1939 - Theater, Film

Theater, Film

Theater: The Gentle People: A Brooklyn Fable by Irwin Shaw 1/5 at New York's Belasco Theater, with Lee J. Cobb, Roman Bohnen, Sam Jaffe, Elia Kazan, Karl Malden, Martin Ritt, Sylvia Sidney, Franchot Tone, scenic design by Boris Aronson, 141 perfs.; The White Steed by Paul Vincent Carroll 1/10 at New York's Cort Theater, with Dublin-born actor Barry Fitzgerald (originally William Joseph Shields), 50, Jessica Tandy, George Coulouris, 136 perfs.; The American Way by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart 1/21 at New York's Center Theater in Rockefeller Center, with Fredric March, Florence Eldridge, 164 perfs.; The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman 2/15 at New York's National Theater, with Tallulah Bankhead, Eugenia Rawls, Carl Benton Reid, Dan Duryea, Patricia Collinge, sets and costumes by Aline Bernstein, 191 perfs.; Family Portrait by Lenore Coffee and William Joyce Cowan 3/8 at New York's Morosco Theater, with Judith Anderson, Philip Coolidge, Tom Ewell, Philip Truex, New York-born actress Margaret Webster, 33, 111 perfs.; Family Reunion by T. S. Eliot 3/21 at London's Westminster Theatre with Michael Redgrave, Robert Harris, Helen Hayes, George Woodbridge, 38 perfs.; The Philadelphia Story by Philip Barry 3/28 at New York's Shubert Theater, with Katharine Hepburn, Lenore Lonergan, New York-born actress Shirley Booth (originally Thelma Booth Ford), 31, Van Heflin, Joseph Cotten, 96 perfs.; My Heart's in the Highlands by William Saroyan 4/13 at New York's Guild Theater, with Philip Loeb, Sidney Lumet, Art Smith, Hester Sondergaard, 44 perfs.; No Time for Comedy by S. N. Behrman 4/17 at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater, with Katharine Cornell, Laurence Olivier, Margalo Gilmore, 185 perfs.; After the Dance by Terence Rattigan 6/21 at the St. James's Theatre, London, with Martin Walker, Hubert Gregg, 60 perfs.; Ondine by Jean Genet 8/3 at the Théâtre de l'Athenée, Paris; See My Lawyer by Richard Malbaum and Harry Clork 9/27 at New York's Biltmore Theater, with Milton Berle, Millard Mitchell, Hartford, Conn.-born Gary Merrill, 24, 224 perfs.; Skylark by Samson Raphaelson 10/11 at New York's Belasco Theater, with Gertrude Lawrence, Glenn Anders, Donald Cook, Vivian Vance, 256 perfs.; The Man Who Came to Dinner by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart 10/25 at New York's Music Box Theater, with Monty Woolley as Sheridan Whiteside and with Cole Porter's song "What Am I to Do," 739 perfs.; The Time of Your Life by William Saroyan 10/25 at New York's Booth Theater, with Eddie Dowling, Julie Haydon, Gene Kelly, New York-born actress Celeste Holm, 20, William Bendix, Reginald Beane, 185 perfs.; Margin for Error by Clare Boothe (Luce) 11/3 at New York's Plymouth Theater, with Otto Preminger, Yorkshire-born actor Bramwell Fletcher, 35, Sam Levene, Philadelphia-born actor Hugh Marlowe, 28, 264 perfs.; Life with Father by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse 11/8 at New York's Empire Theater, with Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney in a comedy based on the book by Clarence Day, 3,244 perfs.; Key Largo by Maxwell Anderson 11/27 at New York's Ethel Barrymore Theater, with José Ferrer, Paul Muni, Karl Malden, German-born actress Uta Hagen, 30, 105 perfs.; Mornings at Seven by Paul Osborn 11/30 at New York's Longacre Theater, with Dorothy Gish, Russell Collins, Jean Adair, Enid Markey, Effie Shannon, 44 perfs.

Congress cuts off funding of the WPA's 4-year-old Federal Theater Project, which goes out of existence June 30. Most of its presentations have been totally uncontroversial, but a few have raised accusations that Harry L. Hopkins's friend Hallie Flanagan was trying to use the project to engineer social change. The FTP is the first WPA arts project to be terminated.

Playwright Sidney Howard is killed in a tractor accident on his farm near Tyringham, Mass., August 23 at age 48; playwright Fanny Hatton dies at New York November 27 at age 69.

Canada's National Film Board (NFB) has its beginnings in the National Film Commission created by Parliament in May with a mandate to make and distribute films that will help Canadians to understand each other's lives and problems. Scottish-born documentary maker John Grierson, 41, is appointed governor commissioner in October, signs an agreement with the March of Time to distribute NFB films in the United States, and arranges with Famous Players of Canada to show the films in its 800 theaters; within 6 years Grierson will have attracted a team of more than 800 filmmakers (see McLaren, 1941).

Films: Victor Fleming's Gone with the Wind with Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara, Clark Gable as Rhett Butler, Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes, Olivia de Havilland as Melanie Hamilton, sets by William Cameron Menzies. Produced by David O. Selznick with a screenplay by Sidney Howard based on the 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind has its world premiere December 15 at Atlanta, runs 222 minutes, and must be interrupted with an intermission. Gable shocks audiences with his line, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

Other films: George Marshall's Destry Rides Again with James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich; Zoltan Korda's Four Feathers with Ralph Richardson, C. Aubrey Smith, June Duprez, Clive Baxter; George Stevens's Gunga Din with Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Tokyo-born actress Joan Fontaine (originally Joan de Beauvoir De Havilland, Olivia's sister), 20 (she has taken her stepfather's name), Sam Jaffe; Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington with James Stewart, Jean Arthur (45 U.S. Senators attend the premiere October 17 at Washington's Constitution Hall and see Stewart's memorable filibuster); Lewis Milestone's Of Mice and Men with Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney Jr.; Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game (La Règle du Jeu) with Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor; Mila Parely, Renoir; Monte Banks's Shipyard Sally with Gracie Fields, who is diagnosed with cancer, has a hysterectomy in June at London's Old Chelsea Hospital for Women, is unconscious for 3 days as a million letters and hundreds of bouquets and gifts pour in, but recovers, and ends her 16-year marriage to Archie Pitts in July; John Ford's Stagecoach with John Wayne, Brooklyn-born actress Claire Trevor (originally Wemlinger), 30; Carol Reed's The Stars Look Down with Michael Redgrave, Margaret Lockwood; William Wyler's Wuthering Heights with Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon. Also: Edmund Goulding's Dark Victory and The Old Maid, both with Bette Davis; John Ford's Drums Along the Mohawk with Henry Fonda, Claudette Colbert; Sam Wood's Goodbye, Mr. Chips with Robert Donat, Greer Garson; Garson Kanin's The Great Man Votes with John Barrymore; Sidney Lanfield's The Hound of the Baskervilles with Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce; William Dieterle's The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Charles Laughton; Marcel Carné's Le Jour Se Lève (Daybreak) with Jean Gabin, Jules Berry, Arletty; Leo McCarey's Love Affair with Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer; Mitchell Leisen's Midnight with Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, John Barrymore; Ernst Lubitsch's Ninotchka with Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas; Howard Hawks's Only Angels Have Wings with Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Richard Barthelmess; Michael Curtiz's The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex with Bette Davis, Errol Flynn; George Cukor's The Women with Joan Fontaine, Paulette Goddard, Lucile Watson, Marjorie Main, now 49, Virginia Weidler, Providence, R.I.-born actress Ruth (Carol) Hussey (originally O'Rourke), 21, Phyllis Povah, Alton, Ill.-born actress Mary Beth Hughes, 21, Los Angeles-born actress Virginia Grey, 23, Butterfly McQueen, and Hedda Hopper; George Marshall's You Can't Cheat an Honest Man with W. C. Fields, Edgar Bergen.

Motion picture pioneer Carl Laemmle dies of a heart attack at his Hollywood home September 24 at age 72; pioneer woman director Lois Weber at Hollywood November 13 at age 58; actor Douglas Fairbanks (Sr.) of a heart attack at his Santa Monica beach house December 12 at age 56.