Classics

Essentials by Decade: The 1930s

The '30s was magic time for the movies. Although the Great Depression gripped the country, Hollywood fought back by creating a uniquely American artform, the screwball comedy. Then there was the musical, which shook off the static style of the early talkies and took flight with the lilting, saucy romances of Astaire and Rogers and the radical hallucinations of Busby Berkeley. Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, and John Wayne all became stars. Director Ernst Lubitsch's celebrated touch was never more deft, and Frank Capra and John Ford were reimagining America, each in his distinct way. David O. Selznick proved himself the archetypal producer-mogul, moving from Paramount to RKO, then MGM, and finally his own studio--and setting the capstone on Hollywood's most golden of golden-age years, 1939, with his magnum opus Gone With the Wind. See our Essential films of the 1930s, including:

• The Thin Man
• David Copperfield
• The Awful Truth

›Essential films of the 1930s

John Wayne DVD Store

Visit our John Wayne DVD Store for all the newest DVDs, exclusive articles, a video reminiscence by the cast of The Cowboys, rare photos from the Wayne family scrapbook, and more. Don't miss it, pardner.

›John Wayne DVD Store

Wayne and Eastwood: Icons of the Western

The mythology of the West has long transfixed both filmmakers and filmgoers, and few actors have embodied its spirit better than John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. Their movies not only are pinnacles of the genre, but also rank among the most important in cinematic history.