TCM Celebrates 1939

[BERIGAN]

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!!

What about Mr. Breen?

[Alexander]

I think the Hayes Code was very good for Hollywood. It made the filmmakers work harder to get all the sex and violence in without actually crossing the line. I wish Hollywood still had the kind of restraint.

[BERIGAN]

I think the Hayes Code was very good for Hollywood. It made the filmmakers work harder to get all the sex and violence in without actually crossing the line. I wish Hollywood still had the kind of restraint.

Alexander, you are right...on this point at least, and just the first part! Back in the day,Hollywood had to be creative to get around not showing hot sweaty, sexy folk nekked. Dialog, implying action that will happen later is more often than not sexier than just throwing two unclothed people into bed...The way Garbo and John Gilbert kiss, caress, and look at each other in Flesh and the Devil is just amazing, them being nude on top of that would have added nothing IMO....Implied violence/gore works the same way. A film like The Body Snatcher from 1945 with Boris Karloff as a grave robber, is so creepy, just from his discriptions! Alexander, perhaps you are not so far off with your second point, if only hollywood as an exercise would try to make a few films with the same rules of post 1934 Films, it would be interesting to see how writers/directors of today would find ways to make watchable films....

[brownie]

Since it's Bastille Day.

May I mention a 1939 classic.

Not made in Hollywood but just brilliant: Jean Renoir's 'La Regle du Jeu'

(Rules of the Game). One of the worst French flop ever when it was released a

few weeks ahead of the start of World War II, it has now turned into a cult film.

[ghost of miles]

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.

There's an old movie theater in downtown Bloomington that's been restored and is now used for a variety of purposes. Once a month they show a classic Hollywood film on Sunday afternoon--yesterday it was NINOTCHKA. I'd never seen it before, so my wife & I went (sat alone in the balcony--felt like a 1940s kinda date!). Very entertaining film, and ideologically very strange at times... plus, I liked Garbo's character much better before her Western transformation! That stovepipe hat she ends up buying looked ridiculous, as was the white gown... ironically enough, the plainer Soviet duds she wore looked far more stylish by today's standards.

Great dialogue--the screenplay was co-written by Billy Wilder, and I believe it was one of his earliest projects.

Edited February 13, 2006 by ghost of miles

[BERIGAN]

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.

There's an old movie theater in downtown Bloomington that's been restored and is now used for a variety of purposes. Once a month they show a classic Hollywood film on Sunday afternoon--yesterday it was NINOTCHKA. I'd never seen it before, so my wife & I went (sat alone in the balcony--felt like a 1940s kinda date!). Very entertaining film, and ideologically very strange at times... plus, I liked Garbo's character much better before her Western transformation! That stovepipe hat she ends up buying looked ridiculous, as was the white gown... ironically enough, the plainer Soviet duds she wore looked far more stylish by today's standards.

Great dialogue--the screenplay was co-written by Billy Wilder, and I believe it was one of his earliest projects.

You liked her more as a commie? Shocked, shocked I am! I read that she couldn't really give a hearty laugh, so her laugh was dubbed!

Sure are a lot of unregistered folks on this thread.

[ghost of miles]

She was way hotter as a commie. You should hear my good friend The Red Menace on the subject!

I ordered a copy of that book that you mentioned a few posts (a few years, rather) back. I've had it out of the library for a looooooonnngg time and thought I might as well get a copy... very interesting read. BTW, NINOTCHKA opened about a week before Artie Shaw stormed off the bandstand at the Cafe Rouge in NYC.

[Adam]

Since it's Bastille Day.

May I mention a 1939 classic.

Not made in Hollywood but just brilliant: Jean Renoir's 'La Regle du Jeu'

(Rules of the Game). One of the worst French flop ever when it was released a

few weeks ahead of the start of World War II, it has now turned into a cult film.

Hmmm. It's usually in the top five of any list of "greatest films ever made." At what point does it no longer become a cult film?

And it is really great.

[Shawn]

Grant also personally asked for Victor Fleming for GWTW because they had worked together previously. Fleming was a very versatile director who could handle drama or action with equal aplomb.

Only Angels Have Wings is one of my all-time favorite Howard Hawks movies. Jean Arthur, Cary Grant and Thomas Mitchell put in amazing performances...a very young Rita Hayworth plays the eye-candy of the picture. There's a sequence where she's been drinking too much, Grant grabs her head and shoves it into the sink and pours water over her head to sober her up. The image of the dripping wet Rita is quite successfully sexy for the time!

Another intersting note about 1939: It was the first year that featured an Oscar of Special Effects. The winner was a film called The Rains Came with Myrna Loy...there is flood sequence where a dam breaks and wipes out this entire town...the visual effects are stunning and still look quite good by today's standards.

So many great films that year....

[BruceH]

Only Angels Have Wings is one of my all-time favorite Howard Hawks movies. Jean Arthur, Cary Grant and Thomas Mitchell put in amazing performances...

Me too. In fact, I'd personally put it second only to His Girl Friday out of all Hawks films.

[Kalo]

1938 and 1940 weren't too bad for Hollywood either.

[Guest]

interesting thread- i havent seen a film of hers in a decade- but from what i can best recall, motion picture as art ended in 1930 when garbo made the "soundie" anna christy (others will tell you it ended w/ the production code but i favor the former)

[Shawn]

interesting thread- i havent seen a film of hers in a decade- but from what i can best recall, motion picture as art ended in 1930 when garbo made the "soundie" anna christy (others will tell you it ended w/ the production code but i favor the former)

WHAT????!!!!!

[BERIGAN]

interesting thread- i havent seen a film of hers in a decade- but from what i can best recall, motion picture as art ended in 1930 when garbo made the "soundie" anna christy (others will tell you it ended w/ the production code but i favor the former)

I've heard talk like that before, but you and the others are wrong! Silents, and pre-code films (July 1934 and earlier, there was a code, just not enforced til then) are in many ways more "adult" but like Alexander said, the films and the filmakers afterwords had to be more creative, and for the most part were, IMHO. Sure, I wouldn't have minded seeing Carole Lombard completely nude in My Man Godfrey, but the film wouldn't have been any better. Any time I see a big time actress get nekked in a film, I know the nerd of a director has called all his friends after the shoot, bragging about how he convinced her to do it because it was vital to the film.

[BERIGAN]

Grant also personally asked for Victor Fleming for GWTW because they had worked together previously. Fleming was a very versatile director who could handle drama or action with equal aplomb.

Only Angels Have Wings is one of my all-time favorite Howard Hawks movies. Jean Arthur, Cary Grant and Thomas Mitchell put in amazing performances...a very young Rita Hayworth plays the eye-candy of the picture. There's a sequence where she's been drinking too much, Grant grabs her head and shoves it into the sink and pours water over her head to sober her up. The image of the dripping wet Rita is quite successfully sexy for the time!

Another intersting note about 1939: It was the first year that featured an Oscar of Special Effects. The winner was a film called The Rains Came with Myrna Loy...there is flood sequence where a dam breaks and wipes out this entire town...the visual effects are stunning and still look quite good by today's standards.

So many great films that year....

I think you had Cary Grant on the brain when you wrote this! You meant to say Gable picked Fleming, right? I remember reading in a book that Gable didn't want want George Cukor directing because he was a "woman's" director. I also read in another more National Enquiresque book that Gable didn't want Cukor cuz Cukor knew Gable when he was younger, and had slept with a few guys to get ahead...so to speak...who knows?

Another vote for Only Angels Have Wings. Really like the redemption angle.

[BruceH]

1938 and 1940 weren't too bad for Hollywood either.

I'm a fan of 1941, personally.

(And '49...Third Man.)

Edited February 17, 2006 by BruceH