Amid dark clouds of war, Hollywood’s golden year

In Europe, 1939 was nightmarish, as German dictator Adolf Hitler’s armies invaded Poland, sparking World War II.

In the United States, the far-off war notwithstanding, the mood was brighter, as Americans were finally pulling themselves out of the decade-long Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was on the eve of running for an unprecedented third term and was basking in a popularity surge. Travelers from around the world were flocking to the World’s Fair in New York City.

And in Hollywood, studios in 1939 were producing what many historians believe were more outstanding films than have been released any year before or since.

Cable’s Turner Classic Movies is celebrating this extraordinary year with a 19-film festival. The retrospective kicks off at 5 tonight with one of the most beloved films from 1939, “The Wizard of Oz,” followed by two superlative Cary Grant adventures, “Gunga Din” and “Only Angels Have Wings,” then “Ninotchka,” Greta Garbo’s first comedy, directed by the great Ernst Lubitsch, and the Ginger Rogers comedy “Bachelor Mother.”

The festival continues Saturdays throughout the month and includes such seminal films as “Gone With the Wind,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Love Affair,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” and “Stagecoach.”

It was “The Wizard of Oz” that was the catalyst for the festival.

“Once a year we show ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ ” and every year we do something different” to showcase it, says Charlie Tabesh, TCM’s senior vice president of programming. “One year we tied it to a Judy Garland festival and another to a special-effects festival. I don’t know how or why, but it just came to mind to do a 1939 festival.”

There are many factors that contributed to making 1939 a milestone year in film history.

The studio system was in full flower; Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, Jimmy Stewart and Spencer Tracy were at MGM. Fox had Shirley Temple, Alice Faye and Tyrone Power. Bette Davis and James Cagney reigned at Warner Bros. RKO was the home of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Jean Arthur was at Columbia. And several more superstars, including Gary Cooper and Cary Grant, worked at various studios.

Some actors became stars that year. William Holden made his film debut in “Golden Boy,” and, after kicking around in B movies for nearly a decade, John Wayne became an A player in John Ford’s “Stagecoach.”

Several foreign and writer directors, including Fritz Lang, who had immigrated to this country with Hitler’s rise to power, joined Frank Capra, George Stevens, George Cukor, Victor Fleming, William Wellman, Michael Curtiz, Lubitsch and Ford as the top directors in Hollywood. Another emigre, Austrian-born Billy Wilder, had become one of the major screenwriters in a few short years after his arrival in Hollywood, and in 1939 he co-wrote two romantic comedies, “Ninotchka” and “Midnight.”

The studios also began producing more films in the vibrant Technicolor. “The Wizard of Oz,” “Gone With the Wind,” “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex,” the animated “Gulliver’s Travels,” “Northwest Passage” and “Drums Along the Mohawk” were among the movies photographed in this process.

It’s indicative of how many top films were released that year that 10 were nominated for the best picture Oscar, with the honor going to the blockbuster “Gone With the Wind.” TCM is screening all but one of the best-picture nominees: the seldom-seen “Of Mice and Men,” directed by Lewis Milestone.

Missing from the cable network’s vast library -- which includes vintage titles from MGM, Warner Bros. and RKO, among others -- was Capra’s astute political fable “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” So TCM acquired the rights to air the Columbia production for the festival.

“I didn’t think we could do the festival without it,” Tabesh says. “There were maybe one or two more that might have been nice to have had, like ‘Destry Rides Again’ and ‘Midnight,’ but this one was definitely the key one.”

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‘1939: Hollywood’s Golden Year’

Where: Turner Classic Movies

Tonight: “The Wizard of Oz,” 5 p.m.; “Gunga Din,” 7 p.m.; “Only Angels Have Wings,” 9 p.m.; “Ninotchka,” 11:15 p.m.; “Bachelor Mother,” 1:15 a.m.

July 12: “Stagecoach,” 5 p.m.; “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” 7 p.m.; “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” 9:15 p.m.; “The Roaring Twenties,” 11:15 p.m.; “Confessions of a Nazi Spy,” 1:15 a.m.

July 19: “Gone With the Wind,” 5 p.m.; “The Old Maid,” 9 p.m.;

“Dark Victory,” 11 p.m.; “Love Affair,” 1 a.m.

July 26: “Wuthering Heights,” 5 p.m.; “The Women,” 7 p.m.; “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” 9:30 p.m.; “Babes in Arms,” 11:30 p.m.; “Golden Boy,” 1:15 a.m.