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Films such as “All of Me,” directed by James Flood, are not available on DVD; many ar

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Typical images of the 1930s in America: the Great Depression, migrant farm workers, Herbert Hoover.

Few think of cinema. But the 1930s mark one of the most heralded decades in movie history.

The Crank, a graduate student film association, celebrates this feature-rich era with its series of film screenings for this quarter, “Sin & Seduction: Film Treasures from the 1930s.” Film screenings take place on Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. at the James Bridges Theater and are free of charge.

All of the films in the series are taken from the UCLA Film and Television Archive, a world-renowned host of dozens of rare and precious films that happens to specialize in the era.

“We have a great archive at UCLA, and the bulk of the collection is films from the ’30s and ’40s,” said Emily Carman, a critical studies graduate student in the UCLA Department of Film, Television and Digital Media.

Carman, who is writing her dissertation thesis on 1930s female film stardom in Hollywood, finds films from the decade particularly fascinating.

“It might be one of the strongest periods of American cinema,” she said. “There wasn’t television, there weren’t all these other competing leisure entertainment formats. Movies really were a mass form of entertainment. It was the dominant form, so I think there was a higher investment in quality and it really was a pure cultural pastime.”

According to Andy Woods, a critical studies graduate student and also a programmer for the series, 1930s cinema is particularly interesting for both quality and quantity.

“In the ’30s, the studios were just cranking out tons of films each week, so there’s a large quantity of films from that period,” he said. “It’s interesting because from a programming standpoint there’s a large quantity of films to choose from in the archive, but also the ’30s were a troublesome time for America. It’s a very fertile period, in terms of the kinds of themes and issues that were dealt with in the films.”

The movie industry was not exempt from the ravaging effects of the Great Depression, and films made during the early ’30s reflect the themes and changes wrought directly or indirectly by economic crises. Studios that wanted to entertain their audiences turned to unconventional material, but critics chastised them for producing films that were too controversial. Eventually, major studios received enough bad press about the explicit material in their films and lost so much money from the Depression that they created the Production Code Administration.

Films made after 1934 were in accordance with this code, but at least two films The Crank is screening were made before 1934 and show just how raw the films had been.

“There were a lot of issues being dealt with pre-1934 that people don’t remember,” said Woods. “Those films were never re-released because they couldn’t get a production deal after 1934, and if they were played on television, they would be heavily edited.”

Luckily for UCLA students, the archive has plenty of these cinematic gems that can be shown on the big screen in their original form.

“What’s unique about The Crank is that it’s a film society at a university, but it’s one that’s connected to an archive,” said Crank president and graduate student Savitri Young. “Most people who run film societies, or most student groups who might run film societies at a university, don’t have access to an archive.”

The Film and Television archive preservationists are constantly hard at work preserving and restoring original 35-mm film prints, a difficult yet imperative task. Unlike movies on DVD or VHS, movies on film – usually a biodegradable nitrate cellulose film stock – before 1950 are especially susceptible to age and deterioration.

The Crank is screening several preserved films in this quarter’s series.

“That was another agenda we had,” Carman said. “A lot of (these films) are not on DVD yet, so they’re not available unless you come to our series. ‘She Wanted a Millionaire’ was preserved by UCLA, as were the openers, ‘Monte Carlo’ and ‘Love Me Tonight.’ You’re not going be able to get them on Netflix.”

Many cinephiles, including Carman, feel the golden age of cinema has truly gone.

“I feel the stars and the directors and the stories really made a moment in American cinema that worked really well,” she said. “It has to do with movies being in a more competing format, and I just think a high quality of talent and the right moment made it all work. I could just watch them forever.”