The Film Industry During the Great Depression

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The Great Depression is when the film industry boomed with new types of movies like: gangster films and musicals. They were both born in the Great Depression. Most films show the hardships of the time period. Some of the films display this very well for example Modern Times staring Charlie Chaplin. One of the more well-known gangster films was The Public Enemy.. These films have very different views of the time period but still have things in common. This paper will compare Modern Times and The Public Enemy.

Modern Times, it was produced in1936 it was written, directed and staring Charlie Chaplin. This film was about the Little Tramp trying the get thought the modern times. The film starts in a factory where Little Tramp works. He works on a assembly line till he has a nervous breakdown and runs amok though the factory until he is arrested and sent to jail. While he is in jail, the factory that he was working is closed because of strikes. When he is released, he tries to get put back in jail because he has a place to live, have food, he knows that it will be better because if he is in jail there is no problems in there. When he gets released form jail he save a girl and starts a live with her. The Little Tramp is now trying to find a job. He got a job at a mall but when he was working there the mall is broken into. The robbers were trying to get food and a place to sleep. At that time, it was hard to get money to get food and a place to stay so people reverted to stealing to get thought the bad times. He also lost his job. After that, the girl that the Little Tramp is with finds a house, it is a little wooden shack that is falling apart. This shows that there is a lot of improvised housing in the time period. After this, the Lit...

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... to do their duty and getting the Little Tramp in jail when he dose the littlest thing wrong. In The Public Enemy, it was different. There were not that many scenes with law enforcement, this shown that the law can stop the gangs unlike other gangster films of the time. One other major difference was that The Public Enemy showed most of the society was middle class unlike Modern Times in which almost all of society was trying to get by.
The Great Depression is where the film industry boomed with new types of movies like: gangster films and musicals. It was a hard time for people in this era to get by. Most people spent their time watching movies like: gangster films, musicals and comedies, like Modern Times and The Public Enemy and get away from the bad times of the Great Depression. Each film showed the Great Depression in different ways but both ways worked will.

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