In 1939 as
Hitler began his conquest of the world by invading Poland it was the dawn of
World War II, nations around the world stood on the brink of the war to end all
wars, while the great Golden Age of Hollywood was about to come to an end.
Somewhere Over the Rainbow - The Wizard of Oz (1/8)
Movie CLIP (1939)
(Double click for full screen)
Movies long played a key role in helping us get through the most difficult of times and the record number of movies, great movies, produced in that infamous year should have been a foreboding of things to come.
This article celebrates that glorious year and the films that would forever leave their mark on humanity. Enjoy the music, film clips and stories of a time long ago when when the imagination was free and the writing and acting was magnificent.
Hattie McDaniel became the first
African-American to receive an Academy Award
1939 : It was the greatest year in Hollywood history: 365
films were released and moviegoers were buying tickets at the rate of 80
million a week! What did they get for their money? A feast of light and shadow:
The movies of 50 years ago.
JACK MATHEWS
Pick a day in 1939, almost any day, and let
the tornado whirl you into a never-never land of Hollywood excellence. Pick a
day in the year that was Hollywood's best and try to imagine the luck of a
movie buff with enough dimes to see every great movie released. Pick a day and
skip past the portentous international news and go directly to the movie
listings.
Pick
Aug. 15, for instance, the day that "The Wizard of Oz" premiered at
Graumann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
Gone with the wind (Taras Theme) 1939
(Double click for full screen)
In the
news (you had to look, didn't you?), Adolf Hitler was pushing Poland toward war
and Benito Mussolini was urging the Poles not to fight back. The mayor of
Waterbury, Conn., and 19 others were being convicted of pocketing $1 million in
city funds. And in Philadelphia, a 27-year-old golfer was apologizing for
throwing a club the day before and killing his caddy.
If
1939 was a very bad year for peace (and caddies), it was the greatest of them
all for movies. If you had been around on Aug. 15 that year and weren't on
MGM's "Oz" premiere invitation list, you were not to despair.
Among
the films then playing in theaters near you: "Gunga Din," with Cary
Grant and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.; "Wuthering Heights," with Laurence
Olivier and Merle Oberon; "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," with Robert Donat;
"Dark Victory," with Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart and the dashing
newcomer Ronald Reagan; "Only Angels Have Wings," with Cary Grant and
Jean Arthur; "Love Affair," a smash box office hit starring Irene
Dunne and Charles Boyer; "The Little Princess," with Shirley Temple in
one of only eight Technicolor films on the year's release schedule;
"Juarez," a biographical drama starring Paul Muni and written by
young John Huston; "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle," the last
in a series of romantic dance movies starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers;
and "Stanley and Livingstone," with Spencer Tracy.
Don
Ameche fans had to choose between the sophisticated comedy "Midnight"
(co-written by the promising Billy Wilder), the critically acclaimed biopic
"The Story of Alexander Graham Bell" and "Hollywood
Cavalcade," which traced the history of Hollywood right up to 1939.
Five
of the movies available that week--"The Wizard of Oz," "Love
Affair," "Dark Victory," "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" and
"Wuthering Heights"--would go on to be nominated for the Academy
Award for best picture. In those days, the categories weren't limited to five,
and a good thing. The final best picture ballot also included
"Stagecoach," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Of Mice
and Men," "Ninotchka," and the movie with which the year will
always be identified, "Gone With the Wind."
"Gone
With the Wind" was released at Christmas and, incredibly, lived up to its
hype.
"We
cannot get over the shock of not being disappointed, we had almost been looking
forward to that," wrote New York Times critic Frank Nugent, alluding to
the torturous three-year publicity campaign that preceded the opening.
"Gone
With the Wind" dominated the box office the following year and, gauged by
the numbers of people who have seen it in the five succeeding decades, it is by
far the most successful motion picture ever made. But it was just one of dozens
from that year that have become library classics, movies that have been
perennial favorites at revival houses and retrospectives. Check the
"Classics" shelves at your hipper video stores and you'll find more
selections from 1939 than from any other year.
John
Ford had a career in '39 with the release of "Young Mr. Lincoln,"
"Drums Along the Mohawk" and "Stagecoach." Victor Fleming,
previously a seasoned but unremarkable veteran of adventure films, gained
immortality as the director of record on both "Gone With the Wind"
and "The Wizard of Oz."
If I Only Had a Brain - The Wizard of Oz (4/8) Movie
CLIP (1939) HD
Bette
Davis, attempting to overcome her rejection for the role of Scarlett O'Hara
through sheer volume, adorned marquees everywhere as the star of "The
Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex," "Dark Victory," "The
Old Maid" and "Juarez."
It was
the year that Garbo laughed, in Ernst Lubitsch's "Ninotchka," and
Marlene Dietrich came back in "Destry Rides Again." The year that
James Stewart, Frank Capra's wise choice as the star of "Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington," and his pal Henry Fonda, Ford's choice for "Young Mr.
Lincoln," became major stars.
David
O. Selznick, one of the most powerful producers in the era of the producer,
managed to discover Vivien Leigh and Ingrid Bergman in 1939, casting the
British Leigh in "Gone With the Wind," and the Swedish Bergman in an
American remake of "Intermezzo."
When
Judy Garland wasn't dancing with the Scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz,"
she was dancing with Mickey Rooney in
"Babes in Arms," the Busby Berkeley musical that earned Rooney an
Oscar nomination as best actor. Rooney, who had just eclipsed Shirley Temple as
Hollywood's leading box-office attraction, also appeared in three Andy Hardy
movies and--in the role he seemed born to play--"The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn."
The
movie that did the most business that year, however, was Henry King's
"Jesse James," starring reigning matinee idol Tyrone Power as Jesse
and Fonda as his brother, Frank. The only other films to bring in more than
$1.5 million at the box office were "Drums Along the Mohawk,"
"The Wizard of Oz," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and
"The Hunchback of Notre Dame."
By the
way, the Marx Brothers appeared in "At the Circus," Laurel and Hardy
were in "The Flying Deuces," William Powell returned from a long
illness to star in "Another Thin Man" with Myrna Loy, Boris Karloff
played his last monster in "The Son of Frankenstein," and W. C.
Fields did some of his funniest work in "You Can't Cheat an Honest
Man."
Cathy's Theme - from "Wuthering Heights" (1939) - Alfred Newman
Did we
mention "Dodge City," with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland? Or
Garson Kanin's "Bachelor Mother," with David Niven and Ginger Rogers?
Or Cecil B. De Mille's "Union Pacific," with Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck?
"There was an embarrassment of riches in
1939, that's for sure," said Ron Haver, director of the film department at
the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art. "When you look at the number of
great films released, there just isn't another year that comes close to
it."
There
were 365 films released in the United States in 1939, an average of one a day
and about twice the number that was released in 1988. But the most cursory scan
of those films by a knowledgeable film buff will produce 50 or more
recognizable titles. We've named 37 movies so far in this story, and we haven't
even mentioned "Idiot's Delight" (Clark Gable dances!), "The
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," and "The Hound of the
Baskervilles." Or "Gulliver's Travels"!
"An
awful lot of accidental things came into play that year," said Haver, who
is hosting a 45-picture 1939 retrospective at the museum starting Friday.
"Nazism had driven a lot of refugee film makers over here, creating a
great confluence of talent. There was a great spirit of nationalism in the
country. Americans were reinvigorated after the Depression, and the movie
industry was at its absolute peak in its ability to hold its audience."
The
magic does seem more a result of timing than anything else. From 1938-40,
America was in a strange buffer zone between a devastating domestic crisis--the
Great Depression--and the inevitable involvement in a devastating international
crisis--World War II.
In the
brief history of commercial film, Americans had developed a herd instinct about
"the movies," stampeding toward theaters in the worst of times. Movie
houses offered sanctuaries away from stress where people could become
vicariously rich and powerful, or be swept up in fantastic adventures, where
they could fall in love with implausibly gorgeous people, or have their spirits
raised and their moods altered by extravagant musicals and outrageous comedies.
Hollywood
was prepared for the crush, as never before, or since. It had been a decade
since talkies took hold, changing the medium from an operatic to a literary
form, and the studio system was flush with veteran talent.
The
Directors Guild of America had been organized in 1936 and the writers were just
getting around to it at the end of the decade. Though Hollywood ended the '30s
in the grips of studio moguls and powerful producers, the shift of creative
power had begun to swing.
Good Mornin' - 1939
In
1938, Americans were buying a phenomenal 80 million movie tickets a week. The
business was so prosperous that bankers backing up the studios became less
concerned with cost consciousness and more concerned with increased production.
The result was that producers had more freedom and were inclined to indulge
their most creative directors, those they could count on to turn out
responsible films.
Certainly,
the most creative directors showed off some of their most creative work in that
period. Ford, Capra, Howard Hawks, Leo McCarey, Ernst Lubitsch, George Stevens,
Garson Kanin, Henry King, Michael Curtiz, Edmund Goulding, Lewis Milestone and
George Marshall all had big films in '39, and Orson Welles ("Citizen
Kane"), Ford ("The Grapes of Wrath") and Walt Disney
("Fantasia") were in production on films that would shake things up
the next year.
The
output of great films at the turn of the decade was doomed to be an aberration,
a ragged peak on the quality-control chart, rather than any sign of permanent
maturation. Hollywood was on fast-forward because that was the pace of world
events. If the studio bosses had had time to reflect on what they were doing
right, they might have hired more marketing people and assured themselves a quick
turnaround.
But
the storm gathering over Europe was changing the weather here, too, and when
war formally broke out in Europe in the fall of 1939, it had a direct effect on
Hollywood. Within months, the lucrative Western European market had been been cut
off from Hollywood exports.
At the
same time, the industry suffered a domestic blow from which it would never
fully recover. In 1939, Congress passed a law prohibiting block booking, the
system by which the major studios filled theaters with double bills scheduled
at their own convenience.
When
America did enter the war, the Golden Age was over. Many of Hollywood's best
film makers and top stars joined the war effort, depleting the talent pool at
home. During the war, much of the industry's energy went into propaganda films
and jingoistic war pictures. In 1939, Anatole Litvak gave filmgoers a preview
of the shrill things to come with "Confessions of a Nazi Spy," but
even that film was so well made that it has emerged as a
classic of the genre.
Gene Autry - South of the Border (from South of the Border 1939)
Today's
film buffs can only dream what it must have been like. Pick a few days in 1939,
when Americans were trying to ignore the news and enjoy the movies.
Jan.
27. "Gunga Din" opens.
In the
news: A poll of 50,000 schoolchildren gives Hitler the nod as the world's most
hated man, with Benito Mussolini, the devil, Joe Stalin and General Franco as
the other nominees. The most loved were Franklin Roosevelt, God, George
Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Pope Pius XI.
In
entertainment: "Melodrama on a magnificent scale," says the Los
Angeles Times of "Gunga Din.".
April
20. "Wuthering Heights" opens.
In the
news: Hitler turned 50, and in Las Vegas, a poker game continued despite the
fact that Fred ("Fritz the Rooster") Martens, while attempting to
draw to an inside straight, died of a heart attack.
In
entertainment: "('Wuthering Heights') is Goldwyn at his best, and better
still, Emily Bronte at hers."--New York Times.
June
3. "Young Mr. Lincoln" opens.
In the
news: Japan Day is celebrated at World's Fair in N.Y. "Japanese officials
joined in expressing confidence in perpetual peace. . . ."
In
entertainment: "Henry Fonda's characterization (of Lincoln) is one of
those once-in-a-blue-moon things: a crossroads meeting of nature, art and a
smart casting director"--New York Times.
Nov. 10. "Ninotchka" opens."
In the
news: Hitler misses by 10 minutes being killed in a beer hall bombing. "A
man must have luck," he says.
In
entertainment: "Garbo's 'Ninotchka' is one of the sprightliest comedies of
the year."
Dec.
20. "Gone With the Wind" opens.
In the
news: Soviets and Germans have rapprochement ball. . . . Japanese optimistic
about renewing trade agreement with the United States. . . . Retailers expect a
record Christmas season.
Wizard of oz we're off to see the wizard 1939.
In
entertainment: "A major event in the history of the industry, but only a
minor achievement in motion picture art."--says The Nation critic Franz
Hoellering of "Gone With the Wind."
Steven Smith assisted with the research for this article.
Best Picture 1939
 |
| Best Picture |
The 12th Academy Award Winners
Outstanding Production: Gone with the
Wind - Selznick International Pictures
Best Actor: Robert Donat - Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Best Supporting Actor: Thomas Mitchell - Stagecoach
Best Actress: Vivien Leigh - Gone
with the Wind
Best Supporting Actress: Hattie McDaniel - Gone
with the Wind
Directing: Gone with the Wind - Victor
Fleming
Writing (Original Story): Mr. Smith Goes
to Washington - Lewis R. Foster
Writing (Screenplay): Gone with the Wind -
Sidney Howard
Legendary funnyman Bob Hope hosts the 12th Academy Awards. This marked the first of 19 times that Hope would host or co-host the ceremonies, twice as often as any other person to date.
Legendary funnyman Bob Hope hosts the 12th Academy Awards. This marked the first of 19 times that Hope would host or co-host the ceremonies, twice as often as any other person to date.
Top 15 Adjusted
Domestic Box Office Leaders 1930 – 1939
1.
Clark Gable $6,528.80 million in adjusted domestic gross
2.
Myrna Loy $4,735.10 million in adjusted domestic gross
3.
Robert Young $3,944.30 million in adjusted domestic gross
4.
Lionel Barrymore $3,691.40 million in adjusted domestic gross
5.
Olivia de Havilland $3,555.20 million in adjusted domestic gross
6.
Donald Crisp $3,418.30 million in adjusted domestic gross
7.
Wallace Beery $3,296.60 million in adjusted domestic gross
8.
Robert Montgomery $3,261.10 million in adjusted domestic
gross
9.
Gary Cooper $3,207.90 million in adjusted domestic gross
10.
Leslie Howard $3,131.90 million in adjusted domestic gross
11.
Mickey Rooney $3,069.90 million in adjusted domestic gross
12.
Dick Powell $3,047.40 million in adjusted domestic gross
13.
Tyrone Power $3,035.50 million in adjusted domestic gross
14.
Maureen O’Sullivan $3,010.10 million in adjusted domestic gross
15.
William Powell $2,969.30 million in adjusted domestic
gross
Top 15 Adjusted Domestic Box Office Leaders 1940 – 1949
1.
Van Johnson $4835.70 million in
adjusted domestic gross
2.
Bing Crosby $4613.20 million in
adjusted domestic gross
3.
Dorothy Lamour $4349.30 million in
adjusted domestic gross
4.
Walter Brennan $4125.00 million in
adjusted domestic gross
5.
Dana Andrews $4053.00 million in
adjusted domestic gross
6.
John Wayne $3987.20 million in
adjusted domestic gross
7.
Bob Hope $3978.00 million in
adjusted domestic gross
8.
Ray Milland $3865.70 million in
adjusted domestic gross
9.
Gary Cooper $3817.60 million in
adjusted domestic gross
10.
Humphrey Bogart $3675.00 million in
adjusted domestic gross
11.
Spencer Tracy $3606.20 million in
adjusted domestic gross
12.
Judy Garland $3529.20 million in
adjusted domestic gross
13.
Cary Grant $3502.00 million in
adjusted domestic gross
14.
Fred MacMurray $3478.40 million in
adjusted domestic gross
15.
Walter Pidgeon $3410.90 million in
adjusted domestic gross
