Probably no decade saw as many changes in the Hollywood film industry and its product as the 1930s did. At the beginning of the decade, the industry was still struggling with the transition to talking pictures. Gangster films and naughty comedies starring Mae West were popular in urban areas, but aroused threats of censorship in the heartland. Whether the film business could survive the economic effects of the Crash was up in the air. By 1939, popularly called "Hollywood's Greatest Year," films like
Gone With the Wind
and
The Wizard of Oz
used both color and sound to spectacular effect, and remain American icons today. The "mature oligopoly" that was the studio system had not only weathered the Depression and become part of mainstream culture through the establishment and enforcement of the Production Code, it was a well-oiled, vertically integrated industrial powerhouse. The ten original essays in
American Cinema of the 1930s
focus on sixty diverse films of the decade, including
Dracula
,
The Public Enemy
Trouble in Paradise
42nd Street
King Kong
Imitation of Life
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Swing Time
Angels with Dirty Faces
Nothing Sacred
Jezebel
Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington
, and
Stagecoach
.