Page "History of film" Paragraph 164

At this time, American gangster films like Little Caesar and Wellman's The Public Enemy ( both 1931 ) became popular.

Dialogue now took precedence over " slapstick " in Hollywood comedies: the fast-paced, witty banter of The Front Page ( 1931 ) or It Happened One Night ( 1934 ), the sexual double entrendres of Mae West ( She Done Him Wrong, 1933 ) or the often subversively anarchic nonsense talk of the Marx Brothers ( Duck Soup, 1933 ).

Walt Disney, who had previously been in the short cartoon business, stepped into feature films with the first English-speaking animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ; released by RKO Pictures in 1937.

1939, a major year for American cinema, brought such films as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with The Wind.