1930s Fantasy 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.

Adventurous filmmaker Carl Denham sets out to produce a motion picture unlike anything the world has seen before. Alongside his leading lady Ann Darrow and his first mate Jack Driscoll, they arrive on an island and discover a legendary creature said to be neither beast nor man. Denham captures the monster to be displayed on Broadway as King Kong, the eighth wonder of the world.

Crash Corrigan, a recent graduate of Annapolis, and Diana, a go-getting reporter, join Professor Norton for a search for the source of a string of earthquakes, Atlantis. They ride Prof. Norton's rocket submarine searching the sea and little Billy Norton, the professor's son stows away, of course. When they find Atlantis they are caught in a war between peaceful Atlanteans, note their white capes, and war-monging Atlanteans, note their black capes. After many harrowing moments for Crash, Diana, Prof. Norton and Billy, they barely get away with their lives when they escape a tower of Atlantis raised to the surface for the sole purpose of dominating or destroying the Earth (Which one depends on the compliance of the upper world dwellers.)

When his mother dies, young Peter Ibbetson leaves Paris and his best friend, Mary, behind to live with a severe uncle in England. Years later, Peter is an architect with little time for women, until he begins a project with the Duke and Duchess of Towers. When Peter and the duchess become great friends, she reveals that she is Mary — but the duke soon suspects his wife of infidelity and challenges Peter to a duel, threatening the pair's second chance.

Hajj, a rascally beggar on the periphery of the court of Baghdad, schemes to marry his daughter to royalty and to win the heart of the queen of the castle himself. This is a German-language version made in Hollywood along side the 1930 production directed by John Francis Dillon.

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.

Allan Gray, a young man fascinated by the supernatural, goes to a small village where he feels a sinister force descending upon him. There, Allan meets an old man who asks him to protect his two daughters, for one of them has been bitten by a vampire.

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.

French version of the Selma Lagerlof story, most famously filmed in 1921 by Victor Sjostrom, about a poor sinner who only realizes what misery he's wrought when he dies on New Year's Eve and is collected by Death in his carriage.

British diplomat Robert Conway and a small group of civilians crash-land in the Himalayas, where they are rescued by the inhabitants of the hidden, idyllic valley of Shangri-La. Protected by the mountains from the world outside, where the clouds of World War II are gathering, Shangri-La provides a seductive escape for the world-weary Conway.

Film shows the story of Papageno (the one from Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute"), who wants a mate, yet has difficulties getting one.

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.

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

Junta is hated by the people in the village where she lives, especially by the women, who suspect her of being a witch. Only she can climb the nearby mountains to a cave high up, whence a mysterious blue light glows when the moon is full. Many young men of the village have died trying to follow her. She is driven out of town, and takes to living in the mountains. Eventually she shares the secret of the blue light with one man, and he betrays it.

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.

Mickey has been reading Alice in Wonderland, and falls asleep. He finds himself on the other side of the mirror, where the furniture is alive.

Madcap couple George and Marion Kerby are killed in an automobile accident. They return as ghosts to try and liven up the regimented lifestyle of their friend and bank president, Cosmo Topper. When Topper starts to live it up, it strains relations with his stuffy wife.

New York, 1980: airplanes have replaced cars, numbers have replaced names, pills have replaced food, government-arranged marriages have replaced love, and test tube babies have replaced ... well, you get the idea. Scientists revive a man struck by lightning in 1930; he is rechristened "Single O". He is befriended by J-21, who can't marry the girl of his dreams because he isn't "distinguished" enough -- until he is chosen for a 4-month expedition to Mars by a renegade scientist. The Mars J-21, his friend, and stowaway Single O visit is full of scantily clad women doing Busby Berkeley-style dance numbers and worshiping a fat middle-aged man.

A chef helps a housewife cook a duck dinner that will not give her husband indigestion.

Mistaken identity, unrequited love, and the supernatural are combined in Shakespeare's classic set in the woods of Greece on a moonlit night.

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.

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

Short black and white surrealist film from Man Ray starring himself and Meret Oppenheim.

Thrown out of the house into the backyard, the three kittens are sheltered by a giant Saint Bernard and are tormented by a turtle and a bluebird.

A strange animal attack turns a botanist into a bloodthirsty monster.

Santa's little helpers must hurry to finish the toys before Christmas Day.

The goddess is greeted by dancing flowers and fairies. The devil comes and takes her away to be his queen. She's despondent, as winter settles in above ground. But the devil isn't happy either, and offers anything to make her happy. They reach an agreement: she'll spend six months above ground and six below. Thus we have seasons.

After a thousand years, the Taoist master Huang Hua Guan and his disciples regained human forms, as did the seven spider spirits, who vowed to abandon evil. To warn others, the Taoist priests told this story: Fifteen hundred years later, student Xiao Liu mistakenly entered a women’s bathroom and saw Wenxia bathing, leading to his public humiliation. When his sister Liu Cui reported it, Wenxia framed her, prompting Liu Cui to swear revenge. Wenxia, who had many boyfriends, stirred rivalry between Lu Xing and Chunfeng. During a trip, Wenxia and Chunfeng were attacked by someone bribed by Liu Cui, and both were injured. Daxiong saved Wenxia but had bad intentions, leading to a fight in which Lu Xing, Chunfeng, and Daxiong died, and Wenxia was trapped. Liu Cui was arrested for murder. Hearing this story, Wukong appeared, scaring the demons into releasing the Tang Monk.

In a Polish shtetl, two young men who have grown up together betrothe their unborn children, ignoring the advice of a mysterious traveler not to pledge the lives of future generations. Soon after, one of them dies, and the wife of the other dies in childbirth. The children grow up in different towns, without ever knowing of the betrothal, but the power of the vow leads them to meet each other when they are marriageable. The young woman, Leah, is promised to another man, but Channon, the son of the father who died, is a practitioner of mysticism, and seeks to win his bride through sorcery.

In a poet’s room, an armless statue abruptly comes to life. It invites the poet to step through a mirror and to discover another world. Strange places and characters present themselves to him. The poet tears himself away from these twisted fascinations and returns, with some difficulty, to his room.

By Nikolai Gogol's "May Night, or the Drowned Maiden". Son of a stubborn mayor can not get his father's agreement to marry an ordinary peasant girl. Unexpectedly he gets the help from an "evil force"

Line, Annette's daughter, is about to marry a man she's not in love with. At the engagement party three ghosts revisit their disastrous relationships with Annette and decide to take action to help Line.

This one has it all, the apprentice, the multiplying brooms, the buckets of water, everything that the Fantasia sequence has.

In the only Betty Boop color cartoon, Cinderella (Betty) goes to the ball thanks to her fairy godmother. Later, only her foot fits the glass slipper.

When a young girl finds out that, due to her existence, her seven brothers are struck by a curse and have to live their lives as ravens, she goes out in a quest to find them. Considered to be the first German feature length stop motion film.

When a giant threatens the land, the cityfolk mistake Mickey's boast of killing seven flies with one blow to be giants. He is then forced to fight the giant for real.

A film combining live action and stop-motion animation about the adventures of the wooden boy Pinocchio and his friends - Pierrot, Malvina and Artemon the Poodle, about the mysterious golden key that opens the cherished door, about the good Papa Carlo and the evil Karabas-Barabas, Duremar, Basilio the Cat and Alice the Fox.

1938 screen adaptation of the 1904 musical version of the classic Hungarian fairy tale poem by Sándor Petőfi about the romantic adventures of Kukorica Jancsi and his beloved Iluska.