1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year

A barely adequate look at the golden year of 1939, concentrating, as usual, on films owned by TCM and ignoring films they don't own and studios whose libraries they don't have.

Turner not only does this in its documentaries but also in their books.

I certainly can understand them wanting to push the stars and films they own, but please don't call this film history. Though TCM was not listed as the producer, they in fact were - they farmed it out to New Wave Entertainment, which has made many of their documentaries.

Most slighted, as usual, was 20th Century Fox - I'll say this, they did mention it. Usually they leave it out all together. Tyrone Power in 1939 was one of the most popular stars in the world, in the top 10 box office stars - lucky him, they mentioned him once. Amazing.

The documentary said that Gone with the Wind "swept" the Oscars, failing to mention that "The Rains Came" beat it - and the Wizard of Oz - in special effects.

As usual, people watching this walk away believing the only stars were Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Mickey Rooney, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, etc. and the rest of them were people who did some acting on the side. After all, if you weren't with MGM, Warners, or RKO, you were nobody.