1940 U.S. Population: 132 million
Average weekly U.S. movie attendance: 80 million
Some of my all-time favorite classic movies were released in the 1940′s… Notorious with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman (1946), Bette Davis at her dramatic best in Now, Voyager (1942), The Lost Weekend - Ray Milland’s four-day binge (1945), the iconic Casablanca (1943), the Oscar-winning Mildred Pierce* (1945), and the delightful The Philadelphia Story (1940). I don’t know quite what it is about that decade’s movies… maybe because the women often seemed strong and authentic. Maybe it was because Cary Grant’s suave demeanor and handsome face appeared in so many of them! And maybe it was the shoes… Anyway, when I used to get Turner Classic Movies in my channel line-up, they are the ones I refused to miss.
Many great films were born in the 1940′s, a number of which were designed to distract war-weary audiences. Still others portrayed current events both during and after World War II, such as the magnificent The Best Years of Our Lives, about which Sam Goldwyn said:
“I don’t care if it doesn’t make a nickel. I just want every man, woman and child in America to see it.” (George Lucas’s Blockbusting)
Can you imagine any studio executive uttering those words today?
So on the one hand, we had the war-themed movies smack in the middle of wartime and on the other, those marvelous “distractions” – the capers, the feel-good movies, the musicals: There was Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), a musical, and patriotic to boot; It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), the original Heaven Can Wait (1943), the afore-mentioned The Philadelphia Story with my beloved Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, and Meet Me In St. Louis with Judy Garland. Incidentally, in addition to the song that shared the film’s title, Meet Me In St. Louis included Judy Garland’s rendition of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” which in 1989 was given an ASCAP Award for being one of the most-performed feature film standards. I think there was a Bing-somebody who sang it in a later film…
If there’s a third aspect to ’40′s filmmaking, it’s the emergence of the best of film noir: Double Indemnity (1944), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Laura (1944), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Bogey & Bacall in Key Largo (1948) – the possibilities are endless! And one of my favorite Hitchcock thrillers, Rope (1948), in which two young, arrogant Manhattan pals murder a third friend just to show that they can kill someone and get away with it – they go on to throw a party that night in the same room where the body is hidden. Jimmy Stewart is terrific as their former professor who begins to suspect the two as the night wears on.
The 1940′s also marked the beginning of a shameful chapter in Hollywood history, and American history, with the shenanigans of Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee in Congress. “The Hollywood Ten” consisted of screenwriters and directors who cited the First Amendment in refusing to answer questions before HUAC in 1947 as to whether they were members of the Communist Party. They were convicted of contempt of Congress and jailed and, as a result, they and many others not only were denied jobs in TV and film in the U.S., but were also stripped of credits for their completed work. The Red-baiting continued well into the 1950′s, ruining many Hollywood careers and lives. 2005′s Good Night, And Good Luck does a great job with the story of journalist Edward R. Murrow’s attempts to bring down McCarthy.
I don’t want to leave out the award-winning Citizen Kane (1941), Orson Welles’ scandalous (at the time) take on William Randolph Hearst. This movie consistently lands at the top of the all-time lists, and for good reason. But for sheer entertainment, I like 1999′s RKO 281, a fascinating Golden Globe- and Emmy-winning cable-TV movie on the making of “Kane” and whose title was the actual alias used prior to the release of the film, so as to keep its existence a secret. Because it was dangerous to mess with Hearst, and he did everything in his power to make sure no one saw the film. Really good cast, with Liev Schreiber as Orson Welles. And check out John Malkovich playing Herman Mankiewicz. But I digress.
Did you know Disney made four out of the ten top-grossing films of the entire decade? I was surprised to learn this, but my mother wasn’t. She remembers seeing them all. Pinocchio (1940) was number one, Bambi (1942) was third, Fantasia (1940) was ninth, and the controversial Song of the South (1946) was tenth. In 2007 the studio announced it would release Song of the South on DVD, but then it quietly disappeared, presumably out of concern over the racial stereotyping of its time. So now every year at the annual Disney shareholders meeting, Bob Iger is asked if Disney will release this film on DVD. Every year, he says no.
This is just a brief take on a decade that produced some fantastic cinema. What’s your take? What are your favorites? Which beloved film did I glaringly omit?
(*A “six degrees” factoid: Ann Blyth, who played Joan Crawford’s scheming daughter, Veda, in Mildred Pierce is the mother of my friend, Eileen. The resemblance between the two at any given age is startling. They are both beautiful.)
