1939’s movie breakthroughs

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, May 30th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Some classic films that turn 85 this year … and they’re worth another look. Here’s reviewer Max Belz.

MUSIC: [The Jazz Singer]

Movies first crackled with sound in 1927's The Jazz Singer. In the following years, movie dialogue was intricate and rapidfire, in part to make up for a mostly static camera: movies looked more like filmed plays. But by 1939, a spate of movies showed what moving pictures could really do, whether blasting forth in color or capturing long outdoor takes.

Five movies from that year are on the American Film Institute's top 100. Most famous may be the historical epic Gone With the Wind, lush with its vast sets and sparked by its flinty characters.

RHETT: There’s one thing I do know and that is that I love you, Scarlett. In spite of you and me and the whole silly world going to pieces, I love you.

But two other movies expanded the art form through their use of the camera and storytelling.

GARLAND: Somewhere over the rainbow …

According to the Library of Congress, The Wizard of Oz is the most watched movie of all time.

And it’s a movie so ingrained into American culture, it's almost hard to notice. Everyday speech includes phrases like "the man behind the curtain” and “we're not in Kansas any more.” We remember the movie for its characters, but also its brilliant colors–still a brand new innovation–in Dorothy’s red shoes or the yellow brick road.

MUSIC: [Follow the Yellow Brick Road]

When the sepia tones give way to dewy full color in the land of Oz, Dorothy is set on a magical course and assembles a ragtag group of friends along her journey.

DOROTHY: How can you talk if you haven’t got a brain?

SCARECROW: I don’t know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking.

She is pure of heart, brimming with love and courage and lifted by Judy Garland's bell-like voice. Dorothy is a true hero on a journey to something better, something more complete. This is a classic story that we see all through world literature: a hero on a quest.

GOOD WITCH OF THE NORTH: It’s always best to start with the beginning. And all you do is follow the yellow, brick road.

The Wizard of Oz also uses sound in a remarkable way. My own children used to listen to the whole movie without images, unfolding like a radio play. This expert use of sound to tell the story cues the audience to fear and delight, enlarging the moviegoing experience.

NARRATOR: Yet, well within the span of our memory, the screenwriter of its day, the American stagecoach across the uncharted, rugged west.

From left: George Bancroft, John Wayne, and Louise Platt in the 1939 film Stagecoach Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons/National Board of Review Magazine, 1939/WFinch

1939 was also the year that John Ford's western Stagecoach was released. It may seem stodgy by today's standards, but it also broke new ground.

DALLAS: Well, you gotta live no matter what happens.

RINGO: Yeah, that’s it.

It tells the story of a group of strangers looking for a second chance as they trek across Apache territory in Arizona. How will they set aside their differences to survive and start over?

Orson Welles once quipped that he watched Stagecoach 40 times as he prepared to make Citizen Kane, a movie that came out soon thereafter and is celebrated by many as the greatest movie of all time. But it was the economy of storytelling that Welles admired in this western.

CURLY: Well folks, that settles it.

A young John Wayne plays the part of the Ringo Kid, and he arrives on the scene to accompany this nearly doomed party.

GATEWOOD: So you're the notorious Ringo Kid?

RINGO: My friends just call me Ringo. Nickname I had as a kid. My name’s Henry.

Again, we are on a journey with a group of motley characters flung together: the Virginia gentleman, the drunken doctor, the preacher, the ex-con, the prostitute. These hardened characters are trying to find their way to something new and they won’t find it unless they work together.

RINGO: Looks like I got the plague, don’t it?

DALLAS: No, no it’s not you.

RINGO: Well, I guess you can’t break out of prison and into society in the same week.

DALLAS: Please! Please.

The movie casts its characters in a compassionate light, showing them on the outs and pitying them in their struggle. They are battling the outlaws, the elements, but battling themselves most of all.

GATEWOOD: Well, we’ll soon be in Lordsburg. Sorry if I flew off the handle, Hatfield. My apologies, doctor. No hard feelings, I hope.

PEACOCK: All in all, it’s been exciting, very interesting trip. Has it not?

Even though much of the story is confined to the coach, the audience is treated to Ansel Adams-like shots of Monument Valley, including a harrowing chase on horseback near the movie's end. The camera captures it all.

SOUND: [Gunfire and horses racing]

This was the first of director John Ford's westerns on location, a trademark of his that helped him explore the theme of men and women in conflict with a harsh landscape.

[SPANISH MUSIC]

1939 showed that people could make movies in a more powerful way, and excellent stories like these distill what is true about the human experience: as we quest, as we battle, and as we hope to go home again.

I’m Max Belz.

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