The Golden Age of Hollywood.

Between 60 and 90 million people-including Tom Wing field-went to the movies at least once a week in the 1930s. Hollywood was in its Golden Age. Shaken by the events of the Great Depression, people flocked to the movies to escape the hardships of everyday life, to lose themselves in a world of glamour, mystery, or adventure. It has been said that the United States, a co untry without an aristocracy, carved out its own variety of kings and queens in Hollywood. Film spawned the closest institution America had to royalty, and the 1930s became the era of great screen stars, including actresses (Bette Davis, Gr eta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, and Ginger Rogers) and actors (Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart). A film-go er could watch gangster movies featuring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart). A fi lm-Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance the night away. Comedians and child star s flourished too. Filmgoers could be cheered up by the charm of little Shirley T emple, or lose themselves in the antics of comedians like the Marx Brothers and W. C. Fields, or escape into make-believe dramas that gave them relief from thei r own harsh lives. They could even spend 80 some minutes in an animated fantasyl and; Snow White and the Seven Owarfs, Disney's first feature-length cartoon, was produced in 1937.