Hollywood's Washington: Film Images of National Politics During the Great Depression

Abstract

In her recollections of the 1930s, Louise Tanner helped to create an image that has stayed with us despite a number of studies that should have dissolved it by now. Thirties movies were, she insisted, a flop as a source of Communist propaganda. Some studios – notably Warner brothers – tried to bring Father to grips with social reality. But most of the cinemoguls agreed with Louis B. Mayer that Dad got all the social significance he needed at home. The script writers of Hollywood might take the Spanish Civil War to heart but they were more concerned with a public that preferred Carole Lombard doing secretarial work in a penthouse with a white telephone. Father sitting there in the dark forgot his own plight as he watched the gods and goddesses of the screen sweeping down staircases into dining rooms with a footman behind every chair. Depression movies portrayed an America devoid of economic conflict.

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