1930's:

 

1932 – Mae West appears in her first film role after an extensive stage career.  Her appearance in the movie Night after Night as Maudie Triplett launched her into an eleven year stint as a femme fatale who wrote all of her own scripts.  She brought sexuality out of the closet with her controversial roles and self-written lines.  In her very first scene of Night after Night, a hat check girl exclaims, “Goodness what beautiful diamonds!”  West replies, “Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.”  Her co-star George Raft is said to have remarked, “She stole everything but the cameras.”  By 1933,West was the eighth largest U.S. box office draw.

To contrast the sex appeal of vixen Mae West, the innocent little Shirley Temple made her debut in her film career in 1932 at the age of three and found international fame in Bright Eyes, the first film to be written and developed specifically for Temple, and the first in which her name was raise above the title.  She had a very sweet, wholesome image that toy makers capitalized on by making dolls, tea sets, and clothing.  However, her popularity waned as she approached adolescence and she left film at age twelve to attend high school.  Temple was the top box office draw from 1935-1938 according to the Motion Picture Herald Poll. 

1933 – Busby Berkeley’s Footlight Parade made use of one of the largest sound stages ever built to choreograph beautifully dressed women to create innovative and often sexually charge dance numbers.  He arranged and displayed the female form for entertainment purposes, therefore sexually exploiting them.  As a result of the depression, these films were a good distraction for an audience to take their minds off of the seriousness of their problems.  

1939 – Gone With the Wind actress Hattie McDaniel won the Best Supporting Actress role for her role of Mammy.  The Atlanta, Georgia premiere was at the Loew’s Grand Theater on December 15, 1939.  During the approach of the date, all African American actors were barred from attending and excluded from being in the souvenir program as well as southern advertising for the film.  Producer David Selznick had attempted to bring Hattie McDaniel, but MGM advised him not to because of Georgia’s segregation laws.  Clark Gable angrily threatened to boycott the Atlanta premiere unless McDaniel was allowed to attend, but McDaniel convinced him to attend anyway.  Vivien Leigh who played Scarlett O’Hara also won a Best Actress award. 

Also on September 1, 1939, World War II started

1930 – Josef von Sternberg’s Morocco – actress Marlene Dietrich caused a stir when she kisses another woman on the lips

1932 – John Francis Dillon’s Call Her Savage – features first and only gay bar until Otto Preminger’s film Advise and Consent (1962)

1933 - Rouben Mamoulian’s Queen Christina – Biography of Swedish monarch who was also a lesbian.  The film constructs a heterosexual relationship for the queen (Greta Grabo), but homosexual undertones pervade:

Chancellor: "But your Majesty, you cannot die an old maid."

Queen: "I have no intention to, Chancellor. I shall die a bachelor!"

1933 – Gay director George Cukor’s Our Betters and Al Boasberg’s Myrt and Marge

1934 – Warren G. Harding, Postmaster General Will Hays (“The Hays Code”), and the Catholic Church (“Legion of Decency”) begin censorship of films, including homosexuality, and change plots of films in movies like Billy Wilder’s Lost Weekend (1945) and Edward Dmytryk’s Crossfire (1947), which originally both contained plots that relied on homosexuality.

1934-1950 – Films comply with Hays Code of 1934, but suggest homosexuality, such as Lambert Hillyer’s Dracula’s Daughter (1936), Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940), John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948).  These films use subtle hints of homosexuality to create more dynamic characters and villains while escaping censorship.