TCM Schedule for Friday, July 19, 2019 -- What's On Tonight: 1939: Hollywood's Golden Year

TCM continues their month-long celebration of what is arguably Hollywood's best year, 1939. Take it away, Roger!

Often heralded as the "The Greatest Year in Movies," 1939 saw an incredible lineup of timeless film masterpieces along with a bumper crop of expertly made entertainments. Audiences embraced this bounty of movie treasures by showing up at the nation's theaters in droves. According to the L.A. Times, 365 films were released during the year and moviegoers were buying tickets at the rate of 80 million a week!

TCM salutes this incredible cinematic year with a showcase of more than 40 movies including the crown jewel of 1939 and the year's Best Picture Oscar winner, Gone With the Wind, David O. Selznick's spectacular epic of the Civil War starring Clark Gable and Oscar winner Vivien Leigh. Also screening is the year's other marvel, MGM's fantastic musical adventure The Wizard of Oz, with Judy Garland in a truly iconic performance.

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by Roger Fristoe

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- THE GIRL FROM MEXICO (1939)
An ad man tours Mexico trying to cast a new radio show.
Dir: Leslie Goodwins
Cast: Lupe Velez, Donald Woods, Leon Errol
BW-71 mins,

RKO wasn't planning a series while this film was being made, but the series developed after it was such a big hit. This film was followed by seven Mexican Spitfire films.


7:18 AM -- RURAL MEXICO (1935)
This short film takes the viewer to the rural towns of Mazatlan, Toluca, and Taxco in Mexico.
Dir: Lewis Lewyn
C-8 mins,


7:30 AM -- LADY OF THE TROPICS (1939)
An American playboy in Saigon has to fight to get his Eurasian wife out of the country.
Dir: Jack Conway
Cast: Robert Taylor, Hedy Lamarr, Joseph Schildkraut
BW-92 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Norbert Brodine

This was Hedy Lamarr's first film under her contract with MGM.


9:15 AM -- HONOLULU (1939)
A movie star trades places with a Hawaiian plantation owner.
Dir: Edward Buzzell
Cast: Eleanor Powell, Robert Young, George Burns
BW-84 mins, CC,

Final film appearance of George Burns and Gracie Allen together.


10:45 AM -- JUAREZ (1939)
True story of Mexico's Abraham Lincoln and his fight against Napoleon's empire.
Dir: William Dieterle
Cast: Bette Davis, Paul Muni, Brian Aherne
BW-121 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Brian Aherne, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Tony Gaudio

Orry-Kelly designed costumes for Bette Davis which changed in tone as the film progressed: from white at the beginning, changing to gray in mid-film, and then to black at the end when she goes insane.


1:15 PM -- THE ROARING TWENTIES (1939)
Three WWI Army buddies get mixed up with the mob in peacetime.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: James Cagney, Priscilla Lane, Humphrey Bogart
BW-107 mins, CC,

This marked the end of James Cagney's cycle of gangster films for Warner Bros. Cagney wanted to diversify his roles and would not play a gangster again until White Heat (1949), ten years later.


3:15 PM -- CONFESSIONS OF A NAZI SPY (1939)
An FBI agent risks his life to infiltrate Nazi sympathizers in the U.S.
Dir: Anatole Litvak
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Francis Lederer, George Sanders
BW-104 mins, CC,

According to the article Hollywood Goes to War by Colin Shindler in the film history tome The Movie, "Warner Brothers, who had made the one explicitly anti-Nazi film of the [US] pre-war period (1939, Confessions of a Nazi Spy) were unofficially told by the [US] government not to make any more such pictures. In April 1940 the news filtered back to Hollywood that several Polish exhibitors who had shown "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" had been hanged in the foyers of their own cinemas."


5:02 PM -- FORGOTTEN VICTORY (1939)
The short film tells the story of Mark Carleton, a worker for the USDA who travels across the world trying to find heat that farmers can grow despite various disasters.
Dir: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Don Douglas,
BW-11 mins,


5:15 PM -- FIVE CAME BACK (1939)
Survivors of a jungle plane crash realize that their repaired airplane can only carry five passengers.
Dir: John Farrow
Cast: Chester Morris, Lucille Ball, Wendy Barrie
BW-75 mins, CC,

According to Lucille Ball's biographer, Charles Higham, Ball spent much of her time during production fending off the unwanted advances of co-star Chester Morris. The crude advances of the soon-to-be-divorced Morris, production delays, daily feuds with director John Farrow and closer-than-desired encounters with wildlife that had stowed away in some of the trees that had been brought on set as props made this an unpleasant shoot for Ball.


6:45 PM -- 1939: HOLLYWOOD'S GREATEST YEAR (2009)
This documentary focuses on 1939, considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, with film clips and insight into what made the year so special.
Dir: Constantine Nasr
Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Leonard Maltin,
C-68 mins, CC,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 1939: HOLLYWOOD'S GOLDEN YEAR



8:00 PM -- MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939)
An idealistic Senate replacement takes on political corruption.
Dir: Frank Capra
Cast: Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Claude Rains
BW-130 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Lewis R. Foster

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Stewart, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Harry Carey, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Claude Rains, Best Director -- Frank Capra, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Sidney Buchman, Best Art Direction -- Lionel Banks, Best Sound, Recording -- John P. Livadary (Columbia SSD), Best Film Editing -- Gene Havlick and Al Clark, Best Music, Scoring -- Dimitri Tiomkin, and Best Picture

The Washington press corps was highly indignant at the way it was portrayed in the film. Consequently, a great deal of the initial reviews from the capitol were very negative. One of their chief objections was that the film made them all out to be drinking too much.


10:15 PM -- GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS (1939)
A cold-hearted teacher becomes the school favorite when he's thawed by a beautiful young woman.
Dir: Sam Wood
Cast: Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Terry Kilburn
BW-114 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Robert Donat (Robert Donat was not present at the awards ceremony. Victor Saville accepted the award on his behalf.)

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greer Garson, Best Director -- Sam Wood, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Eric Maschwitz, R.C. Sherriff and Claudine West, Best Sound, Recording -- A.W. Watkins (Denham SSD), Best Film Editing -- Charles Frend, and Best Picture

Thirty-four-year-old Robert Donat ages sixty-three years (1870-1933) over the course of this movie. He remarked: "As soon as I put the mustache on, I felt the part, even if I did look like a great Airedale come out of a puddle."


12:30 AM -- BACHELOR MOTHER (1939)
A fun-loving shop girl is mistaken for the mother of a foundling.
Dir: Garson Kanin
Cast: Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn
BW-82 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Felix Jackson

Included among the American Film Institute's 2000 list of the 500 movies nominated for the Top 100 Funniest American Movies.


2:00 AM -- LIFEFORCE (1985)
A race of space vampires arrives in London and infects the populace, beginning an apocalyptic descent into chaos.
Dir: Tobe Hooper
Cast: Steve Railsback, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay
BW-116 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Mathilda May had to learn her lines phonetically, for her audition as Space Girl, because she didn't know any English at the time. Also, May learned how to speak English during the six months she spent in England on this movie.


4:00 AM -- POLTERGEIST (1982)
Evil spirits abduct a suburban family's daughter causing chaos and havoc.
Dir: Tobe Hooper
Cast: Jobeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Beatrice Straight
C-114 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Effects, Visual Effects -- Richard Edlund, Michael Wood and Bruce Nicholson, Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing -- Stephen Hunter Flick and Richard L. Anderson, and Best Music, Original Score -- Jerry Goldsmith

Drew Barrymore was considered for the role of Carol Anne, but director Steven Spielberg wanted someone more angelic. It was Barrymore's audition for this role, however, that landed her the part of Gertie in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).