Books and Movies
of the 1920s
Maddie Jackson & Abbey
Robertson
Overview
•
time period known as the lost generation
•
intolerance toward immigrants and socialist led many writers to see america as grossly provincial
•
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the excess of the jazz age
•
The Great Gatsby
•
Ernest Hemingway-- The Sun Also Rises
•
T.S. Eliot
•
Eugene O’neil
•
Sinclair Lewis
Overview cont.
• movie industry was created for mass audiences
• Charlie Chaplin
• The Hays Office
• the 1st talking picture, The Jazz Singer, appeared in 1927
• Walt Disney released Mickey Mouse’s Steamboat Willie the following year
• over 100 million viewers attended the movie houses each week by the end of the decade
The Great Gatsby & Fitzgerald
•
Fitzgerald’s most famous novel
•
highlights the opulence of american materialism while harshly criticizing its morality
•
all about the american dream
•
importance of honesty, the temptations of wealth, and the struggle to escape the past
•
difference and significance of new and old money, as well as dirty money
•
book remained a phenomenon and later became a movie in 1974 then again in 2013
•
attended Princeton 1913-1917
•
served in WW1 not in combat
•
wrote novels and later wrote screen plays
•
Zelda, his wife, spent her last days in mental institutions after never fully recovering from a breakdown
•
Fitzgerald died of a heart attack while eating a chocolate bar in 1940
Walt Disney Timeline
•
1923 - Walt resigns himself to bankruptcy and moves to Hollywood planning to become a director.
•
1924 - Walt hires his first animator
•
Signed a contract with M.J Winkler to produce the Alice Comedies
•
1926 - The name “Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio” changes to “The Walt Disney Studio”
•
1927 - Oswald the Lucky Rabbit debuts
•
1928 - Walt loses the Oswald series
•
Walt and Roy (his brother) come up with Mickey & Minnie Mouse
•
Steamboat Willie debuts (the first synchronized cartoon)
•
1929 - The Skeleton Dance debuts (the first Silly Symphonies Cartoon)
Alice Comedies
● Series of short films
featuring Alice and Julius, a
cat.
● Walt had a commercial short
from which he earned $500
from and spent that on his
new film, Alice’s Wonderland.
● There were 56 Alice
Comedies produced between
1923-1927.
Steamboat Willie
● The first sound cartoon,
and was the first to
feature synchronized
sound
● Has a running time of
7:45
● This introduced the
world’s most popular
cartoon character
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
● A character in the
Alice Comedies
● The first Disney
character to generate
merchandise
● Was a “spunky and
mischievous” character
● The first Oswald
Cartoon was Trolley
Troubles
The Skeleton Dance
● When night falls, 4
skeletons rise and
dance to music they
make by using each
other as instruments.
● Appeared in a lot of
Mickey Mouse’s short
films
● Was the original of
the Silly Symphonies
“‘The twenties’ is an entrenched concept in
American historiography, but the precise
beginning and end of this period, and the
evaluations of it, vary from writer to writer.”
-Burl Noggle
Bibliography
•
http://www.neabigread.org/books/greatgatsby/
•
http://www.ushistory.org/us/47d.asp
•
http://www.justdisney.com/walt_disney/timeline/
•
http://thisdayindisneyhistory.homestead.com/alicecomedies.html
•
http://thisdayindisneyhistory.homestead.com/oswaldrabbit.html
•
http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Steamboat_Willie
•
http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/The_Skeleton_Dance
•
https://d23.com/disney-history/
•
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1894201?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents