What do they got that I ain’t got? Courage! That pretty much sums up modern Hollywood. Classic Hollywood had boldness (and subsidies as it turns out). TCM (thank God and Ted Turner for them) actually has a show on why 1939 was such an incredible year for movie making. They were at the frontend of their monopoly, before they got fat and lazy. It was in 1941 because of the war that Congress ended some incredible tax breaks for them. And it was an undefinable juncture where you simply had an incredible number of stars. Grant, Stewart, Bogart, Wayne, Davis, Crawford, Hepburn, Garland, Rooney, Gable, O’Hara, Flynn, Powers, Fairbanks, Barrymore, Tracy, Temple, Astaire, Rogers and on and on!

They did it before computers, lasers and helicopters! Maybe the Great Depression had something to do with it, the need for escapist fantasy. Perhaps just as incredible were the wonderful films like The Hunchback of Notre Dame who didn’t get much recognition simply because they were released in the wrong year! At the link above there is a list of all the films released in 1939, its just staggering. Little did I realize my favorites would end up being Stagecoach, Andy Hardy, Goodbye Mr. Chips and The Wizard of Oz.

[Wikipedia] “The year 1939 was one in which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated ten films for Best Picture”:

• Dark Victory
• Gone with the Wind (Best Picture winner)
• Goodbye, Mr. Chips
• Love Affair
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
• Ninotchka
• Of Mice and Men
• Stagecoach
• The Wizard of Oz
• Wuthering Heights