Well they were of course in black and white, but something often forgotten was their use of musical numbers in which the actors played a part, while this is laughable today as it is not realistic (people don’t burst into song and even if they did there wouldn’t be an orchestra playing from nowhere), one must remember that an objective of movies is to be entertaining, and indeed they were. Here is a nice tune from Hats Off (1936)
Oh yes… great tune indeed!