Below is a list of significant events and films in underground film history between the years 1930 and 1939. Reference key of sources appears at the bottom of the page.
1930
MAJOR EVENTS
International Congress of Independent Film meets for a second time in Brussels, but the ‘Internationale’ is disbanded after most filmmakers choose to fight fascism instead. The European avant-garde pretty much ceases to exist.
S.R.
D.C.
When film switched to using sound, it became too cost prohibitive for experimental filmmakers to continue working.
S.R.
“The Surrealist cinema largely disappeared after Bunuel’s L’Age d’Or…”
P.A.S.
Luis Bunuel visits Los Angeles for the first time. An MGM representative signs him to a $250 a month contract to “learn filmmaking.” Bunuel quit after four months and returned to Spain.
D.E.J.
SIGNIFICANT FILMS
ENGLAND
Kenneth MacPherson
Monkeys’ Moon
S.R.
FRANCE
Luis Buñuel
L’Age d’Or
S.R.
P.A.S.
Jean Cocteau
Le Sang d’un Poète (The Blood of a Poet)
S.R.
D.C.
F.S.
P.A.S.
Eugene Deslaw
La Nuit Electrique
S.R.
D.C.
Germaine Dulac
Theme et Variation (1927-30)
D.C.
S.R. lists a film Rhythme et Variations as 1930, which may be this film, but D.C. also lists a Rhythme et Variations, with no year attached, in addition to Theme et Variation
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Alexander Hammid
Bezucelna Prochazka (Aimless Walk)
P.A.S.
D.E.J. only gives English title
GERMANY
Oskar Fischinger
Study No. 6 (1929-30)
F.S.
S.R. lists as 1929
Study No. 12
S.R.
Hans Richter
Alles dreht sich, Alles beweft sich (Everything Revolves, Everything Moves )
D.C.
Walter Ruttmann
Die Melodie der Welt (Melody of the World)
includes brief animated sequence by Oskar Fischinger
D.C.
HOLLAND
Francis Brugière
Light Rhythms
S.R.
RUSSIA
Dziga Vertov
Enthusiasm (Donbass Symphony)
D.C.
S.R. only credits this as Enthusiasm
U.S.
Jo Gercon and Hershell Louis
The Story of a Nobody
S.R.
Ralph Steiner
Surf and Seaweed
D.C.
S.R. lists as 1931
Herman G. Weinberg
Autumn Fire
S.R.
D.C. lists film twice: Once in 1930 and again in 1931
1931
MAJOR EVENTS
The European avant-garde vanishes, as Paul Fejos and Robert Florey became mainstream directors, Slavko Vorkapich began specializing in montage sequences, Ralph Steiner moved into documentaries, and Gregg Toland shot Citizen Kane.
S.R.
SIGNIFICANT FILMS
ENGLAND
Kenneth MacPherson
Borderline
starring Paul Robeson
S.R.
GERMANY
Oskar Fischinger
Study No. 7
F.S.
Study No. 8
c1931
F.S.
Colorature
S.R.
F.S. lists as Coloratura
Experiments in Hand Drawn Sound
D.C.
U.S.
Berthold Bartosch
L’Idée
D.C.
Emlen Etting
Oramunde
S.R.
Ralph Steiner
Mechanical Principles
S.R.
D.C.
Charles Vidor
The Bridge
D.E.J.
1932
MAJOR EVENTS
Jack Smith is born in Columbus, OH.
J.S.
SIGNIFICANT FILMS
FRANCE
Luis Buñuel
Las Hurdes (Terre sans Pain)
D.C.
Eugene Deslaw
Marche des Machines
D.C.
S.R. lists as 1928
Moholy-Nagy
Lightspeile (1928-32)
D.C.
Jean Renoir
Boudu
D.C.
GERMANY
Oskar Fischinger
Study No. 11 (c1932)
F.S.
U.S.
Emlen Etting
Poem 8
S.R.
Charles Vidor
The Spy (1931-32)
D.C.
S.R. lists as only 1932
1933
MAJOR EVENTS
B&W sound 16mm film stock is marketed.
D.C.
John Flory”s Mr. Motorboat’s Last Stand is awarded one of the Year’s 10 Best by the Los Angeles Cinema Club, is named the Best Experimental Film of the Year by Movie Makers magazine and is distributed by the Museum of Modern Art. Flory also signs a 7-year contract with Paramount.
D.E.J.
SIGNIFICANT FILMS
FRANCE
Dimitri Kirsanov
Rapt
S.R.
D.C.
Arrière Saison
S.R.
GERMANY
Oskar Fischinger
Composition in Blue
S.R.
D.C.
F.S.
Circle
S.R.
D.C.
F.S.
Lotte Reiniger
Carmen
F.S.
U.S.
John Flory and Theodore Huff
Mr. Motorboat’s Last Stand
S.R.
D.E.J. credits film solely to John Flory, but “with assistance by” Theodore Huff and Priscilla Peck
Lewis Jacobs
Footnote to Fact
J.S.
Dr. James Sibley Watson
Lot in Sodom
written or co-directed with Melville Webber
D.C.; F.S.
S.R. lists as 1934
P.A.S. doesn’t distinguish credits, just says by Watson & Webber
1934
MAJOR EVENTS
Color 16mm film stock is marketed.
D.C.
Movie producers are forced to submit scripts to the Hays Office for approval, thus limiting the chance of experimentation in popular narrative filmmaking.
D.E.J.
SIGNIFICANT FILMS
FRANCE
Alexandre Alexeieff
Une Nuit sur le Mont Chauve (Night on the Bare Mountain)
with Clair Parker, his wife
D.C.
RUSSIA
Dziga Vertov
Three Songs of Lenin
D.C.
S.R. credits as Three Songs About Lenin
U.S.
Joseph Berne
Dawn to Dawn
written by Seymour Stern
S.R.
Lewis Jacobs
Synchronization
done with Joseph Schillinger and Mary Ellen Bute
S.R.
Ralph Steiner
Pie in the Sky
with Elia Kazan, Molly Day Thacher and Irving Lerner
S.R.
Orson Welles
The Hearts of Age
D.E.J.
1935
MAJOR EVENTS
Rudy Burckhardt moves to the U.S. from Switzerland.
S.R.
Salvador Dali visits Hollywood and stays with Harpo Marx. The pair write a screenplay entitled “Giraffes on Horseback Salad.”
D.E.J.
Maya Deren earns a bachelor’s degree at New York University (NYU).
D.E.J.
A young Kenneth Anger appears in the film A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
D.E.J.
SIGNIFICANT FILMS
ENGLAND
Len Lye
Colour Box
S.R.
D.C.
P.A.S.
Kaleidoscope
S.R.
P.A.S. lists as 1936
Jean Renoir
Toni
D.C.
FRANCE
Alexandre Alexeieff
La Belle au Bois Dormant
with Clair Parker, his wife
D.C.
1936
MAJOR EVENTS
The Museum of Modern Art in NYC begins distributing a range of films, supplying them to theaters and screening series such as Amos and Marcia Vogel’s Cinema 16 in NYC and Frank Stauffacher’s Art in Cinema series in San Francisco.
S.M.
S.R. says MoMA began its distribution efforts in 1937.
SIGNIFICANT FILMS
ENGLAND
Len Lye
Birth of a Robot (1935-36)
D.C.
S.R. credits as The Birth of the Robot and lists only as 1936
Rainbow Dance
S.R.
D.C.
P.A.S.
Trade Tattoo
P.A.S.
FRANCE
Jean Renoir
Les Bas Fonds
D.C.
U.S.
Rhythm in Light
S.R.
D.C.
F.S.
S.M. credits film to Bute, Ted Nemeth & Melville F. Webber
Anitra’s Dance
D.C.
Synchrony No. 2
S.R.
Oskar Fischinger
Allegretto
S.R.
D.C.
F.S.
Basil Wright
Song of Ceylon
S.M.
1937
MAJOR EVENTS
The Amateur Cinema League has two-hundred-fifty amateur-cinema clubs on its rolls.
S.M.
SIGNIFICANT FILMS
ENGLAND
Len Lye
Trade Tatoo
S.R.
FRANCE
Jean Renoir
La Grande Illusion
D.C.
U.S.
Roger Barlow, LeRoy Robbins, Harry Hay, and Hy Hirsch
Even as You and I
S.R.
1938
MAJOR EVENTS
Luis Bunuel is ordered back to Los Angeles to “work on a film about Spanish children being taken abroad to safety” and other movies about the Spanish Civil War.
D.E.J.
Maya Deren enrolls in the M.A. program in English at Smith College.
D.E.J.
SIGNIFICANT FILMS
U.S.
Douglass Crockwell
Fantasmagoria I
S.R.
D.C. just lists Fantasmagoria by its series, not individual films — see 1940
Oskar Fischinger
Optical Poem (1937-8)
for MGM; set to Liszt
D.C.
S.R. lists as just 1937
1939
SIGNIFICANT FILMS
ENGLAND
Len Lye
Swinging the Lambeth Walk
S.R.
D.C.
U.S.
Ralph Steiner & Willard Van Dyke
The City
F.S.
S.M.
REFERENCE KEY:
D.C: David Curtis. Experimental Cinema. New York: Dell Pub., 1978.
D.E.J.: David E. James. The Most Typical Avant-garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles. Berkeley: University of California, 2005.
F.S.: Frank Stauffacher. Art in cinema; a symposium on the avantgarde film. New York: Arno Press, 1968. (reprint from 1947)
J.S.: Jack Sargeant. Deathtripping: the Extreme Underground. Brooklyn: Soft Skull, 2008. (Originally published: London: Creation, 1995.)
P.A.S.: P. Adams Sitney. Visionary Film: the American Avant-garde, 1943-2000. New York: Oxford UP, 2002.
S.M.: Scott MacDonald. Canyon Cinema: the Life and times of an Independent Film Distributor. Berkeley: University of California, 2008.
S.R.: Sheldon Renan. An Introduction to the American Underground Film. New York: Dutton, 1967.