Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You

Great Depression Film Festival

People are really talking about our current economic downturn. We're talking about it amongst our friends and family and coworkers, people discuss it on the bus, and it's an agenda item in meetings of community organizations and businesses alike. And it's in the news – so much so, in fact, that many news websites have special sections devoted to the economic crisis, including the Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times.  Like a lot of people, I've been drawing some parallels between what's happening now and the Great Depression my grandparents lived through 75 years ago. What was life like then, for regular average Americans? What happened when the bottom fell out of a town's main industry, when young people couldn't find any work at all, or when economic pressures caused families to disintegrate? Maybe the best place to find out is at the movies!

There are some films about the Great Depression, like Bonnie and Clyde, The Color Purple, The Grapes of Wrath, and Cradle Will Rock, which are perennially popular, and if you want to get them from the library, you'll have to wait in line. But there are others, great films that can give you a little perspective on what the great depression of the 1930s was like without having to get on a long waiting list. Here are a few that I like – all of them have loftier themes than mere economic woes, but each film has a setting that's richly evocative of the social challenges of the Great Depression: the prevalence of crime; the extreme shortage of honest, steady work; the temptations of drink and drugs; and many other details of daily life are important elements of all three stories.

The first little gem I'd like to share is the rather scandalous 1931 film Night Nurse. The film begins as Lora Hart (Barbara Stanwyck) manipulates the rules to get a position as a student in a nursing program at a local hospital. The story follows her through her training and to her first job, caring for two sick children whose mother is a drunken, partying socialite. Lora herself is no beacon of moral upstandingness, but her commitment to her profession is sincere and she finds it tested when she begins to realize that she is the only person in her employers wild, boozy household who has any genuine concern for the two children's welfare. (The library's copy of Night Nurse is part of the Forbidden Hollywood Collection, and comes packaged with several other racy early 1930s films.)

For those of you who like a film that exposes the seamy underbelly of life, without being too desperate or tragic, Paper Moon is just the ticket. Con man Moses Pray (Ryan O'Neal) has agreed to deliver recently-orphaned Addie Loggins (Tatum O'Neal) to her aunt's care, but their interest in their destination wanes after Addie becomes a partner in Moses's confidence schemes. Eventually they tangle with a bootlegger who turns out to have powerful connections, and Moses has to figure out how to run from the law without compromising Addie's safety.

But if you crave adventure, daring deeds, and excitement, I'd recommend O Brother, Where Art Thou? Three escaped convicts set out after $1.2 million dollars that one of them, Everett (George Clooney), claims to have stolen and set by before he went to prison – but they're in a hurry because the treasure will be buried under a lake that's about to be created when a new hydroelectric project is brought on line. At the same time, Everett is trying to get back to his wife and family. Along the way they record a hit country song, help rob a bank, and stumble on a meeting of the local Ku Klux Klan, and, well I can't even begin to enumerate all the trouble they get in!