One of the Great Three-Year Spans of American Films, 1939-1941 is Here Explored

Foreign Correspondent 

I’ve gone on long and loud about how I believe the 1970s were the best decade in movie-making.  Recently I wrote a post naming my ten favorite years in films. Six of those years were in the seventies, including the top three. Based on the list it’s easy to surmise that my favorite three-year stretch of films was from 1973-1975. But what about outside of the seventies? Was there a three-year span of motions pictures that approaches what came out is the seventies? 

Yes.

The period immediately before U.S. entry into World War II, 1939-1941. I came up with thirty films that I love from those three years including some of my all-time favorites such as His Girl Friday, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Grapes of Wrath, Sullivans Travels and Foreign Correspondent. Of the thirty films, John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock directed four and Preston Sturges three,  two apiece were by Howard Hawks, Frank Capra and Ernest Lubitsch. Among lead actors Jimmy Stewart led the way appearing in four of the films. Cary Grant was in three, as were Barbara Stanwyck  and Henry Fonda. Supporting player Thomas Mitchell was also in three and Ward Bond in four (Bond, Mitchell, William Demarest Pat Flaherty and John Qualen between them showed up in pretty much every movie made between 1932 and 1958, more on them and other frequent supporting players in a future post). So some of Hollywood's great directors and stars were then at their peak. Indeed there were some sparkling performances such as Stewart in MSGTW, Bette Davis in The Letter, Stanwyck in The Lady Eve and Meet John Doe, Fonda and Jane Darwell in Grapes of Wrath, James Cagney in the Roaring Twenties, Mitchell in Stagecoach and Grant in Suspicion. 

It was also a revolutionary time for camera positioning, shooting angles and lighting. Stagecoach really set the tone and Welles really ran with it in Citizen Kane. But Capra did some nice work with Meet John Doe as did Hitchcock in Foreign Correspondent and Suspicion and Ford again in Grapes of Wrath. They were directors ahead of there times.

Twelve of the films were comedies, many of the screwball variety. Those three years saw the end of peak screwball era. Even one of Hitchcock's entries (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) was a screwball comedy -- the only one he made. It was also the rebirth of the western with Ford's Stagecoach. There were powerful statement/political films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Grapes of Wrath, Citizen Kane and Meet John Doe. The coming war and the horrors of Nazism were touched upon in The Long Voyage Home, Foreign Correspondent, and with a light touch in The Great Dictator but none of them were out and out war pictures. Those came in spades during and immediately after the war. There was a hint of film noir from The Maltese Falcon, a genre which would see its heyday following the war. For better or worse The Roaring Twenties is the only gangster picture in the lot.

If it not for Hitler and Tojo perhaps that amazing run would have continued. While Hollywood still churned out some excellent films during the war, many of the best directors were off making propaganda films for the government (and some damn good ones at that). Ford, Capra, John Huston, William Wyler and George Stevens most prominent among them. (The five and their war work are subjects of an excellent book by Mark Harris called Five Came Back which I’m just now reading.) The twenty or so years after the war ended saw nothing to compare what was produced between '39 and '41, at least not out of Hollywood.

That same time period saw a proliferation of great foreign films from the likes of Bergman, Fellini, Antonioni, Kurosawa, Truffaut, Rossellini, De Sica, Kalatozov, Ichikawa, Buñuel and Ray but from the U.S. not so much.

Here are my top ten films from 1939-1941 followed by other great films from those years.

MY TOP TEN FILMS FROM 1939-1941

His Girl Friday (1940) Hawks

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Capra

The Grapes of Wrath  (1940) Ford

Foreign Correspondent (1940) Hitchcock 

Sullivan’s Travels (1941) Sturges

Stagecoach (1939) Ford

Citizen Kane (1941) Welles

The Lady Eve (1941) Sturges

The Maltese Falcon (1941) Huston

The Long Voyage Home (1940) Ford

OTHER FAVORITES SORTED BY YEAR

Also from 1939: The Roaring Twenties (Walsh), The Great Man Votes (Kanin), Midnight (Leisen), Young Mr. Lincoln (Ford), Ninotchka (Lubitsch), Destry Rides Again (Marshall).

Also from 1940: The Philadelphia Story (Cukor), The Great Dictator (Chaplin), The Great McGinty (Sturges), The Letter (Wyler), Rebecca (Hitchcock), The Shop Around the Corner (Lubitsch).

Also From 1941: Meet John Doe (Capra), Here Comes Mr. Jordan (Hall), Suspicion (Hitchcock), Ball of Fire (Hawks), Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Hitchcock).

What You're Telling Us If You Say You're a Republican (Hint: It's Not Good)

I frequent a forum about Cal athletics. Politics rarely comes up but when it does most people who comment reflect progressive or liberal views. Cal is in Berkeley, after all. However recently one commenter identified himself as a “conservative and a Republican.” I noted that I had a visceral reaction to reading these words. I can best sum it up thusly:

What you’re telling me when you tell me you’re a Republican or a conservative or both.

You support big businesses and corporate power over the working class. You don’t want to raise the minimum wage but you’re fine with people being multi billionaires.

You don’t support a woman’s right to choose. Indeed, you don’t support the right’s of women. You’re comfortable with men making choices for women about women’s bodies.

You don’t respect the rights and safety and autonomy of the LGBTQ+ community. You’re likely homophobic and certainly anti-trans.

You’re a xenophobe who participates in or accepts the fear-mongering around immigrants. 

You’re a racist. Anyone who supports Trumpy is identifying as a bigot. Plain and simple. You’re prejudices may not be overt but they certainly exist.

You care more about guns than children. You have totally misrepresented and misunderstood the second amendment which you view as sacrosanct. Unlike human lives.

You’re afraid of education and books. Just as slave masters didn’t want the enslaved to read and learn, you don’t want young people to learn the true history of this country, or about social issues or African American history. You know that a well-rounded education is a threat to your efforts to suppress dissent against the military-industrial complex.

You’re opposed to high voter turnout because you know it hurts your candidates' chances. You are so opposed that you work towards and support measures to suppress the vote.

You don’t give a damn about the plights of underprivileged people. 

You want to shrink the government, transferring their power to the rich and powerful. To that end you abhor government regulations no matter how much they help the common good.

Your idea of tax reform is less taxes not closing loopholes that benefit the richest Americans.

You extoll punishment over rehabilitation. Indeed you favor long prison terms for the poor but amnesty for the rich.

You see schools as a necessary evil and hate having to fund them or pay teachers a decent wage.

You don't trust our electoral system because someone told you not to. Facts don't enter into it.

You watch a "news" network that is right wing propaganda which perpetuates blatant lies that you believe.

You’ll let the planet roast to a cinder before admitting that human-made climate change is real and is the greatest threat facing humanity. 

You don’t honor or even trust either the scientific or medical community no matter what they’re overwhelming consensus is on any issue. You do, however, trust the business community. You also believe the myths from Christianity over facts empirically verified by science.

You could well be an anti-semite or an Islamophobe or both. 

You think that Alabama, South Dakota and Idaho are the “real America” but New York, San Francisco and Chicago aren’t because the second group has large populations of people of color and gay people who are out of the closet.

You blindly follow a leader who is a narcissistic, lying, twice impeached, convicted felon because you’re goddamned stupid. Period.

Note: Four of the last five Democratic nominees for president have either been a person of color or a woman, one is both. The Republicans have never nominated either a person of color or a woman as president. The last three times they've nominated Donald Trump, a serial philanderer and known bigot.

A Partial Transcript from a Recent Gathering; Grizzly Man, Say Goodbye, Joe; and a Health Update

A grizzly bear.

Hi nice to see you. Everyone gather around, there are plenty of seats. If you haven’t already done so, fill out a name tag. There are refreshments in the back including vegan donuts and gluten free cookies. I thought we’d start by going around and introducing ourselves. Say your name, where you’re from and a little about what you hope to get from today’s gathering.

You in the Tyrolean hat and lederhosen, why don’t you go first?

My name is Fritz. I am from Kennebunkport, Maine. I hope to embark on a journey of self-discovery that will lead to a fuller understanding of the universe.

Very good. How about you, young lady in the pretty pink chiffon dress?

I’m Myrtle Hossenfeather and I’m from Minot, South Dakota. I’m mainly here for the cookies — they’re delicious. But I’d also like to unlock life’s mysteries.

Great, I’m sure you will.

You, sir, on the stilts. 

You can call me Hoagy. I’m a soothsayer from Hay-on-Wye in Wales. I’m mostly here to meet people but I also hope to explore the inner depths of my psyche — if that makes sense.

It sure does.

How about you, the naked woman. No, the one sitting next to the potted plant.

You can call me Pippa. I’m from the Danish royal family. I came here to see how commoners think and speak and also to maybe meet a man for purposes of dating and romance.

See me after the first session, Pippa. 

We’re going to need to get started soon so let’s meet one more person for now and then proceed to the first activity.

How about you, Luther. We’ve met before but why don’t you introduce yourself to the group?

Yeah, hi, so as you heard my name is Luther. I’m an alien originally from Uranus — no jokes please, I’m kind of sensitive about it. But I’m here as part of my ongoing efforts to seize total and complete power over all living beings on this planet.

Good luck with that Luther. Okay let’s everyone pair off, if we don’t have an even number it’s okay to have one group of three. I see a problem already, all you men can’t partner with Pippa, that’s it, whoever was sitting next to her….

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I re-watched the documentary Grizzly Man (2005) Herzog the other day. It’s the story of Timothy Treadwell who spent his summers among the bears of the Alaskan wilderness until one finally killed and ate him and his girlfriend in October 2003.

It was an inevitable, if tragic ending for someone who crossed the invisible line separating man from wild beast. To his credit Treadwell’s regular presence among the bears did much to protect them from poachers and raise awareness of the bears. He filmed his encounters with bears who for the most part steered clear of this strange human. And strange he was. This is best understood by watching the film or at least excerpts of it. There’s plenty of him on you tube. This is a very good example. 

I love bears. They’re my favorite wild animal. I enjoy watching videos of bears. They come in a variety of sizes and colors. Some have long snouts, some short ones. Some are aggressive, some are timid. Some are scary as hell, some look cuddly. I saw one in the wild once, but that was from the safety of a moving train in Finland. I’d love to see a bear again, but only from a safe distance. I do not want to see one in a zoo. I don’t like zoos. 

In Grizzly Man there is an Alaskan who decries the late Mr. Treadwell and suggests that he had what was coming. This is one of those idiots who disdains conversationist, tree-huggers and liberals in general. Fuck that guy. While Treadwell went too far and perhaps even suffered from some sort of psychosis, his heart was most certainly in the right place and while his story was ultimately a tragic one, it was also that of a person who lived up to certain principles and did much to help some of our fellow creatures. (He also befriended some foxes who seemed most amiable to being treated like pets especially enjoying the being petted aspect.)

Grizzly Man is a study of a particular -- and peculiar -- man as much as it is about bears. Werner Herzog was the perfect director to make the documentary having the proper sensibilities.

Treadwill and his girlfriend's horrific deaths were recording by Treadwell's ubiquitous camera but only the audio as the lens cap was on. Herzog listens to the tape of their dying moments and relates to an old friend of Treadwell's who owns the tape, that this is something no one should ever listen to. We are told that the woman is attacked first and that on the tape one can hear her screams and Treadwell's entreaties to the Bear to go away. They landed on deaf ears.

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As I write this President Joe Biden might be contemplating stepping aside and discontinuing his re-election campaign. Let’s hope this happens. Bless Joe, he did a fine job and the country owes him a debt — if for nothing else, because he beat Trumpy in the 2020 election. But he looks and sounds old and his debate performance made clear that he’s not up to the rigors of a campaign and it’s very doubtful that he could successfully serve even half of a second term. Unbelievably Trumpy is ahead in the polls (Americans do love a felon and habitual liar and cheat who is raging incompetent and doesn’t even began to understand the constitution.) If Biden drops out soon momentum can build around another candidate, likely Kamala Harris. Joey B is not inspiring anyone these days. Another Democratic candidate likely would, if for no other reason because she or he was not an old, old white man who was destined to lose. We want some hope because another Trumpy term would be apocalyptic. What a strange country this is that has so many millions of people who revere a narcissist like Trumpy term. Is the U.S. just full of incredibly stupid, gullible people? Now that I pose that question I see that the obvious answer is: yes. 

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Checking in time. I’ve been fine. Had several days of back pain. The day that ended I was hit with a couple of days of knee pain. I’ve since had a couple of days of no pain. Don’t know what caused either the back or knee aches other than perhaps the fact that I’m aging (aren’t we all?). I remember that in his eighties and nineties whenever I asked my father how he was doing he often complained of having various aches and pains. Something for me to look forward to, I suppose. But despite it all my overall health seems excellent. I’m about to head to the gym. I walked nearly five miles in “running” errands yesterday. So I’m doing all right. 

Thumbing Through Memories, Tales of Hitchhiking Including a Close Call

In my late teens and early twenties I used to hitchhike a lot. This was the early and mid seventies (1970s, not 1870s) when people were still thumbing their way distances both short and long. In those days when you got to the end of University Avenue in Berkeley where it connects to freeways via an on-ramp, you would invariably see hitchhikers, up to a dozen or so, many with signs indicating their destinations. You don't see any hitchers there today. At all.

Most people who hitched were young. Teens through maybe mid-thirties but most in the early twenties, I’d guess. Everyone knew there were risks involved but those risks were greatly exaggerated by adults who acted like hitchhiking was a virtual guarantee of an early death. For my part I never mentioned hitching to my father who would have had a conniption fit if he knew. (Of course if he’d have flipped out if he’d had any inkling of my drug use — the sex he would have been fine with.)

I had some, shall we say misadventures hitching one of which, that I’ll save for last, was a real doozy. Here are some of my experiences.

Conspicuously white. Once a friend of mine and I hitched most of the way to L.A. for a wedding. We  departed from Chico in the far reaches of the Sacramento Valley. We started with a ride from friends then were on the lonely rode. The last ride dropped us off in the middle of Compton, not the safest place in the world for a couple of white boys. From there we called our friends in LA who, realizing where we were, made haste to retrieve us. Sitting and waiting at a bus stop in the evening we got all manner of looks and a couple of cars stopped and asked if we’d like to join them. For what was not specified. Thankfully our saviors arrived before any trouble could beset us. We’ve been told in intervening years how lucky we are. Some of that I put down to white people paranoia but it surely was not the safest place for us to be hanging out.

Another ride was the subject of a much beloved post on this here blog.  It concerns my curious decision to drop acid before thumbing the 180 miles or so from Chico to Berkeley.  I turned  the blog post it into a composite of several trips. Here they are:

The acid trip trip. In my defense my brain wasn’t fully developed yet (not sure it ever has been) and I didn’t always make rational decisions, indeed I rarely did. This was the only time I dropped alone which was weird in itself, the fact that I did his BEFORE hitching is positively bizarre. Fortunately I took a small dose that didn’t last long. It did make for an interesting journey though in truth I remember little about it other than not being bored for a second and developing a totally different perspective on automobiles driving fast. They appeared variously to be gigantic and frightening killing machines and wonders of science fiction existing in a pungent haze of real life. I was mesmerized.

The cop stop. I only told part of this story in that post. Yes a cop pulled over and frisked me because I was hitching illegally (right there on the highway)  but there was more to the story. He technically arrested me for it bringing me in to see the judge (very small town). Besides hitching illegally I held no ID. A call was made to a friend in Chico who verified my identity. I was issued a warning and happy holidays and the same cop dropped me off at a spot where it was legal to hitch. (I was lucky the judge was in; the cop had told me that he often left early on Fridays to go fishing. If he had I would have spent the weekend in the hoosegow.)

The boys in the van. A big van pulled over, the side door slid open. "Hi" came from a chorus of shrill girlish voices. There were four or five young men. "We're going to San Diego!" they trilled. "Come on in.” I was very protective of my masculinity as most young straight men are so offered a thanks but no thanks. A few faces frowned for I was a cute young thing. The door quickly slammed shut and the van sped off. Weird.

The storytellers. Two older guys picked me up. By older I mean they were probably in their late twenties. The gents ignored me as they shared reflections on the woman they had shared the night before, “she made my dick throb” I remember one of them saying. Was she a hooker? Was she drunk? What was the full story here? I’ve since wondered if they weren’t making the whole thing up for my benefit. In any case I while I was no virgin I was still a neophyte at sex and had never considered intercourse with a third party present. I was impressed with their cool detachment but they really won me over when they gave me a beer.

The attempted pick ups. Twice I was picked up by what were then called chickenhawks, that is older gay men looking for a young partner for a sexual encounter. Both used the same introductory line, one I found most curious: ‘how’s your sex life?” I immediately recognized it as a weird pick up line and in both cases told them how much great sex I’d been having with my girlfriend. In both cases the men got the hint and the remainder of the ride passed in silence.

Not included in the post was what was perhaps my most noteworthy hitching experience. Which I shall recount here for the first time.

The big scare. I was 20-years-old hitchhiking in Marin County. I started to get into a car. The driver looked and sounded a little sketchy. I was about to close the passenger door when I noted that there were no door handles on the inside of the car. Talk about red flags.... I got out and said I had to make a phone call. The driver practically pleaded for me to stay and then offered to wait for me. I ran into a nearby store and didn't emerge until I saw that he'd driven off. Was he a serial killer? Perhaps the Zodiac himself? Did I come close to being raped and murdered? I may have been dumb but I wasn’t stupid. Thank goodness I noted the absence of the door handle literally a second before the door closed perhaps sealing my fate. I’ve hardly given that experience a single thought in the fifty years since. I suppose my brain didn’t want to contemplate my close call. It’s now so far in the past that thinking about it today doesn’t bother me. Actually it makes for a pretty good story.