1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year (2009)

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

If you're a seasoned classic film fan or film history buff, then this documentary of Hollywood in 1939 will offer no new insights or information.I was surprised at how many films were glossed over or only briefly examined: Wuthering Heights, Intermezzo: A Love Story, Son of Frankenstein, and The Rains Came are all worthy of attention, yet all are barely given a paragraph. It's sad. As important as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind are, can't other films from that year get some love for once? There's nothing overtly awful or revisionist about this documentary, but it's nothing special. Only newcomers to classic film will find anything of interest here.

I fell asleep twice. The greatest year of movies? It was more like attending a college lecture. No passion. No excitement. The director brought no sense of style or storytelling to a vast canvas known as 1939.No info here that you couldn't get on Google or Wikipedia, in fact that might be more informative.Barely a whisper about Hattie McDaniel's historic Oscar win. Apparently Ingrid Bergman is no big deal either. WIZARD OF OZ could have been the centerpiece but again, it just breezes by.HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT.Classic year, boring documentary. Maybe someday someone will pay the proper respect to the greatest year in cinema...1939.

I was expecting so much more from this profile of Hollywood's greatest year. I was very disappointed that this look at 1939 was so thin and so poorly done.I expected a lot of time to be spent on The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind. I didn't expect this time to be at the expense of other '39 movies. This documentary of 1939 barely glossed over Idiot's Delight (Clark Gable's only appearance singing and dancing) and totally ignored The Little Princess, Bachelor Mother, Stanley and Livingstone, and Intermezzo: A Love Story (just to name a few).I was particularly disappointed that they left out Intermezzo because this would have provided a perfect time to contrast Leslie Howard with his role in Gone With The Wind (he was much too old to play Ashley Wilkes and I feel that showed in his performance, but he was wonderful in Intermezzo). The exclusion of Intermezzo is all the more puzzling because it was the first American film appearance of Ingrid Bergman. How can the debut of such a star be overlooked?Even the attention given to Gone With The Wind is weak. No mention is made of Hattie McDaniel's historic Oscar win (except for a one second moment of footage at the awards). The core audience for this film would have to be newcomers to classic movies. Any fan of classic movies will not learn anything new and will be horribly distracted by all of the omissions.The 70th anniversary of Hollywood's greatest year deserves better.

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.