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The History of American Cinema: 1940

January - June

11/1 -

Howard Hawks’ fast-paced His Girl Friday, based on The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, is released.   It stars Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell and Ralph Bellamy. [ADD]

24/1 -

John Ford’s screen adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck’s tale of Oklahoma farmers driven from their homes during the depression to search for work, is released.   Partly filmed on location in migrant camps around Los Angeles, the film stars Henry Fonda as Tom Joad and Jane Darwell as Ma. [ADD]

12/1 -

Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner, starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, is released. [ADD]

7/2 -

Walt Disney’s second full-length animation, Pinocchio, premieres at the Center Theater in Manhattan before going on general release two days later.   A flop on its initial release, it makes a profit on its re-release in 1945 [ADD]

9/2 -

Mae West (as Flowerbelle Lee) and W. C. Fields (as Cuthbert J. Twille) join forces as a pair of rival con-artists who enter into a phoney marriage in the western town of Greasewood City in Universal’s My Little Chickadee. [ADD]

20/2 -

Jasper (soon to be renamed Tom) and Jerry make their debut in Hanna-Barbera’s Puss Gets the Boot for MGM. [ADD]

26/2 -

The 1938 French film La Femme du Boulanger is released to critical acclaim. [ADD]

29/2 -

David Selznick’s Gone With the Wind wins nine Oscars at the 12th Annual Academy Awards ceremony at the Ambassador Hotel.   Special permission is required for black ‘Best Supporting Actress’ winner Hattie McDaniel to be allowed to sit at Selznick’s table for the ceremony. [MORE]  

14/3 -

Road to Singapore, the first in the long-running series of ‘Road to…’ movies starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour is released for Paramount. [ADD]

27/3 -

David Selznick follows up Gone With the Wind with Rebecca, British director Alfred Hitchcock’s first Hollywood movie.   Based on Daphne du Maurier’s Gothic novel, it stars Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Winter, Joan Fontaine as his timid second wife, Judith Anderson as the sinister Mrs Danvers and George Sanders as blackmailing Jack Favell. [ADD]

3/5 -

Gordon Douglas’s Saps at Sea, Laurel & Hardy’s final film for Hal Roach after 14 years, goes on general release. [ADD]

17/6 -

Sam Sax, former head of Warner Bros. in Britain, and Frank Orsatti, a Hollywood agent, demonstrate their Phonovision, a coin-operated ‘video jukebox.’ [ADD]

18/6 -

Herman J. Mankiewicz puts the finishing touches to his version of the script for Orson Welles’ first film.   Originally called The American, its title is now Citizen Kane. [ADD]

The History of Cinema: 1940