Golden Era movies set during 1880s/1890s?

[FedoraFan112390]

I've been watching a lot of Twilight Zone lately. While it came at the tailend of the Golden Era, Rod Serling was a member of the GI Generation. Many episodes of the show depict, in an almost adoring fashion, the 1880s or 1890s; See the idyllic Willoughby or Homeville, Indiana in different episodes, all penned by Serling. Serling seems to idealized the 1880s/1890s as a simple, quiet, innocent age that knew nothing of tanks or the Atom Bomb or Germ Warfare; As a man living in the "fast paced" and loud 1950s/early 1960s under the shadow of the Mushroom Cloud, a quaint, quiet time even before the automobile perhaps did indeed seem ideal, innocent, remote. Serling's 1880s and early 1890s are a peaceful heaven of band concerts, modest and decent ladies, friendly gentleman; a time of booming peace and prosperity sandwiched between the Civil War and America's ascent into becoming a World Power.

That said, I'm curious if there are films from the 1920s through 1960s which take place in America in this period - anywhere from 1880 to 1897 - that like Serling's stories, depict it as an idyllic period?

 

[Stanley Doble]

She Done Him Wrong was set in the 1890s but does not depict it as very idyllic. It was written by Mae West who was born in 1893, put it on the stage in 1926 and made it into a movie in 1933. It tells the story of a promiscuous saloon singer, her lovers who range from a convict to a Salvation Army officer, and involves a jail break, the white slave trade and various intrigues.

Nostalgia really got going in the forties and fifties with their homage to the Gay Nineties. As you say, they looked at that time through rose colored glasses the way a later generation looked at the fifties as a time of poodle skirts, sock hops, chocolate malteds and tailfinned Chevies. I suppose someone somewhere is looking back at the 1980s as a simpler time and pining for the good old days of Boy George and Pogs but I find it hard to imagine.

 

[FedoraFan112390]

She Done Him Wrong was set in the 1890s but does not depict it as very idyllic. It was written by Mae West who was born in 1893, put it on the stage in 1926 and made it into a movie in 1933. It tells the story of a promiscuous saloon singer, her lovers who range from a convict to a Salvation Army officer, and involves a jail break, the white slave trade and various intrigues.

Nostalgia really got going in the forties and fifties with their homage to the Gay Nineties. As you say, they looked at that time through rose colored glasses the way a later generation looked at the fifties as a time of poodle skirts, sock hops, chocolate malteds and tailfinned Chevies. I suppose someone somewhere is looking back at the 1980s as a simpler time and pining for the good old days of Boy George and Pogs but I find it hard to imagine.

My girlfriend would be one. She loves the late 80s-early 90s.

 

[green papaya]

those early 1920's silent films with BUSTER KEATON often portray turn of the century life from around 1898 - 1915 era

 

[LizzieMaine]

There was a huge nostalgia fad around 1933-35 for the "Gay Nineties," tying in with the repeal of Prohibition -- when 3.2 beer became legal in the spring of 1933 the nation was inundated in imagery of mustachioed bartenders, singing waiters, Lillian Russell type showgirls, "Those Were Wonderful Days" and all the rest of it. It carried on unabated for about a year before dying down, but there was still enough of it to make "George Jessel's Little Old New York" -- a pastiche of an 1890s city street complete with all the above-mentioned tropes -- one of the most popular attractions at the 1939 New York World's Fair. "World of Tomorrow" my eye.

The Mae West pictures mentioned by Brother Doble were among the most prominent movies capitalizing on the fad, and she made a few others in the same vein after the craze had subsided a bit, given that she was physically perfect for that period. Her final picture in the genre, "My Little Chickadee," with W. C. Fields, was basically a parody of all the other period/nostalgia pictures she'd made earlier in the thirties.

The book "Life With Father," which came in on the tail end of the fad, revolved around an idealized upper-middle-class family of the period, supposedly drawn from real life, and became a very long-running Broadway show in 1939. They finally cleared the rights to make a movie version in 1947, which used to turn up on television all the time. For a great many people born after 1915, "Life With Father" in one form or another was the defining image they had of the Grover Cleveland Era, and it still influences the general conception of the period today.

 

[green papaya]

the movie "HOUDINI" 1953 starring Tony Curtis was about Houdini's life from around 1893 - 1920's era

 

[Stanley Doble]

Life With Father was written by Clarence Day and was his attempt to put down on paper, memories of his own father who he looked up to as a most remarkable character. The book at least is told as true, and the movie is reasonably true to the book. So as good a portrait of life in an upper middle class family at the turn of the century as you are likely to find in a black and white movie.

Later.... Thought about Bill's Gay Nineties bar on 54th st in New York in relation to Lizzie's remarks. It was one of the most popular 'tourist' bars in the 30s and 40s. Did a search and was surprised to find it opened as a speakeasy in 1924. Could this be the beginning of the Gay Nineties fad?

 

[Benzadmiral]

I was going to suggest Cheaper by the Dozen from 1950, but an Infogalactic search reminds me that while Gilbreth Sr. was born in the 19th Century, he didn't marry his wife until 1904, and the 12 kids were all born during the first quarter of the 20th Century. So the portrait of their bustling family life was of 1905 and later, not 1890.