Response to Film of the 1930s

Plus-x is about as close as you'll get with a Western emulsion. That stuff doesn't seem to have changed in decades.
Many years ago I tried some Russian film. That would probably fit the bill. The colour response was more ortho- than panchromatic, grain was pretty large for 100 ISO, and the contrast was verging on lith film.
I dare say the contrast could be tamed a bit, I didn't experiment with more than a couple of cassettes of the stuff.

I think it would be a mistake to assume that 35mm work was over-grainy in the 1930s. Film speeds were generally much slower then (I'm not speaking from personal experience here!) and concepts of quality were still measured against the commonly used 5x4 press cameras.
From pictures published from that era, the main difference is in the style of the pictures rather than technical quality.

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