TCM Celebrates 1939

[Guest Mnytime]

TCM is having a Festival that will be shown on every Saturday in celebration of what is considered Hollywood's greatest year 1939.

They are kicking off the Festival with their Yearly showing of The Wizard of Oz at 8pm EST, 5pm PST.

For those that don't know Oz was actually considered a failure at the box office when it came out. It wasn't until they started showing it on TV years later that it became the legend it is now.

The rest of the films for today are:

Gunga Din

Only Angels Have Wings

Ninotchka

Bachelor Mother-Most people know the much later Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher version of this one.

The usual Mnytime factoid. 1939 was such an great year that 10 Films were nominated for a Best Picture Oscar that year. TCM is showing 9 of those 10 in the 17 film Festival. Including the winner Gone With The Wind.

For those that can't watch tonight's showing of Oz it is being repeated tomorrow July 6th 4pm EST, 1pm PST.

Edited July 5, 2003 by Mnytime

[connoisseur series500]

Thanks for the heads up, Mny. I may just turn off Ike Quebec here and turn on TCM.

[Guest Mnytime]

A bit more Mnytime factoid. Victor Fleming the Director of The Wizard of Oz also ended up being the director of Gone With The Wind that year as well. I say ended up because the original director George Cukor was fired after the first 10 days of shooting. Footage shot by both Directors is in the Film.

The reason Cukor was changed was because Gable complained that Cukor was more of a "women's director". This was was Hollywood slang for the that Cukor was gay. Cukor was an excellent director of both sexes. IMHO

Gable's problem really was that he felt Vivien Leigh (a nobody who was more famous for who she was married to than her acting at the time) was getting more attention by Cukor than he the King of Hollywood was getting. The fact that this was the story about Scarlett O'Hara didn't seem to dawn on Gable I guess.

I will continue my factoid on GWTW when it is going to be shown.

Edited July 6, 2003 by Mnytime

[Guest ariceffron]

Hell yeah. Ninotchka is one of my very favorites, and ive only seen it for the first time recently. Greta Garbo is without a doubt my favorite actress but i havent seen very many of her films at all. In fact im sure most of them are out of print, espically all the silent ones. Greta Garbo has impressed me more so than any other woman i have either met in real life or seen second-hard. She is by far the hottest chick ever. By FAR.

Edited July 6, 2003 by ariceffron

[Guest Mnytime]

Her films including the Silent ones are far from being OOP. TCM shows them all the time. After all she was an MGM star and TCM owns the MGM library. You should also be able to find many of her films at any decent Rental/Retail store.

[Guest Mnytime]

She only was in one more film after Ninotchka. That was two years later in 1941's Two-Faced Woman, which was a flop for her. It was more of the fault of MGM trying to Americanize her because of WWII making it no longer possible to distribute her films to Europe. She only made 15 movies during the Sound Era between 1930's Annie Christie and 1941's Two-Faced Woman.

A couple months ago TCM showed both versions of Annie Christie, which was her first Talkie. Each had different actors playing the parts around Garbo. As well as different director and writers. One was made in English and one in German. It was the first time I believe the German version had been shown on TV in the U.S. at least. The English version is about 4-6 minutes longer than the German.

It's 16 films in the Sound Era if you count both versions of Annie Christie. She was in 16 silent films before that.

Edited July 6, 2003 by Mnytime

[Guest Mnytime]

They just showed the scene where Garbo laughs when Douglas falls backward in his chair. It is a classic scene in Film History. IMHO

Douglas is only one of at most 5 actors that have won an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony.

Most people don't notice that Bela Lugosi is in this film.

Edited July 6, 2003 by Mnytime

[Guest ariceffron]

wait WHY did they make 2 versions exactly? Thats crazy

[Guest Mnytime]

They filmed one after the other because Garbo had a huge following in Germany. Garbo is supposed to have preffered the German version over the English.

The same thing happened with Marlene Dietrich's The Blue Angel. Though in that case they used the same actors and shot both versions at the same time. The best part of each version is hearing Dietrich sing "Falling In Love Again". I prefer the German version of the film and her singing the song.

[Guest Mnytime]

I forgot another difference between Annie Christie and The Blue Angel. Both Annie Christie's were made here in the US while both The Blue Angel were made in Germany.

Personally I would take Marlene Dietrich over Garbo in terms of beauty and sexyness. It's really not even close. IMHO

But to each his or her own.

By the way, everyone makes a big deal about Betty Grable's legs but I think Dietrich had a better set.

In fact during the 1930's and 40's posters showing Dietrich's legs were banned from the Paris Metro because they were considered too distracting to riders.

Edited July 6, 2003 by Mnytime

[BruceH]

Yeah, we vegged out and watched Wizard of Oz, Gunga Din, and Only Angels Have Wings last night. I'd never seen Gunga Din before, but have to agree with my wife that Only Angels was the best of the three, (sentimental feelings about The Wizard of Oz aside). TCM pointed out something interesting: versatile character actor Thomas Mitchell (who played "the Kid" in Angels, and the forgetful uncle in It's A Wonderful Life) was in several other significant films in 1939, namely The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Gone With the Wind, and Stagecoach. Not bad!

[Guest Mnytime]

Thomas Mitchell might be the greatest character actor in film history. And 1939 was just a usual year for him. He is in a who's who of films before and after 1939. Considering he started out as a Newspaper Reporter it's pretty amazing.

[BruceH]

The guy rocked! He was also on Broadway and a playwright. Talk about a wonderful life!

[brownie]

While you're enjoying the TCM celebration of 1939 (yes, a great Hollywood year),

in France the cable film channels are currently having a festival of Anthony Mann films.

They started last night with 'The Glenn Miller Story'. Hadn't seen that one since its initial

release back in the '50s. I remembered this as a corny film not worth of

Mann's great films noirs and westerns.

Well, I must say I enjoyed this second viewing. James Stewart who obviously liked

working with Mann had a very creditable performance as Glenn Miller.

And it was a joy to view the 1953 Louis Armstrong All Stars play 'Basin Street Blues'

in a cabaret scene. The All Stars (Trummy Young, Barney Bigard, Marty Napoleon,

Arvell Shaw, Cozy Cole) are being joined by musicians like Gene Krupa (who duels with

Cole) and Babe Russin. Armstrong was in top form.

[Guest Mnytime]

And it was a joy to view the 1953 Louis Armstrong All Stars play 'Basin Street Blues'

in a cabaret scene. The All Stars (Trummy Young, Barney Bigard, Marty Napoleon,

Arvell Shaw, Cozy Cole) are being joined by musicians like Gene Krupa (who duels with

Cole) and Babe Russin. Armstrong was in top form.

The only reason to watch this film.

[BERIGAN]

She only was in one more film after Ninotchka. That was two years later in 1941's Two-Faced Woman, which was a flop for her. It was more of the fault of MGM trying to Americanize her because of WWII making it no longer possible to distribute her films to Europe. ....

I am only mentioning this of course because Aric likes her so, but if one watches this film, towards the end of the movie, she is wearing a fairly sheer nightgown...and when she storms out of the room, you can see her butt cheeks! I happened to have taped the movie when I noticed this fact, ran the tape back, adjusted the brightness on the screen, and wondered aloud how that got past the censors! Fiddled some more with the contrast....

[Guest Mnytime]

And of course you were doing all this for scientific reasons?

Most likely because they didn't have a VCR to record it and slow it down while adjusting the brightness. That and maybe like most people they were not focusing on her ass.

Edited July 8, 2003 by Mnytime

[Dave James]

Here's an interesting little factoid from the filiming of Gone With The Wind. In order to stage the burning of Atlanta, many sets from earlier movies were gathered together to be torched. If you look closely, you can see the gate the natives of Skull Island used to keep the great ape at bay from the 1933 movie, King Kong.

Up over and out.

[Guest Mnytime]

Here's an interesting little factoid from the filiming of Gone With The Wind.  In order to stage the burning of Atlanta, many sets from earlier movies were gathered together to be torched.  If you look closely, you can see the gate the natives of Skull Island used to keep the great ape at bay from the 1933 movie, King Kong.

Up over and out.

I was saving that for when the film was going to be shown.

In fact they burned the entire back lot for that scene. The King Kong set was only one of the old sets burned down. They had to bring in a good amount of Firemen from several Fire Depts in Southern Ca. to keep things under control.

Also, that scene was filmed 1-2 years before the actual filming of the film started.

Edited July 8, 2003 by Mnytime

[Dave James]

Oops.

Up over and out.

[Guest Mnytime]

Oops.

Up over and out.

No problem. It's not like it was Top Secret info.

[Guest Mnytime]

Another movie from '39 that I like--not one for the ages, I suppose, but nonetheless--is ANOTHER THIN MAN. It's one of my favorites in the THIN MAN series.

There is a lot of great films from 1939 that are not included. Destry Rides Again is a classic and the best of the bunch left off.

Another Thin Man is the best of all the sequel's in the Thin Man series.

[BERIGAN]

I always thought it was a crime that the scene in Mata Hari that Garbo wore this diaphanous nightgown in was cut by Hays, and never has shown up in any version I have seen, just this still photo! Well, can't seem to get the photo to upload, so will just do it this way!

Photo from the book Hollywood Portraits: Classic scene stills, 1929-1941

isbn 086124432x

Edited July 11, 2003 by BERIGAN

[BERIGAN]

Glad to see that there are some classic film fans on this here board!

Y'all might want to check out the book, Hollywood's Golden Year, 1939...By Ted Sennett. It came out in 1989, but they still have some used copies at Amazon. isbn 0312033613....

Some of the films that IMO are worth checking out(Or seeing again) if you haven't already are Love Affair(the Original) Midnight with Claudette Colbert, 2 very good Cagney films, the Roaring Twenties, and Each Dawn I Die..the First 2 Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films Adventures of Sherlock, and the Hounds of the Baskervilles, 2 Garson Kanin films, The Great Man Votes(With John Barrymore) and the very funny Bachelor Mother with Ginger Rogers and David Niven..The all female cast film The Women (It's not just for gay folks! ) Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, etc, etc, etc! I'm sure the list is not to everyone's taste, but that year was just crazy. Bette Davis starred in Dark Victory and Old Maid, and I know there have been other pretty darn good films from that year that I have come across that are not mentioned in this book, nor that I remember at this time....

[brownie]

Berigan, I caught 'Mata Hari' the other week on a French cable Classic Film channel.

Did not see any diaphanous Garbo in that copy.

May Hays rot in Hell for ever!!