1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year

Jul 2, 2009

1h 9m

★ 7.5

Overview

This documentary focuses on 1939, considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, with film clips and insight into what made the year so special.

Genres

Documentary

TV Movie

Production Companies

New Wave Entertainment

1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Narrator (voice)

Kenneth Branagh

Self (archive footage)

Clark Gable

Self (archive footage)

Vivien Leigh

Self (archive footage)

Olivia de Havilland

Self (archive footage)

Judy Garland

Self

Leonard Maltin

Self (archive footage)

Errol Flynn

Self (archive footage)

Bette Davis

Self

Thomas Schatz

Self

F. X. Feeney

Self

Scott Eyman

Self

Jeanine Basinger

In the waning days of summer 1931, Honolulu's tropical tranquility was shattered when a young Navy wife made a drastic allegation of rape against five nonwhite islanders. What unfolded in the following days and weeks was a racially-charged murder case that would make headlines across the nation, enrage Hawai'i's native population, and galvanize the island's law enforcers and the nation's social elite.

8.0

La prohibition américaine, une aubaine française

Jan 19, 2025

No overview available.

5.2

La ruta de don Quijote

Jan 1, 1934

A poetic journey through the paths and places of old Castile that were traveled and visited by the melancholic knight Don Quixote of La Mancha and his judicious squire Sancho Panza, the immortal characters of Miguel de Cervantes, which offers a candid depiction of rural life in Spain in the early 1930s and illustrates the first sentence of the first article of the Spanish Constitution of 1931, which proclaims that Spain is a democratic republic of workers of all kind.

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0.0

Moje Praha

Nov 1, 2002

Otakar Vávra walks through Prague in front of the camera and with the camera, and remembers those who in the 1930s determined the pulse of the cultural and political life of that time.

8.0

Poland 1939: When German Soldiers Became War Criminals

Aug 31, 2019

September 1st, 1939. Nazi Germany invades Poland. The campaign is fast, cruel and ruthless. In these circumstances, how is it that ordinary German soldiers suddenly became vicious killers, terrorizing the local population? Did everyone turn into something worse than wild animals? The true story of the first World War II offensive that marks in the history of infamy the beginning of a carnage and a historical tragedy.

0.0

Salty Dog Blues

Jan 1, 2012

The film looks at men and women of color in the U.S. Merchant Marine from 1938-1975. Through chronicling the lives of these men and women who, with a median age of 82, are beset with a host of life-threatening illnesses, the movie tells how they navigated issues of racism, disparities in the workplace, gender and familial relations.

7.1

Nanking

Feb 10, 2007

The story of the rape of Nanking, one of the most tragic events in history. In 1937, the invading Japanese army murdered over 200,000 and raped tens of thousands of Chinese. In the midst of this horror, a small group of Western expatriates banded together to save 250,000. Nanking shows the tremendous impact individuals can make on the course of history.

0.0

After Mein Kampf?

Aug 1, 1961

By combining actual footage with reenactments, this film offers both a documentary and fictional account of the life of Adolf Hitler, from his childhood in Vienna, through the rise of the Third Reich, to his final act of suicide in the waning days of WWII. The film also provides considerable, and often shocking, detail of the atrocities enacted by the Nazi regime under Hitler's command.

7.1

Land Without Bread

Dec 1, 1933

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

6.9

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

Jun 6, 2018

The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.

7.9

Something the Lord Made

May 30, 2004

A dramatization of the relationship between heart surgery pioneers Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas.

6.9

Goodnight, Mister Tom

Oct 25, 1998

A shy and quiet World War II evacuee is housed by a disgruntled old man, and they soon develop a close bond.

4.5

Usted tiene ojos de mujer fatal

Jan 13, 1975

Madrid, Spain, early thirties. The charming playboy Sergio Hernán is an unscrupulous womanizer who over the years has seduced and abandoned hundreds of women with the complicity of Oshidori, his cynical butler. However, his brief encounter with Elena Fortún, blonde, posh and a bit cheesy, unexpectedly leaves an indelible mark on his soul.

No Image Available

0.0

Wake of '38

Sep 21, 1978

Personal experiences of Northwest Ohio residents during the January 1978 blizzard that disrupted daily activities. Stories include the helicopter rescue of an expectant mother, effects on emergency services, and methods people used to survive without electricity and heat.

6.5

Cinecittà Babilonia: Sex, Drugs and Black Shirts

Jun 14, 2017

The story of Italian cinema under Fascism, a sophisticated film industry built around the founding of the Cinecittà studios and the successful birth of a domestic star system, populated by very peculiar artists among whom stood out several beautiful, magnetic, special actresses; a dark story of war, drugs, sex, censorship and tragedy.

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0.0

Der er et yndigt Land

Mar 13, 1939

No overview available.

5.7

Riding the Rails

Jan 1, 1997

Riding the Rails offers a visionary perspective on the presumed romanticism of the road and cautionary legacy of the Great Depression. The filmmakers relay the experiences and painful recollections of these now-elderly survivors of the rails. Forced to travel more by economic necessity than the spirit of adventure, the film's subjects dispel romantic myths of a hobo existence and its corresponding veneer of freedom. Riding the Rails recounts the hoboes' trade secrets for survival and accounts of dank miseries, loneliness, imprisonment, death, and dispossession. Sixty years later, the filmmakers transport their subjects back to the tracks, where the surging impact of sound and movement resuscitates memories of a shattered adolescence and devastating rite of passage.

7.5

The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story

Oct 8, 1999

There's not a person in the world who wouldn't recognize Mickey Mouse. But until now, not many knew the man who originally gave shape, movement and personality to the world's most beloved icon. "The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story" takes you behind the scenes to meet Walt Disney's best friend and chief animator.

7.4

From Caligari to Hitler

May 28, 2015

Film journalist and critic Rüdiger Suchsland examines German cinema from 1919, when the Republic of Weimar is born, to 1933, when the Nazis come into power. (Followed by Hitler's Hollywood, 2017.)

1.0

How we built the Moscow metro

Mar 18, 2014

In the 1930’s, the workers of the underground, headed by brigades of writers, are in charge to write in real time "the history of the Moscow Metro". Based on their narratives, partially unpublished, the film recounts the first lines construction of the most beautifiul underground in the world, in the light of this "big literary Utopia", stoped by the purges of 1937-38.