1939: Hollywood’s Greatest Year

1939 is hailed as one of the greatest years in the golden years of Hollywood, with the studios at the height of their power and productivity, and before the United States became involved in WW2. Sennett's book pays homage to what he considers 17 seminal titles, as well as adding notes on other notable films released that year.

The obvious ones are here like Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, but there are also a few surprises, and Sennett's anaylsis thankfully isn't all praise. He is prepared to note the perceived weaknesses in the films. His coverage begins with an overview of the attraction of the title,

whether it be the director, the star or the source material, provides some preproduction notes, then a lengthly plot description, and finally post-production box office results. Sennett's writing is accessible, though he presumes no knowledge of these films and therefore a lot of what he details is well-known to film students and movie buffs.

Considering that Gone with the Wind has been written about exhaustively, he sometimes sets himself an impossible goal, however occasionally he comes up with something new and interesting. Midnight featured the casting problems of Mary Astor's advancing and evident pregnancy, John Barrymore's alcoholic forgettfulness which required prompt cards,

and Claudette Colbert's infamous demand to be photographed only by her left side. There was also antipathy between the flamboyantly gay director Mitchell Leisen and screenwriter Billy Wilder. Wilder complained that Leisen spent more time on worrying about the pleat on a skirt than the script,

and Leisen said Wilder was so arrogant that he screamed if one line of his dialogue was altered. Sennett tells us that at one time William Wyler wanted to do Wuthering Heights with Bette Davis, but the end of their affair also ended that. It also made Davis despondent enough to play the lead in Dark Victory perfectly,

though she was so despondent that she had to be talked out of withdrawing from the film. Wyler also nixed Laurence Olivier's request for Vivien Leigh to play Cathy, which freed her to do Gone with the Wind. Wyler was known to demand as many as 60 takes of a given scene,

and the animal trainer who provided ducks and geese for the barnyard scenes cut their vocal chords to keep them from honking noisily during filming. One feels Garbo was right to turn down Dark Victory, if with the prospect of George Cukor directing her in it, and Bette Davis is said to have practiced the simulation of loss of sight by driving at night.

The story of Rita Hayworth visiting a restaurant where Howard Hawks and Harry Cohn were dining to make an impression for Only Angels Have Wings, seems silly since she was already under contract to Cohn. Pre-star Humphrey Bogart was fired from The Old Maid and replaced by George Brent,

and Davis is quoted saying "Miriam Hopkins is a perfectly charming woman socially. Working with her is another story". The firing of George Cukor from Gone with the Wind allowed for Ernst Lubitsch to be transfered from The Women to Ninotchka,

and Cukor to replace him. And Melvyn Douglas tells that even he didn't know whether it was Garbo's laugh that was dubbed for her in the restaurant scene, since she was unable to laugh in the take Lubitsch accepted in Ninotchka.

Part 1

 


Part 2