1939

Articles from 1939

‘God and Alcoholics” (Liberty Magazine, 1939)

Somebody said The Lord’s Prayer as the meeting broke up. I walked three blocks to the subway station. Just as I was about to go down the stairs – bang! – It happened! I don’t like the word miracle, but that’s all I can call it. The lights in the street seemed to flared up. My feet seemed to leave the pavement. A kind of shiver went over me and I burst into tears…I haven’t touched a drop in four years and I’ve sent four other fellows on the same road.

Dr. Freud (Pathfinder Magazine, 1939)

This is a profile of Dr. Sigmund Freud that appeared during the last months of his life. In the Spring of 1938 Freud and his family had fled to London in order escape the Nazis.

Black Nazis? (Ken Magazine, 1939)

Black Nazis: Fritz Delfs, leader of the Nazis in Tanganyika, the former German East Africa that Hitler is demanding, soft-pedals Aryan supremacy credo in propounding Nazi ideology, and capitalizes traditional use of the swastika by the natives as a symbol of fertility.


Click here to read about the fall of Paris…

Margaret Bourke-White (Coronet Magazine, 1939)

This is a profile of the American photographer Margaret Bourke-White (1904 – 1971). At the time these pages appeared on the newsstand, the photographer’s stock was truly on the rise as a result of her remarkable documentary images depicting the Great Depression as it played out across the land.

The Birth of Special-Effects Makeup (Pathfinder Magazine, 1939)

Here is an article about one of the most innovative minds in the nascent world of Hollywood makeup design; it belonged to a fellow named Jack Dawn (1892 – 1961). Dawn was under contract at MGM for decades and worked on over two hundred films, his most being the film that is discussed herein: The Wizard of Oz (1939, MGM). The article briefly touches upon the thin, rubbery masks that he created after having made numerous in depth studies of human bone and muscle.

Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey (Photoplay Magazine, 1939)

The appeal of James Stewart, the shy, inarticulate movie actor, is that he reminds every girl in the audience of the date before the last. He’s not a glamorized Gable, a remote Robert Taylor. He’s ‘Jim’, the lackadaisical, easy-going boy from just around the corner.


The above line was pulled from the attached article which was one of the first widely read profiles of Jimmy Stewart (James Maitland Stewart 1908 – 1997). Written four years after his arrival in the California dream factory and printed during the same year as his first encounter with the director Frank Capra in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, this article reveals that Stewart had a small town upbringing and was essentially the same character he played in It’s A Wonderful Life.

Booth Tarkington might have created Jim Stewart. He’s ‘Little Orvie and Billie Baxter’ grown up ‘Penrod’ with a Princeton diploma.


From Amazon: It’s a Wonderful Life: Favorite Scenes from the Classic Filmstyle=border:none

Oscars for 1938 (Pathfinder Magazine, 1939)

Attached is short report listing some of the highlights of the 11th Academy Awards ceremony that was held on February 23, 1939 in downtown Los Angeles:


• Director Frank Capra received his third Best Director statue for You Can’t Take It with You
.
• Walt Disney was awarded an Oscar for the best animated short film, Ferdinand The Bull – in addition to a special award for his innovative work on
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.


• The Best Screenplay Oscar went to Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw for his efforts on Pygmalion.



An amusing, if blasphemous, article about the 1938 Oscars can be read here…

Adolf Hitler: Millionaire (Ken Magazine, 1939)

Der Fuhrer boasts of his impecuniosity, but the fact is that royalties from his book, Mein Kampf and investments in German real-estate and industrial firms make him one of Germnay’s wealthiest men. This money is deposited throughout Europe in 15 bank accounts under three names…

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