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The History of American Cinema: 1939

October - December

6/10 -

MGM’s Ninotchka, whose posters loudly proclaim ‘Garbo Laughs!’ is released.   Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, Melvyn Douglas co-stars as the charming westerner for whom the communist Garbo falls during her mission to Paris to bring three wayward comrades (played by Sig Ruman, Felix Bressart and Alexander Granach) back to the motherland. [ADD]

19/10 -

Frank Capra’s political satire Mr Smith Goes to Washington, starring James Stewart as a naïve newly-elected politician, is released.   The film meets with a less than enthusiastic reception from the real practitioners of politics in Washington. [ADD]

10/11 -

Deanna Durbin, just shy of her eighteenth birthday, receives her first screen kiss in Universal’s First Love.   Robert Stack, in his film debut, is the man to deliver her inaugural smacker. [ADD]

18/11 -

The Fleischer Studio’s Gulliver’s Travels premieres at the Sheridan Theater in Miami Beach, Florida.   It is the first feature-length film made in the US by a studio other than Disney.   Upon viewing it, Disney is reported to have remarked, “We can do better than that with our second-string animators.” [ADD]

9/12 -

MGM release Peace on Earth, an animated short in which animals recall the extinction of man.   As the world embarks on a war that will engulf the world, the film is nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. [ADD]

12/12 -

Screen legend Douglas Fairbanks dies of a heart attack at the age of 56 at his home in Santa Monica. [ADD]

15/12 -

The long-awaited premiere of the $4 million budget Gone With the Wind takes place in Atlanta, Georgia.   The screening is the culmination of nearly three years work.   Around fifteen scriptwriters and four directors are reputed to have worked on the project at various times.  The stellar cast is led by Clark Gable as Rhett Butler and English actress Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara.   Leigh beat off competition for the role from the likes of Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Paulette Goddard, Loretta Young and Susan Hayward.   Every Technicolor camera in Hollywood was used to capture the torching of Atlanta sequence, and the final product runs a staggering 3 hours and 42 minutes. [ADD]

21/12 -

The Daily Worker’s film critic is fired for failing to be critical enough in his review of Gone With the Wind, which the paper considers to be an apology for slavery. [ADD]

31/12 -

The top three grossing films in the US in 1939 are Babes in Arms, Drums Along the Mohawk, and Goodbye, Mr Chips. [ADD]

– Mary Ellen Bute and Norman McLaren’s Spook Sport, an expressionistic interpretation of Saint-Saen’s Danse Macabre, is released. [ADD]

– Harry Smith’s Avant-Garde 3-minute abstract animation, Number 1, is released. [ADD]

– Fred Waller and Ralph Walker demonstrate Vitarama – the forerunner of Cinerama – at the Petroleum Industry exhibit at the New York World’s Fair. [ADD]

– Swiss inventor Hans Laube demonstrates his projectionist-operated Scentovision (better known today as Smell-o-Vision) contraption for piping smells into a cinema. [ADD]

– The Screen Actors Guild brings in a ruling prohibiting artists’ agents from acting as producer – although waivers are regularly allowed. [ADD]

– The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences officially adopts the nickname of 'Oscar' for its Academy Award statuette. [ADD]

– A new lens coating is developed that allows 75% more light to reach the film in the camera, thus improving image definition. [ADD]

– The majors produce a total of 388 films in 1939, and total production expenditure is $187 million.   The Hollywood film industry employs 177,420 people, 33,687 of whom are directly involved in production. [ADD]

– Claudette Colbert and Bing Crosby are Hollywood’s highest-paid actors, each earning over $400,000 during the year. [ADD]

– Dr George H. Gallup founds the Audience Research Institute to study the radio and motion picture industry. [ADD]

Top Ten US Money-making Stars 1939

  1 Mickey Rooney 

  2 Tyrone Power 

  3 Spencer Tracy 

  4 Clark Gable

  5 Shirley Temple

  6 Bette Davis

  7 Alice Faye 

  8 Errol Flynn

  9 James Cagney

  10 Sonja Henie  

(Source: Quigley Poll)

Other Key American Films of 1939

The City (Willard van Dyke, Ralph Steiner) [ADD]

Dark Victory (Edmund Goulding) [ADD]

Destry Rides Again (George Marshall) [ADD]

Golden Boy (Rouben Mamoulian) [ADD]

The Great Man Votes (Garson Kanin) [ADD]

Gunga Din (George Stevens) [ADD]

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (William Dieterle) [ADD]

Jesse James (Henry King) [ADD]

Juarez (William Dieterle) [ADD]

Of Mice and Men (Lewis Milestone) [ADD]

The Rains Came (Clarence Brown) [ADD]

The Roaring Twenties (Raoul Walsh) [ADD]

Union Pacific (Cecil B. DeMille) [ADD]

You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man (George Marshall) [ADD]

Young Mr. Lincoln (John Ford) [ADD]

The History of Cinema: 1939