Hollywood in the Great Depression

As I was reading The Day of the Locust, I wanted to know more about Hollywood and how it survived the Great Depression. What I found shocked me and proved to me that film is a universal art form that nearly everyone can participate in today and apparently in the past.

On average, 60-80 million Americans went to the movies during the Great Depression era. People saw Hollywood’s movies told stories of gangsters and politicians, monsters coming alive and grand adventures to foreign world’s. Cinema helped people cope with the the Great Depression’s hardships and told some of the world’s greatest stories. Some movies that released during the Depression era were Wizard of Oz (1939), Frankenstein (1931), A Star is Born (1937) and Gone With the Wind (1939). These movies are classics that have been watched millions of times over and over since their release and highlight the Golden Era of Hollywood. But why were these movies so important?

Hollywood provided an escape from reality for those who were bruised and beaten by the Depression for only 25 cents. Granted that would be worth $4.98 on March 10, 2020 but apparently everyone could afford that. The average movie cost around 1.5 million dollars to produce and movies like Wizard of Oz cost almost double that and the return was incredible. Wizard of Oz made 26.1 million dollars (nearly 500 million dollars in today’s money) during its run in theaters.

Clearly Hollywood and the movies that it produced were important to people during the Depression as millions of people still went to see movies during the depression. The importance of movies is still seen today as movies make 100s of millions of dollars in their first three days and I cannot see how Hollywood and films could ever slow down in popularity and production.