TCM Schedule for Friday, July 5, 2019 -- What's On Tonight: 1939: Hollywood's Golden Year

[Staph]

Today TCM begins a month-long celebration of what is arguably Hollywood's best year, 1939. Take it away, Roger!

Often heralded as the "The Greatest Year in Movies," 1939 saw an incredible lineup of timeless film masterpieces along with a bumper crop of expertly made entertainments. Audiences embraced this bounty of movie treasures by showing up at the nation's theaters in droves. According to the L.A. Times, 365 films were released during the year and moviegoers were buying tickets at the rate of 80 million a week!

TCM salutes this incredible cinematic year with a showcase of more than 40 movies including the crown jewel of 1939 and the year's Best Picture Oscar winner, Gone With the Wind, David O. Selznick's spectacular epic of the Civil War starring Clark Gable and Oscar winner Vivien Leigh. Also screening is the year's other marvel, MGM's fantastic musical adventure The Wizard of Oz, with Judy Garland in a truly iconic performance.

Included in the tribute are two screenings of the 2009 documentary 1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year, a review of the period's classics directed by Constantine Nasr, narrated by Kenneth Branagh and distributed by TCM and Warner Home Video.

Our acknowledgement of this amazing year also includes such dramas as Goodbye, Mr. Chips, with a touching performance by Robert Donat as a gentle schoolteacher, which earned him the Best Actor Oscar despite formidable competition; Young Mr. Lincoln, a study of the early life of Abraham Lincoln as played by Henry Fonda; and Only Angels Have Wings, director Howard Hawks' salute to pilots everywhere in the story of an airline head (Cary Grant) who is devoted to delivering the mail despite all hazards.

Other indelible dramas include The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a dramatization of the Victor Hugo novel with Charles Laughton in an unforgettable performance as the hunchback Quasimodo; and The Roaring Twenties, an epic crime film from director Raoul Walsh starring James Cagney as a gangster whose rise and fall are tied to Prohibition and bootlegging, with Humphrey Bogart in a supporting role as his ruthless right-hand man.

Bette Davis gets a drama category of her own with three of her films that were released in 1939. She won a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Dark Victory, directed by Edmund Goulding, in which she plays a socialite who discovers that she is dying of a brain tumor. In The Old Maid, again under the direction of Goulding, Davis plays the title character - a Civil War-era woman who has a baby out of wedlock. And in Juarez, directed by William Dieterle, Davis is cast as the wife of Maximilian I (Brian Aherne), the monarch of the Second Mexican Empire, during his 1863 political struggle with Benito Juárez (Paul Muni).

In the comedy/drama category are Love Affair, an often-remade story of shipboard romance with Charles Boyer and Oscar nominee Irene Dunne; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which brought James Stewart an Oscar nomination for his role as a newly appointed U.S. Senator fighting corruption in Washington; and Idiot's Delight, Robert E. Sherwood's screen adaptation of his play about a group of disparate travelers (including Clark Gable and Norma Shearer) who are thrown together at an Alpine hotel at the start of World War II.

Among the outright comedies is Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka, which brought an Oscar nomination to Greta Garbo for her portrayal of a strict Soviet envoy whose resistance to the West is worn down by the charms of Paris and a count played by Melvyn Douglas. The Women is George Cukor's classic film version of the Clare Booth Luce stage comedy about catty women, with a dream cast headed by Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Rosalind Russell. It's a Wonderful World, a screwball comedy directed by W.S. Van Dyke, stars James Stewart as a detective who is suspected of being an accessory to murder and, in an effort to avoid capture, kidnaps a poetess (Claudette Colbert).

Adventure films in our collection include The Four Feathers, a much-filmed story based on the novel by A.E.W. Mason and considered to have been given its best screen treatment in the 1939 British version directed by Zoltan Korda. Set during the wars in Africa under the reign of Queen Victoria, the story concerns a young British officer (John Clements) who must redeem himself after being accused of cowardice.

The Little Princess, another adventure set during the Victorian era, is based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett and marked Shirley Temple's last major hit as a child star. She plays a girl whose life in London is disrupted when her father (Ian Hunter) is called to fight in the Second Boer War. Gunga Din, set in colonial British India and inspired by the Rudyard Kipling poem, is directed by George Stevens and features a cast that includes Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as British soldiers battling a murderous cult.

by Roger Fristoe

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- THE FOUR FEATHERS (1939)
A disgraced officer risks his life to help his childhood friends in battle.
Dir: Zoltan Korda
Cast: John Clements, Ralph Richardson, C. Aubrey Smith
C-115 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- Georges Périnal and Osmond Borradaile

The action scenes, photographed by Osmond Borradaile, were not only filmed where the historical battles had taken place, but also included among the many extras, people who had witnessed or participated in the fighting more than forty years earlier. These battle scenes further benefitted from Director Zoltan Korda's expertise at large-scale action and his early experience as a cavalry officer.


8:15 AM -- DODGE CITY (1939)
A soldier of fortune takes on the corrupt boss of a Western town.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Ann Sheridan
C-104 mins, CC,

Olivia de Havilland regarded the project as a career letdown. She was tired of the string of ingenue parts Warners steadily provided, and her preference for the saloon singer role that went to Ann Sheridan went unheeded. "It was a period in which she was given to constant fits of crying and long days spent at home in bed," declared Tony Thomas in "The Films of Olivia de Havilland" (Citadel Press). "She was bored with her work and while making 'Dodge City' she claims that she even had trouble remembering her lines."


10:15 AM -- ON BORROWED TIME (1939)
An old man and his grandson trap Death in a tree.
Dir: Harold S. Bucquet
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Beulah Bondi
BW-99 mins, CC,

The original Broadway production of "On Borrowed Time" by Paul Osborn opened at the Longacre Theater on February 3, 1938, closing in November 1938 after 321 performances. The major players (with their character names) were Dudley Digges (Julian Northrup - Gramps), Frank Conroy (Mr. Brinks), Dorothy Stickney (Nellie - Granny), Jean Adair (Demetria Riffle) and Peter Miner (Pud).


12:00 PM -- YOUNG MR. LINCOLN (1939)
The future president considers a political career while practicing law.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Henry Fonda, Alice Brady, Marjorie Weaver
BW-100 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Lamar Trotti

Henry Fonda originally turned down the role of Lincoln, saying he didn't think he could play such a great man. He changed his mind after John Ford asked him to do a screen test in full makeup. After viewing himself as Lincoln in the test footage, Fonda liked what he saw, and accepted the part. He later told an interviewer, "I felt as if I were portraying Christ himself on film."


1:45 PM -- THE OLD MAID (1939)
An unmarried mother gives her illegitimate child to her cousin.
Dir: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, George Brent
BW-95 mins, CC,

On her first day on the set, Hopkins wore an exact duplicate of the dress Davis had worn in Jezebel. Davis reflected on this time with Hopkins in her autobiography with the following observations "Miriam used and, I must give her credit, knew every trick in the book. I became fascinated watching them appear one by one. When she was supposed to be listening to me, her eyes would wander off into some other world in which she was the sweetest of them all. Her restless little spirit was impatiently awaiting her next line, her golden curls quivering with expectancy."


3:45 PM -- ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS (1939)
A team of flyers risks their lives to deliver the mail in a mountainous South American country.
Dir: Howard Hawks
Cast: Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Richard Barthelmess
BW-121 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Walker, and Best Effects, Special Effects -- Roy Davidson (photographic) and Edwin C. Hahn (sound)

Howard Hawks and Jean Arthur did not get along during filming. Arthur was not used to Hawks' highly improvisational style, and when Hawks wanted Arthur to play Bonnie much in a subtly sexy way (not unlike his other Hawksian women), Arthur flatly said, "I can't do that kind of stuff." Hawks told Arthur at the end of the shoot, "You are one of the few people I've worked with that I don't think I've helped at all. Someday you can go see what I wanted to do because I'm gonna do this character all over again." Years later Hawks returned home to find Arthur waiting for him in his driveway. She had just seen his To Have and Have Not (1944) and confessed, "I wish I'd done what you'd asked me to do. If you ever make another picture with me, I'll promise to do any goddamn thing you want to do. If a kid (Lauren Bacall) can come in and do that kind of stuff, I certainly could do it." Hawks and Arthur never collaborated again.


6:00 PM -- NINOTCHKA (1939)
A coldhearted Soviet agent is warmed up by a trip to Paris and a night of love.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire
BW-110 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greta Garbo, Best Writing, Original Story -- Melchior Lengyel, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch and Billy Wilder, and Best Picture

The tagline "Garbo laughs!" came before the screenplay was written; the film was built around that single, now legendary, slogan. This slogan was itself a reference to another legendary advertising slogan about Greta Garbo. Garbo, a famous leading lady of the silent film era, made her first talking picture, Anna Christie, in 1930. That film was advertised, to great success, with the slogan "Garbo Talks!". When she made this comedy the "Garbo Laughs!" tagline resonated with her fans.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 1939: HOLLYWOOD'S GOLDEN YEAR



8:00 PM -- THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)
A Kansas farm girl dreams herself into a magical land where she must fight a wicked witch to escape.
Dir: Victor Fleming
Cast: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger
C-102 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Music, Original Song -- Harold Arlen (music) and E.Y. Harburg (lyrics) for the song "Over the Rainbow", and Best Music, Original Score -- Herbert Stothart

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Harold Rosson, Best Art Direction -- Cedric Gibbons and William A. Horning, Best Effects, Special Effects -- A. Arnold Gillespie (photographic) and Douglas Shearer (sound), and Best Picture

In 1898 Dorothy Louise Gage was born to the brother and sister-in-law of Maud Gage Baum, wife of author L. Frank Baum. When little Dorothy died exactly five months later Maud was heartbroken. Baum was just finishing "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and, to comfort his wife, named his heroine after Dorothy, changing her last name to Gale in his second book. Dorothy Gage was buried in Evergreen Memorial Cemetery in Bloomington, IL, where her grave was forgotten until 1996 when it was rediscovered. When Mickey Carroll, one of the last existing Munchkins from the movie, learned of the discovery, he was eager to replace her deteriorated grave marker with a new one created by his own monument company. The new stone was dedicated in 1997 and the children's section of the cemetery renamed the Dorothy L. Gage Memorial Garden, in the hope that bereaved families would be comforted in thinking of their lost children as being with Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz."


10:00 PM -- 1939: HOLLYWOOD'S GREATEST YEAR (2009)
This documentary focuses on 1939, considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, with film clips and insight into what made the year so special.
Dir: Constantine Nasr
Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Leonard Maltin,
C-68 mins, CC,

Features scenes from Son of Frankenstein (1939), Stagecoach (1939), Wuthering Heights (1939), The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939), Dodge City (1939), Dark Victory (1939), Union Pacific (1939), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), Each Dawn I Die (1939), The Wizard of Oz (1939), The Women (1939), Babes in Arms (1939), At the Circus (1939), The Roaring Twenties (1939), Ninotchka (1939), Destry Rides Again (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939), Of Mice and Men (1939), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) and Babes on Broadway (1941).


11:15 PM -- THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1939)
A deformed bell ringer rescues a gypsy girl falsely accused of witchcraft and murder.
Dir: William Dieterle
Cast: Charles Laughton, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Thomas Mitchell
BW-117 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Sound, Recording -- John Aalberg (RKO Radio SSD), and Best Music, Scoring -- Alfred Newman

The scene in which Quasimodo rings the cathedral bells for Esmeralda was shot the day World War II began in Europe. The director and star were so overwhelmed, the scene took on a new meaning, with Charles Laughton ringing the bells frantically and William Dieterle forgetting to yell "cut." Finally, the actor just stopped ringing when he became too tired to continue. Later, Laughton said, "I couldn't think of Esmeralda in that scene at all. I could only think of the poor people out there, going in to fight that bloody, bloody war! To arouse the world, to stop that terrible butchery! Awake! Awake! That's what I felt when I was ringing the bells!"


1:30 AM -- GUNGA DIN (1939)
Three British soldiers seek treasure during an uprising in India.
Dir: George Stevens
Cast: Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks
BW-117 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph H. August

Sabu was the first choice to play Gunga Din; when it became clear he was unavailable, Sam Jaffe was hired in his place. In an interview years later, Jaffe (a Jewish Russian-American) was asked how he so convincingly played an Indian Hindu. Jaffe replied he kept telling himself to "Think Sabu."


3:45 AM -- RABID (1977)
A young woman develops a taste for human blood after undergoing experimental plastic surgery, and her victims turn into rabid, blood-thirsty zombies.
Dir: David Cronenberg
Cast: Joe Silver, Evelyn Lang, Susan Roman
BW-91 mins, CC,

Sissy Spacek was David Cronenberg's first choice to play Rose. Ivan Reitman suggested Marilyn Chambers because he wanted sex appeal.


5:30 AM -- KEEP OFF THE GRASS (1969)
The dangers of marijuana are outlined in this educational short film.
Dir: Ib Melchior
Cast: J. Edward McKinley,
C-21 mins,

Al Pacino's film debut.

[TeamPooka]

1. all month? we'll get to see everything from that year, not just the Oscar winners.