1930s Family Movies

Young Dorothy finds herself in a magical world where she makes friends with a lion, a scarecrow and a tin man as they make their way along the yellow brick road to talk with the Wizard and ask for the things they miss most in their lives. The Wicked Witch of the West is the only thing that could stop them.

A beautiful girl, Snow White, takes refuge in the forest in the house of seven dwarfs to hide from her stepmother, the wicked Queen. The Queen is jealous because she wants to be known as "the fairest in the land," and Snow White's beauty surpasses her own.

In this early film adaptation of the classic novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, young Jim Hawkins is caught up with the pirate Long John Silver in search of buccaneer Captain Flint's buried treasure.

This Oscar-winning short tells of a bull who preferred to sit under trees and smell flowers to clashing horns with his fellow animals. As luck would have it, an untimely bee reveals Ferdinand's ferocious side via pained howls and wild stomping. This lands him in the bull-fighting arena amidst characters based on Walt's animators with a matador reportedly modeled after Walt himself.

The two pigs building houses of hay and sticks scoff at their brother, building the brick house. But when the wolf comes around and blows their houses down (after trickery like dressing as a foundling sheep fails), they run to their brother's house. And throughout, they sing the classic song, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?".

A small river separates Soviet lands from the territory of one of the capitalist powers. On the other side, the girl Pebble lives with her peasant father. One morning, after running after a cow across a river, the girl crossed to the Soviet side. She only spends one day in the kindergarten of the border post, but this day remains in her memory for the rest of her life. Seeing the bright, spacious rooms, the beautiful clothes of the children, delicious plentiful food, and many toys, the girl remembers with bitterness her dilapidated hut, where there is not always bread for dinner. Caressed by the Soviet people, in a new dress, with a bunch of donated toys, Pebble goes back home. A rude shout from a gendarme officer brings the girl back to bitter reality.

The title character is a resourceful young man who knows a whole little about a whole lot of things, and who concentrates by playing his saxophone. Clarence ingratiates himself with the wealthy and eccentric Wheeler family, though daughter Cora can't stand the boy.

Blondie and Dagwood are about to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary but this happy occasion is marred when the bumbling Dagwood gets himself involved in a scheme that is promising financial ruin for the Bumstead family.

President Franklin Roosevelt appoints a theatrical producer as the new Secretary of Amusement in order to cheer up an American public still suffering through the Depression. The new secretary soon runs afoul of political lobbyists out to destroy his department.

In this Vitaphone Broadway Brevity musical short, Hal and Dawn work at the same vaudeville theater, where he's an usher, she's a chorus girl. When they both get fired, they form an act and vow to get back to their old theater, as performers.

Even children in an over-technified civilization need fairy tales, and Mrs. Fairy Tale invites them into her world. The woodcutter goes to the forest with his children, Hansel and Gretel. While their father works, the children pick strawberries. However, they get lost deep into the forest and lose their way back. After a sinister night, they find themselves in front of a honey gingerbread house. While peeling gingerbread, the witch catches them: she locks the skinny Hansel in a cage to fatten him up, and makes the plump Gretel her helper. However, benevolent angels watch over both children, appearing to them in their dreams and giving them hope for salvation.

Ollie Dee and Stannie Dum try to borrow money from their employer, the toymaker, to pay off the mortgage on Mother Peep's shoe and keep it and Little Bo Peep from the clutches of the evil Barnaby. When that fails, they trick Barnaby, enraging him.

When a suspicious man bribes Emil with chocolate in return for a bundle of cash, the young lad thinks of a plan to catch him.

Rebecca's Uncle Harry leaves her with Aunt Miranda who forbids her to associate with show people. But neighbor Anthony Kent is a talent scout who secretly set it up for her to broadcast.

Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Christmas at an old rectory in the countryside – it's Christmas! And the three student brothers, "Gamle", "Corpus Juris" and Nicolai, are delighted to receive an invitation to spend Christmas with the priest in Nøddebo. The fact that there are also a couple of young daughters in the rectory naturally makes it all even more enjoyable. It's the first time Nicolai has gone along, so he knows nothing about his older brothers' infatuation with the two girls and falls head over heels for them, assuming that they can't handle his charm either. Things don't quite go his way now, because he finds himself pursued everywhere by the anything but pretty Maldrubine, whose warmest interest is the pleasures of the table.

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.

Beleaguered adventurer Carl Denham returns to the island where he found King Kong.

Young boy dreams of himself as a version of Gulliver who has landed in Lilliput suffering under capitalist inequality and exploitation.

Heidi is orphaned and her uncaring maternal Aunt Dete takes her to the mountains to live with her reclusive, grumpy paternal grandfather, Adolph Kramer. Heidi brings her grandfather back into mountain society through her sweet ways and sheer love. When Dete later returns and steals Heidi away to become the companion of a rich man's wheelchair-bound daughter, the grandfather is heartsick to discover his little girl missing and immediately sets out to get her back.

The Tortoise and the Hare is an animated short film released on January 5, 1935 by United Artists, produced by Walt Disney and directed by Wilfred Jackson. Based on an Aesop's fable of the same name, The Tortoise and the Hare won the 1934 Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons. This cartoon is also believed to be one of the influences for Bugs Bunny.

Gulliver washes ashore on Lilliput and attempts to prevent war between that tiny kingdom and its equally-miniscule rival, Blefiscu, as well as smooth the way for the romance between the Princess and Prince of the opposing lands. In this he is alternately aided and hampered by the Lilliputian town crier and general fussbudget, Gabby. A life-threatening situation develops when the bumbling trio of Blefiscu spies, Sneak, Snoop, and Snitch, manage to steal Gulliver's pistol.

Join Donald Duck in his debut in the classic animated short The Wise Little Hen. The Little Hen is planting corn and would like to have help from Peter Pig and Donald Duck, but they refuse stating they each have a "tummy ache." When it comes time to harvest the corn, Peter Pig and Donald still refuse to help the Hen, so she and her chicks do the harvest by themselves. Finally, the hen cooks the corn and offers some to Donald and Peter Pig, but when they look more carefully they discover a surprise.

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A 12 episode serial starring Rex, the King of the Wild Horses and Rin-Tin-Tin, Jr. Rex is brought from the island of Sujan, where he is worshiped as a God-Horse, to the U.S. to be trained as a polo pony. He escapes, meets Rinty and with the help of Frank Bradley is returned to Sujan. The natives have been persuaded to turn against their God-Horse, however he is rescued just in time before he is burned as a sacrifice.

A film about a doctor in a small idyllic town. He's an honest man who wants his patients best, but fewer and fewer visitors comes to his practice and that frustrates the doctor. A 'quack doctor' is taking his business.

A little girl goes in search of her father who is reported missing by the military during the Second Boer War.

As in the classic fable, the grasshopper plays his fiddle and lives for the moment, while the industrious ants squirrel away massive amounts of food for the winter. With his song, he's able to convince at least one small ant until the queen arrives and scares him back to work. The queen warns the grasshopper of the trouble he'll be in, come winter. Winter comes, and the grasshopper, near starvation, stumbles across the ants, who are having a full-on feast in their snug little tree. They take him in and warm him up. The queen tells him only those who work can eat so he must play for them. Written by Jon Reeves

A really nice mood bomb from Danish films golden age in the comedy genre! Peter Malberg is the somewhat goofy - but very much in love author Peter Strøm. He has fallen for the publisher's daughter, Else Fischer (played by one of the 30s biggest divas, Gull-Maj Norin). The same has just happened to the bright journalist Fritz Faber, who also intends to fight for the young Else. Naturally, this creates the classic intricacy and it all happens on board the Great America-steamer.

Tom Sawyer and his pal Huckleberry Finn have great adventures on the Mississippi River, pretending to be pirates, attending their own funeral and witnessing a murder.

A robin is shot so the woodland community holds a trial to investigate.

Harvey, the arrogant and spoiled son of an indulgent absentee-father, falls overboard from a transatlantic steamship and is rescued by a fishing vessel on the Grand Banks. Harvey fails to persuade them to take him ashore, nor convince the crew of his wealth. The captain offers him a low-paid job, until they return to port, as part of the crew that turns him into a mature, considerate young man.

Pudgy the pup meets the female pup next door, whose snobbish owner calls him a "little nobody". A pep talk from Betty Boop turns Pudgy into a hero.

After Southern belle Elizabeth Lloyd runs off to marry Yankee Jack Sherman, her father, a former Confederate colonel during the Civil War, vows to never speak to her again. Several years pass and Elizabeth returns to her home town with her husband and young daughter. The little girl charms her crusty grandfather and tries to patch things up between him and her mother.

Two boys – the prince Edward and the pauper Tom – are born on the same day. Years later, when young teenage Tom sneaks into the palace garden, he meets the prince. They change clothes with one another before the guards discover them and throw out the prince thinking he's the urchin. No one believes them when they try to tell the truth about which is which. Soon after, the old king dies and the prince will inherit the throne.

A new truant officer moves into the neighborhood, and everybody wants to get friendly with his daughter.

In Victorian England, a bored young girl dreams that she has entered a fantasy world called Wonderland, populated by even more fantastic characters.

In a return to the Out of the Inkwell format, Betty Boop invents a pep formula to speed up lazy Pudgy, but it escapes into the real world with rapid results.

The wealthy Olaf Brammer is the real owner of a nationwide company that trades in household goods. But he has no say, as the authoritative general manager Schram manages both the business and Olaf Brammer with a sure hand. The situation at work, defeat in love and a dead goldfish make Olaf Brammer depressed, and he decides to travel away from it all.

Popeye brings his magical dog, The Jeep, over to see Olive and Swee'pea, just as the tyke has escaped from his crib. The Jeep leads Popeye on a merry chase looking for Swee'pea.