There are so many times people hyperventilate and claim one year in cinema is the greatest year in cinema causing the question of what year is the best to be completely subjective. However while the question is always subject to who you ask I just know that of the many years of cinema 1939 has to up there for any cinema fan willing to see film from way back in the golden age. 1939 is impressive how it covers an appropriate amount of genres for any film fan to watch and while the year like many post 50's years can be accused of staleness due to the type of classical directing being done at the time. I consider this a high priority year of cinema and it all stars for me with Wizard of Oz. The film is probably the most known from this year because no matter who you are everyone has to have seen this classic film because everyone was a child once and this film is watched by so many youths that for me it introduced me to fantasy I was looking for in cinema. Wizard of Oz is the most known film but alongside this film is the nearly 4 hour epic to end all epics the multi oscar winning Gone With the Wind. Even at the time of release GWTW was being built up to be the greatest epic every but even watching this film it is unquestionably a feat in cinema history. Not only is the film the first to represent civil war era relationships between the different races in while a problematic way less then what was done previously and post this film. It also follows a rarely unsympathetic heroine portrayed by Vivien Leigh who is giving one of the best characterizations of a character every to be on screen done to every perfect reaction shot from Scarlett. I just love the film having it seen it multiple times then it's running time deserves me to see. The film blows away the competition for me even though there are so many great films from this year. Just looking at the 10 nominees for best picture it is a lineup that holds up so well. The other nine nominees losing to GWTW where Dark Victory, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Love Affair, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz and Wuthering Heights.
The lineup is impressive with clear standouts being Oz, Mr. Smith, Stagecoach, Dark Victory, Love Affair and Ninotchka. All this films I consider top 10 material (all of them in ascending order make my personal top 10). Oz as I said is a classic kids picture, Mr, Smith is the perfect amount of Capracorn starring in James Stewart in what I consider to be his greatest work pre Alfred Hitchcock, Stagecoach is early western cinema from John Fords, Dark Victory is Bette Davis in while a less discussed film of hers Davis in any film at this time is just perfection no matter the story, Love Affair the original film of two falling in love just done write from scene to scene and Ninochka which is essential Great Garbo cinema being probably her last great film achievement of early cinema. These six films plus GWTW are film enough for me consider 39 a great film year. The other 3 films while good are nothing for me to write home about even if they have moments cinema like today is never going to have in their less then average films.
Much of my revisits have been about me lampooning the choices made by the academy due to all the cinema in retrospective discussed more recently. However I have to congratulate the academy in their early twelfth year actually looking to the great cinema. GWTW is unquestionable my favourite film of 1939 and an extra note for the film is the Hattie McDaniel factor. At the time when people of colour where still experiencing racism GWTW while showing the archetypes of slavery is made the greater by the stellar work by McDaniel who won the academy award this year and one of the great wins in the character as she explodes and shines in the truly complex role of house servant Mammy. My runner up is Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington which is an example of Capra that I consider truly timeless because unlike many I hold Capra in a high echelon of early film directors. As I mentioned before it's one of Stewart's great early roles and him losing the academy award is a great crime that led to a less then agreeable win a year later for 1940's The Philadelphia Story. Wizard of Oz is timeless children's entertainment and doesn't need to be talked about too much, Stagecoach is a less exposed western from John Ford because there isn't really any shootout of a kind but instead it's a simple story following a small amount of unrelated characters as they travel south with one another. My fifth choice of the year is the rare underrated John Ford film and the big question mark to me why the academy didn't look to this classic film as much as they should've. It's Ford really stretching himself showing as unconventional film biopic where we take the Abraham Lincoln president and instead of covering his rise to presidency it instead shows us the man in his younger years. It's one of the great Henry Fonda performances for me and I just can't get enough of this film and consider it truly criminal that the only nomination this film received was a small screenplay nomination.
34 is the amount of films I've seen from 1939 and I consider this an all out strong year of cinema. I will never apolgize for loving just about everything from this year because I can never admit to doing that with recent cinema because in no way is cinema the same as it was back in the golden age. Below is my list of winners and nominees.
OUTSTANDING PICTURE:
1. Gone With the Wind (Produced by David O. Selznick)
2. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Produced by Frank Capra)
3. The Wizard of Oz (Produced by Mervyn LeRoy)
4. Stagecoach (Produced by Walter Wanger)
5. Young Mr. Lincoln (Produced by Darryl F. Zanuck & Kenneth Macgowan)
6. Dark Victory
7. Love Affair
8. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
9. The Women
10. Ninotchka
OUTSTANDING DIRECTOR:
Frank Capra for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
George Cukor for The Women
Victor Fleming for Gone With the Wind
Victor Fleming for The Wizard of Oz
John Ford for Stagecoach
OUTSTANDING LEADING ACTOR:
Charles Boyer as Michel Marnet in "LOVE AFFAIR"
Henry Fonda as Abraham Lincoln in "YOUNG MR. LINCOLN"
Clark Gable as Rhett Butler in "GONE WITH THE WIND"
Charles Laughton as Quasimodo in "THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME"
James Stewart as Jefferson "Jeff" Smith in "MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON"
OUTSTANDING LEADING ACTRESS:
Jean Arthur as Clarissa Saunders in "MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON"
Bette Davis as Judith Traherne in "DARK VICTORY"
Greta Garbo as Nina Ivanovna "Ninotchka" Yakushova in "NINOTCHKA"
Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale in "THE WIZARD OF OZ"
Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in "GONE WITH THE WIND"
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Ray Bolger as Hunk / Scarecrow in "THE WIZARD OF OZ"
Thomas Mitchell as "Diz" Moore in "MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON"
Thomas Mitchell as Doc Boone in "STAGECOACH"
Frank Morgan as Professor Marvel / The Wizard / Doorman / Cabbie / Guard in "THE WIZARD OF OZ"
Claude Rains as Senator Joseph Harrison "Joe" Paine in "MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON"
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Greer Garson as Katharine in "GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS"
Olivia de Havilland as Melanie Hamilton in "GONE WITH THE WIND"
Margaret Hamilton as Miss Almira Gulch / The Wicked Witch of the West in "THE WIZARD OF OZ"
Hattie McDaniel as Mammy in "GONE WITH THE WIND"
Rosalind Russell as Sylvia Fowler in "THE WOMEN"
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
Robert Buckner for Dodge City
Delmer Daves, Donald Ogden Stewart & S.N. Behrman; Story by Leo McCarey & Mildred Cram for Love Affair
Melchior Lengyel, Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder & Walter Reisch for Ninotchka
Jules Furthman for Only Angels Have Wings
Lamar Trotti for Young Mr. Lincoln
OUTSTANDING ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
Screenplay by Casey Robinson; Based on Dark Victory by George Emerson Brewer, Jr. & Bertram Bloch, Dark Victory
Screenplay by Sidney Howard; Based on Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind
Screenplay by Sidney Buchman; Based on The Gentleman from Montana by Lewis R. Foster, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Screenplay by Dudley Nichols; Based on The Stage to Lordsburg 1937 by Ernest Haycox, Stagecoach
Screenplay by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson & Edgar Allan Woolf; Based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz
OUTSTANDING ART DIRECTION:
Art Direction by Robert Haas for Dark Victory
Production Design by William Cameron Menzies; Art Direction by Lyle Wheeler; Set Decoration by Howard Bristol for Gone With the Wind
Art Direction by Van Nest Polglase; Set Decoration by Darrell Silvera for Love Affair
Production Design by Malcolm Brown, William A. Horning & Jack Martin Smith; Art Direction by Cedric Gibbons, George Gibson, Wade B. Rubottom & Elmer Sheeley; Set Decoration by Edwin B. Willis for The Wizard of Oz
Art Direction by James Basevi & Alexander Toluboff; Set Decoration by Julia Heron for Wuthering Heights
OUTSTANDING BREAKTHROUGH/DEBUT:
Greer Garson (Goodbye, Mr. Chips)
Butterfly McQueen (Gone With the Wind)
Maureen O'Hara (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
James Stewart (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington)
John Wayne (Stagecoach)
OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Ernest Haller for Gone With the Wind
Joseph Walker & Paul Mantz for Only Angels Have Wings
Bert Glennon for Stagecoach
Harold Rosson for The Wizard of Oz
Gregg Toland for Wuthering Heights
OUTSTANDING COSTUME DESIGN:
Walter Plunkett for Gone With the Wind
Walter Plunkett for The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Orry-Kelly for Juarez
Adrian for The Wizard of Oz
Omar Klam for Wuthering Heights
OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE OF THE YEAR:
Gone With the Wind (Thomas Mitchell, Barbara O'Neil, Vivien Leigh, Evelyn Keyes, Ann Rutherford, George Reeves, Fred Crane, Hattie McDaniel, Oscar Polk, Butterfly McQueen, Victor Jory, Everett Brown , Howard Hickman, Alicia Rhett, Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland, Rand Brooks, Carroll Nye, Clark Gable, Laura Hope Crews, Eddie Anderson, Harry Davenport, Leona Roberts, Jane Darwell, Ona Munson, Paul Hurst, Cammie King Conlon, J. M. Kerrigan, Jackie Moran, Lillian Kemble-Cooper, Marcella Martin, Mickey Kuhn, Irving Bacon, William Bakewell, Isabel Jewell, Eric Linden, Ward Bond, Cliff Edwards, Yakima Canutt, Louis Jean Heydt, Olin Howland, Robert Elliott, Mary Anderson)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, Guy Kibbee, Thomas Mitchell, Eugene Pallette, Beulah Bondi, H. B. Warner, Harry Carey, Astrid Allwyn, Ruth Donnelly, Grant Mitchell, Porter Hall, Pierre Watkin, Charles Lane, William Demarest, Dick Elliott)
Stagecoach (Claire Trevor, John Wayne, Thomas Mitchell, Andy Devine, John Carradine, George Bancroft, Louise Platt, Donald Meek, Berton Churchill, Tim Holt, Tom Tyler, Chris-Pin Martin, Elvira Ríos, Brenda Fowler, Nora Cecil, Francis Ford, Marga Ann Deighton, Vester Pegg, Joe Rickson, Jack Pennick, Duke R. Lee, Chief White Horse, Yakima Canutt)
The Wizard of Oz (Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton, Clara Blandick, Charley Grapewin, Pat Walshe, Terry)
The Women (Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Mary Boland, Paulette Goddard, Phyllis Povah, Joan Fontaine, Virginia Weidler, Lucile Watson, Marjorie Main, Virginia Grey, Ruth Hussey, Hedda Hopper, Florence Nash, Cora Witherspoon, Mary Beth Hughes, Dennie Moore)
OUTSTANDING FILM EDITING:
Hal C. Kern & James E. Newcom for Gone With the Wind
Charles Frend for Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Al Clark & Gene Havlick for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Blanche Sewell for The Wizard of Oz
Daniel Mandell for Wuthering Heights
OUTSTANDING MAKEUP:
Ben Nye, Hazel Rogers, Paul Stanhope & Monte Westmore for Gone With the Wind
Jack Dawn for Goodbye, Mr. Chips
George Bau, Mel Berns, Robert J. Schiffer & Perc Westmore for The Hunchback of Notre Dame
William Knight & Fred B. Phillips for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Jack Dawn for The Wizard of Oz
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCORE:
Max Steiner for Dark Victory
Max Steiner for Gone With the Wind
Alfred Newman for The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Herbert Stothart for The Wizard of Oz
Alfred Newman for Wuthering Heights
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SONG:
Destry Rides Again, "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have" (Music by Friedrich Hollaender; Lyrics by Frank Loesser)
Love Affair, "Sing My Heart" (Music by Harold Arlen; Lyrics by Ted Koehler)
Love Affair, "Whishing" (Music and Lyrics by B.G. De Sylva)
The Wizard of Oz, "Ding Dong The Witch is Dead" (Music by Harold Arlen; Lyric by E. Y. Harburg)
The Wizard of Oz, "Over the Rainbow" (Music by Harold Arlen; Lyric by E. Y. Harburg)
OUTSTANDING PERFORMER OF THE YEAR:
Jean Arthur (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Only Angels Have Wings)
Bette Davis (Dark Victory, Juarez, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex)
Cary Grant (Gunga Din, In Name Only, Only Angels Have Wings)
Thomas Mitchell (Gone With the Wind, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Only Angels Have Wings, Stagecoach)
Claude Rains (Daughters Courageous, Four Wives, Juarez, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, They Made Me a Criminal)
OUTSTANDING SOUND RECORDING:
Thomas T. Moulton for Gone With the Wind
John E. Tribby for The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Only Angels Have Wings
Frank Maher for Stagecoach
Douglas Shearer for The Wizard of Oz
OUTSTANDING SPECIAL EFFECTS:
Jack Cosgrove, Fred Albin & Arthur Johns for Gone With the Wind
Roy Davidson & Edwin C. Hahn for Only Angels Have Wings
E. H. Hansen and Fred Sersen for The Rains Came
Arnold Gillespie for The Wizard of Oz
Now having gone back to golden age cinema I'm going to skip to 1966 next. This year is the mid point of the 60's decade and yet again Britain bet out america. A Man for All Seasons came in and won it all. Was this stage adaptation worthy tune in to see if I think so.
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