dual personalities

On Monday, you may recall, I mentioned the great (maybe the greatest) year in movie-making history–1939. This got me thinking that, indeed, this is its 80th anniversary!

Just look at the top-grossing films of the year:

…and the ten movies nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards:

I plan to be thorough about watching as many movies from 1939 as I can this year. I have already checked a couple off my top twenty-one list…(a better list than the top-grossers!)

✔️ Young Mr. Lincoln

Drums Along the Mohawk

Stagecoach

The Wizard of Oz

Gone With the Wind

Gunga Din

Ninotchka

Goodbye Mr. Chips

Wuthering Heights

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Dark Victory

Beau Geste

Destry Rides Again

Only Angels Have Wings

✔️ Allegheny Uprising

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Dodge City

The Four Feathers

Intermezzo

The Little Princess

I like to think of my mother, who turned thirteen on January 19, 1939, going to the movies on most Saturdays that year. I’m sure she saw all the movies on my list. Some, like Ninotchka and Stagecoach, became all-time favorites of hers. She was always and forever a fan of John Wayne after this:

https://gfycat.com/miniatureinexperiencedflounder

And she loved her Errol Flynn movies.

She saw Wuthering Heights when her family was spending the summer in New Hampshire with her “Aunt Laura”–not really her aunt, but an aged ancestor who owned “The Farm”. Stern old Aunt Laura took pity on Mary, when everyone went swimming, but left her at home because it was “her time of the  month.” She drove her to town to see Wuthering Heights. It was a momentous occasion for my mother, because: 1. She loved the movie; and 2. Aunt Laura had done something really nice just for her. She never forgot and passed that tidbit on to me.

My mother took me to see Gone With the Wind when it was re-released in 1969. I was in the seventh grade and it was a big deal because my mother took me and not my DP, who she deemed not quite old enough at 10 years old. I was the same age as my mother when she saw it in 1939. I was quite bowled over by the spectacle at the time, although there is not much I like about it now. (Okay, the music is good and I still love Leslie Howard.)

Movies nowadays, available on demand and at a moment’s notice, do not hold the same meaning as they did back in my mother’s day, and, indeed, in mine. For my mother, it was a once-a-week treat, and for me, it depended on television programming or what film series was being shown at the library or art museum. We went to see new movies once in awhile, but with nothing of the regularity of my parent’s generation.

Anyway, this is a trustworthy saying, worthy of full acceptance: take a look back at 1939. You might want to make a list for yourself. And pay attention to the movies when you watch them! Give them their due.

And in honor of the passing of the great (and eccentric) Karl Lagerfeld, I give you this. Not surprisingly, he had good taste in  movies. He also said recently: “I don’t watch movies because…I don’t want any ready-made images to invade my imagination. I tell my godchild [Hudson Kroenig] all the time, “Don’t look at videos too much, your brain has to invent images.” You cannot only look at second-rate images made by other people. You have to build up your imagination, because imagination is like a muscle—you have to work on it.” He makes a very good point.

*Robert Service, “The Passing of the Year”