373 Films & TV Shows Set In North America During The 1930s
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Come See the Paradise
New York California Washington The 1940s The 1930sCome See The Paradise is a deeply touching love story set against the backdrop of a dramatic and controversial period in American history, It follows the romance and eventual marriage of Jack McGurn (Dennis Quad), a hot blooded Irish American, and a beautiful Japanese American Lily Dawanura (Tamlyn Tomita), at the outset of World War II. The clash of cultures, at once painful for the two lovers, becomes insurmountable after the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. Lily and the Kawamuras are relocated To a bleak, outdoor internment camp in California, Jack is drafted into the Army, powerless to help the woman he loves abandoning all hope of ever winning her family's approval.
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Artificial Paradise
🇸🇮 Slovenia California The 1910s The 1930sLos Angeles in 1935. Fritz Lang receives in his hotel apartment the young film amateur Willy, who wants to prepare an interview with him. At a certain moment Lang starts relating how, as an army officer in the First World War, he spent some time in the house of the lawyer Karol Gatnik in a small town in the northeast of Slovenia. Lang makes friends with Gatnik and gets aquainted with all members of his family. When Lang finds out that Gatnik is a passionate film amateur and that he also possesses his own camera, they make a film together. This is probably Lang’s first contact with cinematography. Late at night Lang looks at the photographs in Los Angeles and revives in his spirit the imaginary meeting with his friend Gatnik.
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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
🇦🇹 Austria 🇩🇪 Germany 🇮🇹 Italy New York Utah 🇵🇹 Portugal 🇹🇷 Turkey The 1930s The 1910sThe man with the hat is back. And this time, he's bringing his Dad. — When Dr. Henry Jones Sr. suddenly goes missing while pursuing the Holy Grail, eminent archaeologist Indiana must team up with Marcus Brody, Sallah and Elsa Schneider to follow in his father's footsteps and stop the Nazis from recovering the power of eternal life.
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We're No Angels
New York The 1930sEscaped convicts disguised as priests. It'll take a miracle to get away with this one. — Two escaped cons' only prayer to escape is to pass themselves off as priests and pass by the police blockade at the border into the safety of Canada.
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Harlem Nights
New York The 1930s The 1910sThey're up to something big. — 'Sugar' Ray is the owner of an illegal casino and must contend with the pressure of vicious gangsters and corrupt police who want to see him go out of business. In the world of organised crime and police corruption in the 1920s, any dastardly trick is fair.
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All Dogs Go to Heaven
Louisiana The 1930sBut not all dogs stay there! — When a casino owning dog named Charlie is murdered by his rival Carface, he finds himself in Heaven basically by default since all dogs go to heaven. However, since he wants to get back at his killer, he cons his way back to the living with the warning that doing that damns him to Hell. Once back, he teams with his old partner, Itchy to prep his retaliation. He also stumbles on to an orphan girl who can talk to the animals, thus allowing him to get the inside info on the races to ensure his wins to finance his plans. However, all the while, he is still haunted by nightmares on what's waiting for him on the other side unless he can prove that he is worthy of Heaven again.
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Winter People
North Carolina The 1930sA passion so strong it kills. — A young widower moves with his daughter into a North Carolina mountain town in 1934. He quickly takes up with a young woman with an illegitimate baby. First he must prove himself to her father and her three brothers. He does so first by joining them on a bear hunt and then by designing a clock tower for the small community. Trouble comes when it is revealed that the baby's father is the demented son of a mean clan across the river and they mean to take the child back.
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Betty Boop's Hollywood Mystery
California The 1930sIn Los Angeles, Betty Boop works as a waitress and her friends Koko and Bimbo in the kitchen of a dinning place, which is permanently crowded. The greatest attraction for clients is Betty Boop singing, while dreaming to be a Hollywood star.
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Lantern Hill
Prince Edward Island The 1930sIn 1935 Toronto, Jane Stuart's mother has taken ill, and the two of them have temporarily moved in with her rich, snobbish grandmother, where Jane is verbally abused and her mother bullied. Jane is forced into a private academy, in which the other girls tell her that her father, whom Jane believes to be dead, is actually alive. Soon after, Andrew Stuart sends word that he would like to meet his long-lost daughter, so Jane is sent by train to Bright River to stay with him, where she encounters an old mystery that she must help her father overcome, new friends, and the chance to bring her father and mother back together again.
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Bird
Missouri The 1930s The 1940s The 1950sSaxophone player Charlie Parker comes to New York in 1940. He is quickly noticed for his remarkable way of playing. He becomes a drug addict but his loving wife Chan tries to help him.
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The Untouchables
Illinois The 1930sWhat are you prepared to do? — Young Treasury Agent Elliot Ness arrives in Chicago and is determined to take down Al Capone, but it's not going to be easy because Capone has the police in his pocket. Ness meets Jimmy Malone, a veteran patrolman and probably the most honorable one on the force. He asks Malone to help him get Capone, but Malone warns him that if he goes after Capone, he is going to war.
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Radio Days
New York The 1930s The 1940sThe Narrator tells us how the radio influenced his childhood in the days before TV. In the New York City of the late 1930s to the New Year's Eve 1944, this coming-of-age tale mixes the narrator's experiences with contemporary anecdotes and urban legends of the radio stars.
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From a Whisper to a Scream
Tennessee The 1860s The 1930s The 1950s The 1980sWelcome to Oldfield. Stop in for a night of pure terror. — The uncle of an executed murderess relates four stories of his hometown, Oldfield, to a reporter. In the first, an elderly man pursues a romance with a younger woman, even to the grave and beyond. In the second, a wounded man on the run from creditors is rescued by a backwoods hermit who holds the secret to eternal life. In the third, a glass-eating carny pays the ultimate price for looking for love on the outside. And in the fourth, a group of Civil War soldiers are held captive by a household of orphans with strange intentions for them.
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Ironweed
New York The 1930sHard times and Good times. Francis and Helen. — Albany, New York, Halloween, 1938. Francis Phelan and Helen Archer are bums, back in their birth city. She was a singer on the radio, he a major league pitcher. Death surrounds them: she's sick, a pal has cancer, he digs graves at the cemetery and visits the grave of his infant son whom he dropped; visions of his past haunt him, including ghosts of two men he killed. That night, out drinking, Helen tries to sing at a bar. Next day, Fran visits his wife and children and meets a grandson. He could stay, but decides it's not for him. Helen gets their things out of storage and finds a hotel. Amidst their mistakes and dereliction, the film explores their code of fairness and loyalty.
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The Glass Menagerie
Missouri The 1930sA son longs to escape from his stifling home, where his genteel mother worries about the future prospects of his lame, shy sister.
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LBJ: The Early Years
Texas The 1960s The 1940s The 1930sLBJ: The Early Years was a television movie that appeared on the NBC network in February 1987, depicting the life of former President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson from 1934 until 1973. Actor Randy Quaid won a Golden Globe award for his portrayal of Johnson.
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Brighton Beach Memoirs
New York The 1930sEugene, a young teenage Jewish boy, recalls his memoirs of his time as an adolescent youth. He lives with his parents, his aunt, two cousins, and his brother, Stanley, whom he looks up to and admires. He goes through the hardships of puberty, sexual fantasy, and living the life of a poor boy in a crowded house.
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Native Son
Illinois The 1930sIn 1940s Chicago, a young black man takes a job as a chauffeur to a white family, which takes a turn for the worse when he accidentally kills the teenage daughter of the couple and then tries to cover it up.
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Dallas: The Early Years
Texas The 1950s The 1930sPrequel to the popular "Dallas" TV series focuses on the origins of the Ewing-Barnes feud during the 1930's. Larry Hagman provides the opening narration for the film. The story opens at a 1951 barbecue with "Digger" Barnes firing a shot at "Jock" Ewing. Immediately flashing back to the depression, the two men first meet in a boxcar as both are hoboing. Their original friendship is built on their desires to find oil. But their failings start as they both compete for the hand of the beautiful Miss Ellie. Jock is shown to be an honorable man caught up in a backlash. Digger is a neurotic, alcoholic with a gift for finding oil.
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Blood & Orchids
Hawaii The 1930sHester Murdoch is found naked and nearly beaten to death by four young Hawaiian men on the beach and taken to the hospital. Some of the men didn't want to get involved, fearing they might be blamed, because she was white, but do so anyway. Almost immediately everyone suspects they are to blame. When Hester's politically influential mother Doris finds out what really happened, she fearing a scandal, forces her daughter to blame the men who rescued her, of raping and beating her. It's up to detective Curt Maddox, to find out what really happened, and their Hawaiian lawyer to do the impossible. Convince a white court of law, that they are innocent.
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The Color Purple
Georgia The 1930s The 1920s The 1910s The 1900sIt's about life. It's about love. It's about us. — An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing 'Mister' Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.
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The Purple Rose of Cairo
New Jersey The 1930sCecilia is a waitress in New Jersey, living a dreary life during the Great Depression. Her only escape from her mundane reality is the movie theatre. After losing her job, Cecilia goes to see 'The Purple Rose of Cairo' in hopes of raising her spirits, where she watches dashing archaeologist Tom Baxter time and again.
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The Journey of Natty Gann
Washington Illinois The 1930sThe journey that made the impossible come true. — America is in the depths of the Great Depression. Families drift apart when faraway jobs beckon. A courageous young girl confronts overwhelming odds when she embarks on a cross-country search for her father. During her odyssey, she forms a close bond with two diverse traveling companions: a magnificent, protective wolf, and a hardened drifter.
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Dreamchild
New York England The 1930s The 1860sExploring the somewhat darker and more mysterious side of the Lewis Carroll's classic book, the movie follows Alice Liddell (the book's inspiration) as an old woman who is haunted by the characters she was once so amused by. As she thinks back on it, she starts to see her relationship with the shy author/professor in a new way and realizes the vast change between the young Alice and the old.
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The Romance of Betty Boop
New York The 1930sIn 1930s, hard-working girl Betty Boop sings at nights at her uncle Mischa's popular NY nightclub and dreams of marrying a posh rich playboy, Waldo. Gangster Johnny "Throat" and a nice hard-working ice-seller, Freddy, also woo her.
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