cartoons are produced as well as the first All-Talking All-Color wide-screen movie, Song of the Flame (1930); radar, scotch tape, the Volkswagon Beetle, the first long-playing phonograph record, chocolate chip cookies, the bass guitar, and frozen foods first saw the light of day; the first intercontinental commercial airline flights were launched and Howard Hughes, flying the H-1, set the landplane airspeed record of 352 mph; and the Hindenburg disaster; and the Lindberg baby was kidnapped which was referred to as the ‘crime of the century’.
The Empire State Building was completed (1931) in New York and remained the world’s talles building for the next 35 years. The Golden Gate Bridge was constructed, opening on May 27, 1937, in San Francisco.
Last, but not least, adding water to the water supply was first introduced, cancer cures by Harry Hoxsey, Max Gerson, Royal Rife and others are harassed and attacked by Rockefeller’s pharmaceutical protector, Morris Fishbein.
Notable Literature:
Popular comic strips which began in the 1930s include Captain Easy by Roy Crane, Alley Oop by V. T. Hamlin, Prince Valiant by Hal Foster, and Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond.
In the art of film making, the Golden Age of Hollywood entered a whole decade, after the advent of talking pictures in 1927 and full-color films in 1930: more than 50 classic films were made in the 1930s: most notable were Gone with the Wind (1939) and The Wizard of Oz (1939).
- The soundtrack and photographic technology prompted many films to be made or re-made, such as the 1934 version of Cleopatra, using lush art deco sets which won an Academy Award (see films 1930–1939 in: Academy Award for Best Cinematography);
- Advancing cartoons from slapstick short subjects to lush, dramatic, feature-length storytelling, Walt Disney all but created a new artistic form with a still-irresistible fable of love and jealousy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
- Universal Pictures begins producing its distinctive series of horror films, which came to be known as the Universal Monsters, featuring what would become iconic representations of literary and mythological monsters, the horror films (or monster movies) included many cult classics, such as Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), King Kong (1933), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), and other films about vampires and zombie.
- Other 30’s classics include Duck Soup (1933); Wuthering Heights (1939); Scarface (1932); Mutiny on the Bounty (1935); Top Hat (1935); The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938); M (1931)
- Recurring series and serials included: The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, Tarzan, Charlie Chan and Our Gang.
Though historians can’t agree on the exact years of Hollywood’s so-called Golden Age, the years 1930 through 1945 were particularly good for moviemaking. Hollywood glittered not just with profit, but with popular stars and brilliant filmmakers. In those 15 years, more than 7,500 features were released and the number of Americans who watched at least one movie in a theater per week swelled to more than 80 million. TV took a toll on the movie industry.
Hollywood has always pushed the limits in an effort to corrupt the Christian culture. A Mexican-American co-production released originally in 1935 as “The Sea Fiend” and “The Great Manta” included stock film of topless South Seas native girls. Eleven years later it was re-edited with more nude scenes and reissued as “Devil Monster“, most likely for use on the adults-only roadshow circuit. “Maniac” (1934) with perhaps the earliest use of nudity in an exploitation film. An astonishingly bizarre and lurid horror movie with terrible over-acting, nude scenes, and an obvious rape-in-progress sequence that amazingly escaped censorship. Director Dwain Esper pushed the limits of the ’30s. He gave the world the exploitation classics “Narcotic” (1933), “Marihuana” (1936), and “Sex Madness” (1938) — the latter two also have nude scenes.
Music
Some of the best musicians ever born had their heyday in the 1930s. No one will ever forget the sweet sounds of Louie Armstrong, or the beautiful voice of Billie Holiday. Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller and Judy Garland were all at the top of their game and the charts. Fred Estaire had a nice run in the 1930s and Count Basie established his dominance. Swing music becomes popular.
Most people did not have televisions, so the radio was the primary source of entertainment throughout the decade. And radio wasn’t exactly like it is now, where DJs play song after song after song. Radio was filled with entertainment of all sorts: stories, poetry, news, live music, variety shows and more.
Songs in the 1930s were sometimes more popular than the artist. It wasn’t strange for a song to become popular by one artist, and then re-done by another artist a month later. Because of this, we tend to focus on the songs more than the artists who performed them, because often times the song was popular and performed by several artists.
