I’ve been so excited about this month’s column, because I’ve now reached the Golden Age of Hollywood and the earliest talking movies.
Since the golden age of Hollywood spans such a long period of time, I’m focusing this month on the 1930s, when cinema was full of glamour and invention, and rapidly becoming a powerful cultural force.
Many of the most important movies in cinematic history stem from this time, with both films that were foundational to their genres and new experiments in sound and colour coming to the fore.
Sound first made its way into movies in the late 1920s, with 1927’s The Jazz Singer generally credited as the first ‘talkie’. As the 1930s began, colour was becoming more viable, which allowed filmmakers to get even more creative.
Artistically, Hollywood studios perfected the assembly-line approach to filmmaking, giving rise to enduring genres, including musicals, screwball comedies, lavish historical epics, and the western. Narratives became sharper, stars were more carefully cultivated, and directors began to emerge as identifiable auteurs.
This was the decade that demonstrated cinema’s capacity for both entertainment and artistry, a balancing act that’s still critical to mainstream film today.
Musical joy: The Wizard of Oz, 1939
Everyone knows the tale of Dorothy and her ruby red slippers; even I have seen this film, albeit as a child, so my memories of it were fuzzy.
The story follows Dorothy, a young girl from Kansas, who is whisked away by a tornado to the magical land of Oz. To get home, she must follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City, where she can ask the Wizard of Oz to send her home. Along the way she meets companions: a scarecrow seeking brains, a tin man longing for a heart, and a cowardly lion, and their journey is fraught with whimsical and terrifying encounters, from the Wicked Witch of the West to talking animals, culminating in the classic revelation that “there’s no place like home.”
I loved the very simple device of keeping the scenes in Kansas sepia-toned and then dropping into full Technicolour for the scenes in Oz. It works brilliantly at home on the TV and must have been breathtaking for cinema audiences of the time, when colour was less common in movies.
There’s plenty of charm and humour throughout the film and more emotional depth than I remembered too, and of course the songs are wonderful.
The characters have become almost archetypal in our cultural imagination and the metaphor of the Wizard just being a normal man behind the curtain was something I didn’t grasp as a child, but which really stood out to me as an adult. I often think the best children’s literature and indeed children’s TV works on multiple levels like this as well, but this is the first time I’ve consciously noticed it in a movie not expressly aimed at kids.
It was a real joy to watch, especially picking up phrases which have come into common parlance but originated in the movie. It’s also poignant watching it knowing that Garland was being given so many drugs and exploited so mercilessly by the studio.
It’s a great example of the potential of colour and special effects as storytelling tools, and of brilliant use of music. It also demonstrates Hollywood’s skill in adapting literature for a mass audience without losing narrative magic. I have generally found that books tend to be better than films (although this isn’t always the case, of course, and has been further disrupted since the advent of prestige TV). In this case, I haven’t read the original book, but for any adaptation to be so beloved and so important to the history of its art form is an amazing achievement.
The film’s enduring legacy lies not only in its technical achievement but in its ability to fuse fantasy, music, and morality into a cohesive cinematic experience, and – no small task – make it fun to watch.
I can see why it became a blueprint for countless films that followed.
Zany comedy: Bringing Up Baby, 1938
Bringing Up Baby is a screwball comedy starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Grant plays David Huxley, an absent-minded paleontologist tasked with securing a million-dollar donation to the museum where he works. He is playing golf with the lawyer of the potential donor when chaos ensues in the form of eccentric heiress Susan Vance.
Everything that can go wrong does, and Susan and David keep bumping into each other as David becomes more and more stressed and exasperated.
Ultimately, Susan enlists David’s help in looking after Baby, a tame leopard which is intended as a gift for her aunt, leading to a series of comic misunderstandings, slapstick situations, and romantic entanglements. The plot’s momentum is relentless, relying on wit, timing, and character chemistry, and it’s funny right up until the final scene.
Bringing Up Baby is one of those movies that I’d heard of but never seen, and I was aware that it’s considered one of the best classic movies. I was happy that it more than lived up to its reputation: it is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, and the chemistry between Hepburn and Grant is off the scale.
Their dialogue is what really makes the film – it’s full of witty, rapid-fire exchanges and the energy is infectious. There’s also plenty of absurdity, especially in the latter half of the film when Baby escapes, but nothing feels forced.
It’s a reminder that comedy, when well-crafted, can be both intelligent and delightfully anarchic.
Interestingly, the film was a flop upon release, and its reputation only grew in the 1950s when it was shown on TV. Initially it damaged Hepburn’s career and resulted in her being labelled “box office poison” by the Independent Theatre Owners of America, an issue that was only resolved two years later with the release of The Philadelphia Story. I imagine that must have been especially difficult for her given that the script was written specifically for her.
Watching it now, it’s difficult to understand why it wasn’t more popular when it was released; there’s certainly nothing that jumps out at me as being badly done.
One thing that does strike me is that the film reverses the usual gender roles: Susan is the one who pursues David, and he undergoes a transformation as a result of meeting her, but it all feels playful rather than laboured.
For me, this film is also a good illustration of the growing confidence of directors and actors in manipulating pacing, dialogue, and physical comedy for maximum cinematic effect.
Western drama: Stagecoach, 1939
This Western by John Ford follows a diverse group of passengers travelling through dangerous Apache territory between Arizona and New Mexico. Among them are the Ringo Kid, a wrongly accused outlaw seeking justice, and Dallas, a prostitute trying to start a new life.
As the stagecoach navigates perilous terrain, tensions rise, alliances form, and individual moral codes are tested in life-or-death circumstances.
Visually, it’s striking – the landscapes of Monument Valley, while incongruous with the supposed location of the film, lend an epic scope, so much so that the environment itself almost becomes a character. There’s a large ensemble cast so plenty of potential for tension between the various characters, and they are all vibrantly written. The stunts are absolutely astonishing and the story has a great balance of action, humour and moral complexity.
At this point in the 1930s, Westerns had been consigned to B-movie territory and studio execs were wary of attempting to produce an A-movie in the genre. Ford insisted on giving the role of the Ringo Kid to John Wayne, who at the time was known as a B-movie actor, against advice, although of course the casting proved to be one of the best parts of the film.
Stagecoach elevated the Western from a formulaic B-movie to a serious cinematic genre capable of exploring human character, social hierarchies, and mythic storytelling. It cemented John Ford’s reputation as a master director and demonstrated the narrative and visual potential of location shooting over studio-bound sets.
Before watching it, I was under the impression that Westerns generally were fairly formulaic and standardised, and I was happily surprised at the depth and psychological insight of the film, and the way in which it focuses on the story of each character rather than simply a justice-driven plotline.
A Golden Age
Watching these films, I’ve been reminded that cinema is an alchemy of innovation, performance, and cultural context. This month’s films have taught me that sound, colour, and narrative experimentation aren’t just technical milestones, but essential tools for connecting with audiences.
I was also struck by the ambition of these filmmakers: the charm of Bringing Up Baby, the depth of Stagecoach, and the imagination of The Wizard of Oz allowed the films to transcend being just entertainment and instead become something deeper. I can see how these movies both reflected and shaped the moods, aspirations and anxieties of 1930s America, as well as how those same feelings show up in society today. Perhaps that’s why these films are still so resonant almost one hundred years after they were made.
It blows my mind a little to have this living window back in time. When I was growing up in the 1980s, the 1880s seemed unimaginably far away; partly because so much had changed in that span of time but also because knowledge and experience from that time is all in written form. There weren’t movies we could watch which people of that time also watched and enjoyed.
While on the one hand these films show how much has changed, they also show how much has stayed the same: Dorothy’s quest to get home and her friends’ quests to find the missing parts of themselves are just as relevant as ever in the modern world, as are the separate journeys of the Stagecoach passengers and David Huxley’s embrace of chaos. I can’t wait to watch the next batch of films and see what comes next.