Good 30s Films: Drums Along the Mohawk

1939 Drama
From 20th Century Fox
Directed by John Ford

Starring
Claudette Colbert
Henry Fonda
Edna May Oliver
Ward Bond
John Carradine
Jessie Ralph
Robert Lowery
Arthur Shields
Chief Big Tree

Clark Gable

I saw him several times in the late 1950s at the ultra-glam Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles.  As I outlined in a piece I called The Caddy, I was hopelessly trying to be one.  Gable and I had seen one another several times in passing.  One day we were in an area alone together and he looked at me, flashing that famous smile, and asked me if I was new.  He seemed very nice and not at all like the world-famous movie star he was.  He also looked even older than he appeared on the screen.  I thought he appeared quite worn out from his jaunt around the links but was trying to cover it up. I was rarely in awe of meeting movie stars but I made an exception for him.

Movie-Making in the 1930s

To be perfectly upfront, it took me years to get into films of the 1930s.  Oh sure, I liked some movies from that time but I generally just found them to be so old, mostly in black and white and kind of corny. In some ways, a bit of that still feels the same but let there be no doubt I have come to appreciate the decade. Quite a number of the movies are classics, a large number of actors remain among the most memorable of all-time and the decade undeniably had some bouts with history.