FLM 153 — Hollywood in the 1930s: The Birth of a Golden Age
Quarter: Summer
Instructor(s): Elliot Lavine
Date(s): Jul 17—Aug 21
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Wednesdays
Class Meeting Time: 7:00—8:50 pm (PT)
Tuition: $340
Refund Deadline: Jul 19
Unit(s): 1
Status: Registration opens May 20, 8:30 am (PT)
Quarter: Summer
Day: Wednesdays
Duration: 6 weeks
Time: 7:00—8:50 pm (PT)
Date(s): Jul 17—Aug 21
Unit(s): 1
Tuition: $340
Refund Deadline: Jul 19
Instructor(s): Elliot Lavine
Recording Available: Yes
Status: Registration opens May 20, 8:30 am (PT)
No fewer than a dozen American films produced during the chaotic 1930s—a time when enormous changes and challenges faced our great nation—will take center stage in this course. A serious economic crisis, corruption on a number of societal levels, and the slowly gathering clouds of war by decade’s end provided Hollywood with a wealth of stimulating dramas, comedies, and musicals—all designed to give moviegoers not only the opportunity to see the world around them as it actually was, but also an overtly optimistic sidelong glance at what it could eventually become.
Incisive social dramas such as Fritz Lang’s Fury, William Wellman’s Wild Boys of the Road, and Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington will mingle freely with comedies and musicals such as Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, Mervyn LeRoy’s Gold Diggers of 1933, and Gregory La Cava’s My Man Godfrey. The films presented all share the combined virtues of stimulating aesthetics and a relentless sense of civic responsibility, providing audiences, then and even now, with a cinematic flurry of wildly subversive popular entertainment.
Incisive social dramas such as Fritz Lang’s Fury, William Wellman’s Wild Boys of the Road, and Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington will mingle freely with comedies and musicals such as Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, Mervyn LeRoy’s Gold Diggers of 1933, and Gregory La Cava’s My Man Godfrey. The films presented all share the combined virtues of stimulating aesthetics and a relentless sense of civic responsibility, providing audiences, then and even now, with a cinematic flurry of wildly subversive popular entertainment.
All films can be rented or streamed through Netflix, Amazon Prime, iTunes, Google Play, or other online platforms.
ELLIOT LAVINE
Film Historian; Filmmaker
Elliot Lavine has been an active participant in both film production and film exhibition since the late 1970s. In the early 1980s, he directed a pair of short films in the film noir tradition and has been cited as among the nation’s leading film programmers, beginning his career at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco in 1990. In 2010, he received the Marlon Riggs Award from the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle for his revival of rare archival titles and his role in the renewed popularity of film noir. Textbooks for this course:
There are no required textbooks; however, some fee-based online readings may be assigned.