As you may already know, I am a huge fan of Hollywood’s Golden Age, movies from the 1930’s and the 1940’s, and also film noir. For the French reading this blog who want to see some very good movies made by the Warner Brothers during the Great Depression, don’t miss the Cinéma de Minuit on French channel television France3. A movie is aired each Saturday night, in original English version with English subtitles.
Gold Diggers of 1933, Wild Boys of The Road, Confessions of a Nazi Spy and Juarez have already aired but Casablanca (one of my favorite movies), Mission to Moscow, Hitler Lives (short movie) and To Have and Have Not will air within the next weeks. This ‘Cycle‘ is about the Warner Bros and the Roosevelt Administration, and it shows how the studio (under the leadership of Harry Warner) re-defined the American film industry as a cultural medium. Gold Diggers of 1933 is among the best of the depression-era musical, Wild Boys of The Road was a propaganda piece for Roosevelt’s New Deal and Confessions of a Nazi Spy was aimed to bring awareness to the Nazi menace. If Mission to Moscow is more controversial because it was a pro-Soviet film and a glorification of Stalin’s political regime, Casablanca is a master piece.
I wish there were more classic movies on television because the pre-Code era was rich (as well as film noir movies in the 1940’s-1950’s). Michael Curtiz, Howard Hawks, George Cukor, Frank Capra, George Stevens, Lowell Sherman, John Ford and so many others directed some of the best movies ever made (Scarface: first and second impact). Not to mention the greatest Hollywood stars ever (Davis, Flynn, Dietrich… They did it their way). So if you can’t get Turner Classic Movies (a subscription channel), maybe France3 is easier to catch.
As for my movie script taking place during Hollywood’s Golden Age (some of you have been asking about it), I will work hard on it this summer and I hope to complete it around the end of the year (which is when my next show is planned…), although I don’t have any deadline. The only thing I am missing is time, and since I don’t want to be stressed out because I like to do things right, time is the most precious thing I have. I will see how the writing is going and I might show an extract of the script exclusively to the regulars, like I did last year for my book. I will keep you posted ^_^