The following is an overview of 1933 in film, including significant events, a list of films released, and notable births and deaths.
Mae Murray was an American actress, dancer, film producer, and screenwriter. Murray rose to fame during the silent film era and was known as "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips" and "The Gardenia of the Screen".
William Lawrence Boyd was an American film actor who is known for portraying the cowboy hero Hopalong Cassidy.
AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars is the American Film Institute's list ranking the top 25 female and 25 male greatest screen legends of American film history and is the second list of the AFI 100 Years... series.
William Joseph Patrick O'Brien was an American film actor with more than 100 screen credits. Of Irish descent, he often played Irish and Irish-American characters and was referred to as "Hollywood's Irishman in Residence" in the press. One of the best-known screen actors of the 1930s and 1940s, he played priests, cops, military figures, pilots, and reporters. He is especially well-remembered for his roles in Knute Rockne, All American (1940), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), and Some Like It Hot (1959). He was frequently paired onscreen with Hollywood star James Cagney. O'Brien also appeared on stage and television.
Mae Clarke was an American actress. She is widely remembered for playing Henry Frankenstein's bride Elizabeth, who is chased by Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, and for being on the receiving end of James Cagney's halved grapefruit in The Public Enemy. Both films were released in 1931.
The United States competed at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland. 286 competitors - 245 men and 41 women - took part in 133 events in 18 sports. It won 76 medals, including 6 podium sweeps; the highest number of medal sweeps in a single Olympiad by one country since World War II and still a record.
DeWitt Clarke Jennings was an American film and stage actor. He appeared in 17 Broadway plays between 1906 and 1920, and in more than 150 films between 1915 and 1937.
Flowing Gold is a 1940 American adventure film starring John Garfield, Frances Farmer, and Pat O'Brien. It was based on the novel of the same name by Rex Beach. The novel had already been adapted to film in 1924 but that was in silent form. The 1940 film with audible dialogue is set in the American oilfields and the title refers to oil.
Helen Ware was an American stage and film actress.
Oil for the Lamps of China is a 1935 drama film starring Pat O'Brien and Josephine Hutchinson. It is based on the novel of the same name by Alice Tisdale Hobart. A man blindly puts his faith in his employer. The film was loosely remade in 1941 as Law of the Tropics.
Those Who Dance is a 1930 American Pre-Code crime film produced and distributed by Warner Bros., directed by William Beaudine, and starring Monte Blue, Lila Lee, William "Stage" Boyd and Betty Compson. It is a remake of the 1924 silent film Those Who Dance starring Bessie Love and Blanche Sweet. The story, written by George Kibbe Turner, was based on events which actually took place among gangsters in Chicago.
The Flying Fool is a 1929 aviation-themed film produced and distributed by Pathé Exchange as both a silent film and sound film just as Hollywood was transitioning to filming with sound. Tay Garnett directed and William Boyd, Russell Gleason and Marie Prevost starred.
Strictly Personal is a 1933 American pre-Code drama film directed by Ralph Murphy, written by Beatrice Banyard, Willard Mack, Wilson Mizner, Casey Robinson and Robert T. Shannon, and starring Marjorie Rambeau, Dorothy Jordan, Eddie Quillan, Edward Ellis, Louis Calhern, Dorothy Burgess and Rollo Lloyd. It was released on March 17, 1933, by Paramount Pictures.
Burning Gold is a 1936 American drama film directed by Sam Newfield and starring William Boyd, Judith Allen and Lloyd Ingraham. It is a modern-day western about a World War I veteran who becomes a wildcat prospector for oil and enjoys a major strike.
Destination Unknown is a 1933 American pre-Code drama film directed by Tay Garnett and written by Tom Buckingham. The film stars Pat O'Brien, Ralph Bellamy, Alan Hale, Sr., Russell Hopton, Tom Brown and Betty Compson. The film was released on April 1, 1933, by Universal Pictures.
The Final Edition is a 1932 American crime drama film directed by Howard Higgin and starring Pat O'Brien, Mae Clark and Morgan Wallace. Made by Columbia Pictures, it is based on a story by Roy Chanslor.
Tom O'Brien was an American silent and sound character actor known for his burly serio-comic roles.
Rollo Lloyd was an American actor who appeared in about 65 films. His films include Today We Live, Strictly Personal, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Mad Love, Magnificent Obsession, The Devil-Doll, Anthony Adverse, Seventh Heaven, Armored Car, The Last Train from Madrid, Souls at Sea and The Lady in the Morgue, among others.
Flaming Love, also known as Frivolous Sal, is a 1925 American silent Western film directed by Victor Schertzinger for First National Pictures. The film involves a female saloon owner in the Old West, her weak-willed new actor husband, and his young son from a previous relationship.
