Destry Rides Again is on every list of canonical Hollywood comedies. A lot has been written about its peripheries. How it influenced the comedy Westerns that came after it, most notably Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles. How it saved Marlene Dietrich’s career. The steamy romance between Dietrich and Jimmy Stewart during filming. Producer Joe Pasternak’s andContinue reading “Destry Rides Again (1939)”
Category Archives: 1939
Maisie (1939)
Maisie was the first of MGM’s immensely popular series of ten films spanning the war years, starring Ann Sothern as Maisie Ravier, a showgirl picara wandering from situation to situation, setting to setting, job to job, and genre to genre. Beautiful, sexy, honest, endowed with an Irish-inflected proletarian p.o.v., an acute observer with a bitingContinue reading “Maisie (1939)”
Hollywood Cavalcade (1939)
Hollywood Cavalcade is a good example of the cinematic conservatism of the Fox comedies in the late ’30s and early ’40s. Narratively, it’s a hash of genres — “a star is born,” historical nostalgia, biopic, backstage romance (“backlot” in this case), film-about-films, American go-getter more interested in his work than in the girl who lovesContinue reading “Hollywood Cavalcade (1939)”
The Amazing Mr. Williams (1939)
Classic Hollywood made a lot of derivative, unimaginative, and badly made comedies, but some were so ham-handed and spiritless that they are insults to the genre and the medium. One of these is Columbia’s The Amazing Mr. Williams. I’d prefer to just let it rot in oblivion but it has enough fans that I can’tContinue reading “The Amazing Mr. Williams (1939)”
Midnight (1939)
Midnight is one of a couple dozen films of the period that I have a hard time writing about. It’s in the top tier of my personal canon and one of the reasons I began this blogging project. It’s almost perfect in my eyes, synthesizing everything that was good about Hollywood comedies of the interwarContinue reading “Midnight (1939)”
These Glamour Girls (1939)
Of the three dancing comedies Lana Turner made for MGM in 1939-40 — Dancing Co-Ed, These Glamour Girls, and Two Girls on Broadway — I like These Glamour Girls the least. It’s clear the studio was experimenting with her, trying out different styles to see which would fit best. I get the feeling they thoughtContinue reading “These Glamour Girls (1939)”
Dancing Co-Ed (1939)
MGM did Lana Turner wrong in a big way. Early in her career she starred in three fine comedies — Dancing Co-Ed, These Glamour Girls, and Two Girls on Broadway — and it’s obvious that she could have been a contender as a comedienne, maybe even a successor to Carole Lombard. Instead, she became theContinue reading “Dancing Co-Ed (1939)”
Fifth Avenue Girl (1939)
Director Gregory LaCava’s enshrinement in the Hollywood comedy pantheon is mainly due to My Man Godfrey (1936), which is still considered one of the peak achievements of the period. I’m not as taken with that film as most folks, but it’s clear that LaCava was an original director with a strong personal sense of howContinue reading “Fifth Avenue Girl (1939)”
That’s Right, You’re Wrong (1939)
It was hard to get a solid hold of That’s Right You’re Wrong. I mean that literally — I had to get it from the U of Washington’s project of digitizing classic films directly from 16mm onto 3-DVD sets. It’s the first of many Kay Kyser films I didn’t know a thing about. I didContinue reading “That’s Right, You’re Wrong (1939)”