1939

Articles from 1939

American Dominance in 1930s Film
(Stage Magazine, 1939)

The editors of STAGE MAGAZINE were dumbfounded when they considered that just ten years after audiences got an earful from the first sound movies, the most consistent characteristic to have been maintained throughout that decade was the box-office dominance of American movie stars, directors and writers. After naming the most prominent of 1930s U.S. movie stars the author declares with certainty that this could not have been an accident.

American Dominance in 1930s Film
(Stage Magazine, 1939)

The editors of STAGE MAGAZINE were dumbfounded when they considered that just ten years after audiences got an earful from the first sound movies, the most consistent characteristic to have been maintained throughout that decade was the box-office dominance of American movie stars, directors and writers. After naming the most prominent of 1930s U.S. movie stars the author declares with certainty that this could not have been an accident.

Ginger Rogers
(Film Daily, 1939)

A single page article on the topic of Ginger Rogers (1911 – 1995) and her career as it had progressed up to the year 1939:

Virginia Katherine McMath is the real name of this famous star and she was born in Independence, Missouri, on July 16, but most of her childhood was spent in Fort Worth, Texas.

She is five feet, four inches tall and weighs 108 pounds. She never has to diet because dancing keeps her in perfect condition. Dancing is listed as her very favorite hobby, too.

She had her first taste of real success on the screen with the winning roles in ‘Gold Diggers of 1933′ and ’42nd Street’.


Click here to read about the young Lucile Ball.

Anticipating the Television Juggernaut
(Stage Magazine, 1939)

This 1939 article was written by a wise old sage who probably hadn’t spent much time with a television set but recognized fully the tremor that it was likely to cause in the world of pop-culture:

Of all the brats, legitimate and otherwise, sired of the entertainment business, the youngest, television, looks as if it would be the hardest to raise and to housebreak…


Click here to read about the early Christian broadcasts of televangelist Oral Roberts…

Charlie Chaplin Joins With Pickford, Fairbanks and Griffith to Form United Artists
(Film Daily, 1939)

Restless with the manner in which the film colony operated, Chaplin joined forces with three other leading Hollywood celebrities to create United Artists; a distribution company formed to release their own films. Attached is a printable history of United Artists spanning the years 1919 through 1939 which also outlines why the organization was so original:

[United Artists] introduced a new method into the industry. Heretofore producers and distributors had been the employers, paying salaries and sometimes a share of the profits to the stars. Under the United Artists system, the stars became their own employers. They had to do their own financing, but they received the producer profits that had formerly gone to their employers and each received his share of the profits of the distributing organization.

Charlie Chaplin Joins With Pickford, Fairbanks and Griffith to Form United Artists
(Film Daily, 1939)

Restless with the manner in which the film colony operated, Chaplin joined forces with three other leading Hollywood celebrities to create United Artists; a distribution company formed to release their own films. Attached is a printable history of United Artists spanning the years 1919 through 1939 which also outlines why the organization was so original:

[United Artists] introduced a new method into the industry. Heretofore producers and distributors had been the employers, paying salaries and sometimes a share of the profits to the stars. Under the United Artists system, the stars became their own employers. They had to do their own financing, but they received the producer profits that had formerly gone to their employers and each received his share of the profits of the distributing organization.

A Word on New York Waiters
(Stage Magazine, 1939)

Waiters are to New York City what lobbyists are to Washington and celebrated illustrator, author and all-around foodie Ludwig Bemelmans (1898 – 1962) had some thoughts on this very diverse group:

New York is full of waiters, Chinese, American, Congo, French, Italian and German waiters, Jewish and Christian waiters, Vegetarian and Greek waiters, many good waiters, many bad waiters.

Click here to read an article by Benny Goodman concerning the arrival of Swing on Park Ave.

American Playwright Lillian Hellman
(Stage Magazine, 1939)

The attached profile of playwright Lillian Hellman (1905 – 1984) is accompanied by a rare photo of the thirty-four year old American writer, snapped shortly after the opening of her play, The Little Foxes:

Four seasons ago when ‘The Children’s Hour’ was produced, that labeling which is the destiny of every important new playwright began. Second Ibsen…American Strindberg…1934 Chekhov…the rumors ran. In this finest example of Miss Hellman’s highly individual contribution to the current theater, the Ibsen heritage seems most likely to win out.

In 1945 Hellman wrote about much of what she had seen on the W.W. II Soviet front; click here to read it

Emily Post on Society Language
(Photoplay Magazine, 1939)

At the tail-end of a very long interview concerning the problems with Hollywood movies, Emily Post (1872 – 1960), America’s high-priestess of good manners, was asked just one more question – this one involved the English language and here is Emily Post’s 1939 list of what to say and what not to say.


• Don’t say ‘brainy’ – say, ‘clever’.
• Don’t say ‘wealthy’, say ‘rich’.
• Don’t say ‘Charmed or pleased to meet you’, say ‘how do you do’.
• etc, etc, etc.
Emily Post had so many opinions…

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