Synopsis
This documentary focuses on 1939, considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, with film clips and insight into what made the year so special.
1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year
2009 Directed by Constantine Nasr
Cast
Kenneth Branagh Clark Gable Vivien Leigh Olivia de Havilland Judy Garland Leonard Maltin Errol Flynn Bette Davis Thomas Schatz F. X. Feeney Scott Eyman Jeanine Basinger Aubrey Solomon Molly Haskell George Cukor Rudy Behlmer Francis Lederer Joseph McBride Frank Capra Howard Hawks Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Maureen O'Hara Claire Trevor Daniel Selznick Ann Rutherford Fred Astaire Humphrey Bogart Charles Boyer James Cagney Show All…
Genres
Releases by Date
TV
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USANR
Releases by Country
USA
02 Jul 2009
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Popular reviews
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Shallow enough to make the That's Entertainment films look deep, but nevertheless fairly engaging, with well-chosen clips from not just the movies under discussion but from vintage interviews with many of the year's key directors and stars. Makes the case that year exemplifies The Genius of the System (say it 3 times in front of a mirror and Thomas Schatz will appear before you offering to say it for you again in your documentary) rather than auteurist blossoming, but the fact that John Ford's output alone contributes mightily to the year's rep would seem to suggest otherwise. Distorted by its reliance on the MGM/WB/RKO archive, so no discussion of John Stahl's great When Tomorrow Comes or W.C. Field's You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (both Universal) or Wellman's Beau Geste (Paramount). Also the title is a flat-out lie because Hollywood's greatest year was 1932.
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I once set out to watch every movie made in 1939; to this day i have barely put a dent in it with 48 out of 365 seen but watching this has given me new found determination!
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Very breezy overview of the greatest hits. Not much outside of surface level discussion—ie YUP THAT’S GONE WITH THE WIND ALRIGHT IT SURE WAS BIG.
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Little over an hour's worth 'year in review' for 1939 along with some history as to why this was the hight of the Hollywood system and what would lead to it's downfall. Very basic overview covering only the major films and little else.
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This is probably the third or fourth time I've watched it.
It's good, but I don't know why I keep watching it lol. I remember being very excited to watch this for the first time in 2009. -
Straightforward decent doc, but cannot escape the curse of white people talking nonsense about Gone With the Wind.
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Fairly by-the-numbers overview of great films from 1939, with those under Turner/Warner control getting the lion's share of discussion. A great primer for new cinephiles, but the whole thing essentially is an hourlong prologue to a ten-minute documentary about why 1939 belongs to Gone with the Wind.
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Should I even bother logging something that like 12 people have watched? It was fun! I just watched this with my parents during dinner. I think the concept is nice and it’s an entertaining doc but I wanted it to be longer so that it could go beneath what’s basically just surface-level conversation about all the movies.