Series Site
There’s no simple explanation as to what drives nostalgia cycles, but in the United States the 1970s had a few different reasons to be looking in the rearview mirror at the 1930s. Maybe the era of “stagflation” felt some kinship with that of the Great Depression, and a similar disillusion with the American Dream; maybe it was a matter of rediscovering the glamor of Art Deco and Old Hollywood fashion in a time of anonymous corporate architecture and polyester—whatever the reason, three decades later the ’30s were back in a major way, from Three Stooges movies on UHF television to a flotilla of films from some of the finest directors working in so-called “New Hollywood”: Roberts Altman and Aldrich, Peter Bogdanovich, Roman Polanski, Walter Hill, and many more. We can’t explain the affinity that existed between the heydays of hot jazz and disco, but we can say that the movies that came from it are begging to be screened.