Top 25 Films of 1939. However, if you’re not a first-timer, the… The Four Feathers (1939, UK), 130 minutes, D: Zoltan Korda. The film, directed by Victor Fleming, had many of its classic elements dictated by the … Nominations for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Director. Share. William Wyler directed the classic romance movie set on the windswept English moors. The following slideshow (part 1 of 2) provides a glimpse into a time - and a place - long vanished. It is not as though the technology to make movies in color came along and everyone immediately jumped on board. We think of early films as black-and-white, but color has been around since the start — it lent authenticity to the travelogues of the 1890s and made works like Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon (1902) feel fantastical. But though representing the spectrum, Technicolor was not often used to represent "natural" colors. A work of wild imagination and tremendous creativity, sweet and scary, "The Wizard of Oz" is one of the finest children’s movies ever made. Contrary to a common misconception, Oz was not the first film made in color, but it was one of the first to prove that color could add fantasy and draw audiences to theaters, despite its release during the Great Depression. Here's a breakdown of how Wes Anderson uses color in film to balance tone. One of the big misconceptions of many a casual movie fan is that "Gone With the Wind," released in 1939, was the first film made in color. Lon Chaney scored a huge hit with one of the most memorable films of all time. Marlene Dietrich is the sultry, sexy saloon singer, despised by the local “nice girls,” who knows there can never be a real romance with the straight-shooting sheriff. The top ten 1939 released films by box office gross in North America are as follows: The year 1939 was one in which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated ten films for Best Picture: These films came from a wide variety of film genres and sources for their stories and settings, including: historical fiction (Gone with the Wind), contemporary affairs (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Of Mice and Men), love stories, classic novels (Wuthering Heights), fantasies/musicals, (The Wizard of Oz), tragic plays (Dark Victory), westerns (Stagecoach), and comedies (Ninotchka). Incorruptible young Senator Jeff Smith is almost brought low by the powers that be in the crooked capital city, in the only movie ever made with a filibuster at its dramatic core. Color in filmmaking is a huge part of mise-en-scene, or the overall effect of everything we see in the frame.Color can affect us emotionally, psychologically and even physically, often without us becoming aware. The 1930s may be a thing of the distant past, but thanks to an enthralling, good old invention called Film, it will never be really gone. ... but audiences, for the first time, showed a preference for color movies and the studios profited. A classic American western with young John Wayne as the falsely accused Ringo Kid, Claire Trevor as a lady of the evening, and a sterling cast of misfits riding the stage through dangerous Apache territory. A remake of an earlier Silly Symphony retells the story of an outcast duckling whose search for a family to accept him leads to constant rejection before learning his true identity as a swan. 1939 is undoubtedly the most celebrated year in American film history - the year produced more outstanding films than any other 12-month period. This misconception probably comes from the fact that the film makes great symbolic use of brilliant color film after the first scene is depicted in black and white. 1939 World's Fair in FULL COLOR - Rare Film Footage of New York World's Fair! Color films existed long before the idea for the iconic Hollywood adaptation of the Wizard of Oz book was even conceived. An often-repeated—but incorrect—bit of trivia is that 1939's "The Wizard of Oz" was the first full-color movie. color films. Around 190 motion pictures experimented with some sort of color techniques prior to the 1939 phenomenon, but unfortunately, many of them were lost. Jesse James is a 1939 American Western film directed by Henry King and starring Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, Nancy Kelly and Randolph Scott.Written by Nunnally Johnson, the film is loosely based on the life of Jesse James, the outlaw from whom the film derives its name.The supporting cast features Henry Hull, John Carradine, Brian Donlevy, Jane Darwell and Lon Chaney, Jr.. (1929) are no-dialog "silents". Directed by Victor Fleming, perhaps the only director to produce two undisputed classic movie masterpieces in the same year. Usually deemed the finest film version of Emily Bronte’s darkly passionate novel of star-crossed love, "Wuthering Heights" brought Sir Laurence Olivier to international prominence as Heathcliff, with Merle Oberon as his doomed love Cathy. She's a former Associated Press journalist and TV news reporter. [citation needed]. (The other was ​"Gone With the Wind."). Color simplifies complex stories. With Clark Gable as the rakish hero and lovely Vivien Leigh as the strong-willed heroine, it was directed by Victor Fleming. 1939 World's Fair in FULL COLOR - Rare Film Footage of New York World's Fair! Charles Laughton is heart-breaking as the deformed, grotesque bell ringer Quasimodo, with Maureen O’Hara as the spellbinding gypsy Esmerelda, falsely accused of murder by a corrupt official who lusts after her. A study of the lives and romantic entanglements of various interconnected women. Color Films Gain Acceptance. Votes: 16,627 | Gross: $0.76M. The great movies of 1939 are among the most enduring classics in film history, and many of the lesser-known titles will knock your socks off, too. The year 1939 in film is widely considered one of the most outstanding years ever, when it comes to the high quality and high attendance at the large set of the best films that premiered in the year (considered as a percentage of the population in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom at that time). In 1941, Kodak made it possible to order prints from Kodachrome slides. After all, early color offers us a view of the past in the colors and tones of our own more recent experience and memories. Some films are shot in black and white as a kind of homage to earlier cinema genres. It possesses a handwritten note on its frame, "A. Lincoln, June 8, 1863." Director: George Cukor | Stars: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Mary Boland. The switch from black and white to color would have had a special resonance in 1939, when the movie was made. The yellow brick road, the ruby slippers, and Emerald City are so richly saturated with color on screen that it’s hard to imagine the film without it! Each of the five nominees for Best Director of 1939 were or went on to become a legendary film director with multiple acclaimed films to his credit: Frank Capra (previous winner of the award), Victor Fleming, John Ford (who won a record four Best Director awards), Sam Wood, and William Wyler (who leads all directors in nominations with 11 while having three wins). Steve Martin's Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) pays tribute to film noir, while Movie Movie (1978) and Young Frankenstein (1974) fondly recall the 1930s backstage musical and the 1940s horror film. The color wheel is the common tool you will see when it comes to color control, and it is standard in color theory in defining a number of combinations that are considered especially pleasing. See Appendix 1, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, (1995) 15:sup1, 1-31 p 20 DOI: 10.1080/01439689508604551, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, "Michael Giltz: DVDs: 1939 – The Best Year For Movies...Ever! Both of them get great wardrobes in this sharp political satire wrapped in a charming romantic comedy - a Lubitsch specialty. WBIR, an NBC affiliate, developed a multi-part story series called "The Hunt for History: The lost films of Granville Hunt," that aired earlier this month. With Jimmy Stewart as the irresistible naif, Jean Arthur as his wise-cracking secretary and Claude Rains as the political hero gone rotten. It's a sudsy melodrama, but if you like your divas triumphantly, tragically over the top, don't miss it. In fact, many black and white movies have continued to be produced over the years, including Specifically, England in August 1939, less than a month before the outbreak of World War Two. But witch ones should you watch? Almost all films were still being made in black and white, and the cumbersome new color cameras came with a “Technicolor consultant” from the factory, who stood next to the cinematographer and officiously suggested higher light levels. There must have been something in the water in Hollywood that year. The Best Movies About Inspirational Teachers, 10 Must-See Movies About Witches and Wizards, 4 Movies Starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. Well, if that’s the very question lurking in your mind right now, then you came to the right place. Gone with the Wind receives in all ten Academy Awards (eight competitive, two honorary) from thirteen nominations. https://www.flickchart.com/Charts.aspx?year=1939&perpage=100 The first of Technicolor's three-strip processes, it was used with enormous success in films such as The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939). "Dark Victory" It's a terrific vehicle for Bette Davis as a society woman diagnosed with a fatal brain … Gone With The Wind (1939), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and Disney's Snow White (1937) all used the process. June 10 – MGM's first successful animated character, This page was last edited on 8 April 2021, at 10:00. Specifically, how Anderson tends to have depressed characters dealing with personal trauma while … "Stagecoach" might be the most famous western of this magical year, but "Destry" maybe even better. The late photographer's film includes color, silent movies of the Great Smoky Mountains, his family, the University of Tennessee football team at the Orange Bowl -- and 1939 Kentucky Derby day. Well, the answer to that is not quite as clear as you might think. Donat’s performance surprisingly beat out Stewart’s Mr. Smith, Gable’s Rhett Butler and Olivier’s Heathcliff for the Best Actor Oscar award for 1939. ", "Introduction to 1939, Hollywood's Greatest Year", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1939_in_film&oldid=1016648751, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2011, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Clark Gamble and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind (1939, USA, Dir. It's an engaging tear-jerker with great performances all around, except for Humphrey Bogart. While Gone With The Wind and The Wizard of Oz were bathing 1939 film audiences in glorious three-color Technicolor, there were still older processes being used. In fact it was shot in Dufay Colour, a mosaic screen additive system. The sweeping Civic War classic set the standard for what an epic film ought to be. Nonstop action with a strong story, it was the first film that director John Ford shot in Utah’s Monument Valley, the awe-inspiring rocky landscape that still resonates as a symbol of the American West the world over. Funny, sad, witty and entertaining. 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