The thirties in the seventies

[The Wolf]

Back in the 1970s the 1930s had become popular again. Backs of magazines had ads for posters of Laurel and Hardy, Bogart and others, T-shirts with W.C Fields were sold, a cigarette company used Chaplin in its print ads and I bought a paperdoll book by Tom Tierney called Thirty from the 30's which had great actors from the 1930s with different costumes from their films.
All sorts of great movies were made that took place in the thirties. 1975 alone saw the release Lucky Lady, Doc Savage: the Man of Bronze, Day of the Locusts, Hard Times, Capone, The Great Waldo Pepper, The Hindenburg, Funny Lady, At Long Last Love, Hearts of the West and Lepke.:eeek:

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[Doctor Strange]

Actually, some of this started even earlier, in the sixties. The Bogart and Marx Brothers cults among young people were already big by the late sixties. Not to mention interest in Betty Boop and other early bizarre cartoons, and the old horror films. (I recall a bumper sticker that read KING KONG DIED FOR YOUR SINS!) The wacky Busby Berkeley and Astaire/Rogers musicals fascinated. 1967's Bonnie and Clyde made a big impression and created a lot of fashion and fascination. Once baby boomers started to come of age in the turbulent and confusing sixties, they were fascinated by these earlier individualists and rebels.

OTOH, their (and my) parents' generation, who'd grown up during the Depression, had no interest in romanticizing or revisiting the period.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The thirties nostalgia craze peaked between 1970 and 1972 -- it wasn't just movies, it was radio, music, fashion, just about every aspect of thirties popular culture was back in style, and with many of the performers and personalities of the Era still alive and vigorous, you'd see them guesting on TV shows, appearing on Broadway, and being interviewed in magazines and newspapers. My grandparents, who were adults during the Depression, loved this resuscitation of their culture: "it's about damn time there was some good music on the TV. They ought to put Kay Kyser back on, now *that* was a good show."

The peak years of this craze were also my own formative years -- and had a considerable influence on my tastes growing up.

The whole movement came to an abrupt end with the Grease/American Grafitti craze in 1973-74, which shifted the focus to the greaser fifties, which has been the outmost limit of "nostalgia" ever since. Our loss.

 

[Burma Schave]

What LizzieMaine said. The peak of the '20s-'30s revival was 1970-'72, but IMO the bookend years were 1967 (largely because of the Bonnie & Clyde movie) and 1973-'74 (with The Sting and The Great Gatsby movies). That time frame also saw a huge revival of interest in Art Deco, which had been dead throughout the 1950s and much of the 1960s.

 

[The Wolf]

What's funny is to see John Hillerman in the movies Paper Moon, Chinatown, At Long Last Love, The Day of the Locust, Lucky Lady, then on TV in "Ellery Queen" and "Wonder Woman" in the seventies.

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[LizzieMaine]

Hillerman was the Jerome Cowan of the '70s.

 

[The Wolf]

Haha. Great comparison, LM.

Very sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[GoldenEraFan]

That's an interesting point regarding the '50s influence. I guess it was really fueled by the "Happy Days" craze, but I noticed the '50s retro look didn't make a full comeback until the '80s when Rockabilly made a comeback. I recall my mom telling me how "1930's" the styles were in the '70s and when I began to study clothes I took notice. It was refreshing to learn that at not all trends in the turbulent '70s were just hippies and tie dye. I used to hate everything about the '70s, but upon realizing how much classic charm still existed in the style and trends of several things it changed my opinions completely. However I still can't get over how over the top some of the inspired clothing was too the point I just ask "how did it become mainstream". Basically all the mens clothes worn on "The Lawrence Welk Show" post 1970.

 

[Foxer55]

I used to hate everything about the '70s, but upon realizing how much classic charm still existed in the style and trends of several things it changed my opinions completely.

I believe the women of the '70s were some of the most gorgeous to come along since the Golden Era. They were slim and nubile, friendly and risque, the long flowing hair was a welcome change at the time, bell bottom hip-hugger jeans were stylish, and I love, Love, LOVE short skirts! I still have this picture somewhere in my head of a slim blond with long flowing hair in a braless turquoise blue summer pullover and white bell-bottom hip-huggers - she was beautiful.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I wuz there, Cholly, and I don't remember the Thirties being hyped much in the early Seventies. Certainly I recall the idealized Fifties nostalgia -- Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" epitomizes that for me, and the Carpenters' "Yesterday Once More" -- before disco slid in around 1977; but I don't recall much Thirties nostalgia.

(On the other hand, those were my early college [read: drinking] days. Maybe I wasn't paying much attention.)

 

[GoldenEraFan]

I believe the women of the '70s were some of the most gorgeous to come along since the Golden Era. They were slim and nubile, friendly and risque, the long flowing hair was a welcome change at the time, bell bottom hip-hugger jeans were stylish, and I love, Love, LOVE short skirts! I still have this picture somewhere in my head of a slim blond with long flowing hair in a braless turquoise blue summer pullover and white bell-bottom hip-huggers - she was beautiful.

I forgot to mention that and have to agree with you! Yes, women's style was quite elegant in the '70s whether formal or casual. It's crazy how awful the main style became just a few years later (for both men and women).

 

[Warden]

In Great Britain, I remember the TV show "All creatures great and small" was very popular,

Personally I think it was for the shots of the great Yorkshire countryside

[video=youtube_share;ZqrW52zL-Og]http://youtu.be/ZqrW52zL-Og[/video]

 

[Duke of Buckingham]

All Creatures Great and Small - you always knew that when you saw Christopher Timothy rolling up his sleeve and soaping his arm right at the outset of the show you knew were in for a treat.

Fantastic shots of Yorkshire, mind.

 

[MikeKardec]

Farewell My Lovely, Chinatown, a bad remake of The Big Sleep, Dillinger, Bound for Glory, Paper Moon, Emperor of the North, Lucky Lady, etc, etc, were some other films that came out in the 1970s. I'm not all that certain that this trend in Hollywood was reflected in the rest of '70s culture but it was there in the movie biz ... possibly it was a trip down memory lane for all the people in Hollywood who had been around in those days. There were also a revival of literature from that period, though that started earlier and in the art houses the original films from the 1930s were constant players ... though that started earlier too. I certainly remember becoming a Marx Brothers fan in the 1970s inspired by my Dad who would watch their movies over and over.

In that era I loved reading Raymond Chandler and Doc Savage and stuff like that. Dashiell Hammett too, though a more recent reading of his work causes me to think he was often writing more about the teens or twenties.

 

[The Wolf]

You reminded me that in the seventies different publishers started reprinting the thirties pulps like Doc Savage, The Shadow, Phantom Detective, Operator 5, etc.
Good times.

Sincerely,
The Wolf