Several months ago someone on here wondered what it was like to have first seen all of the classic movies produced by Hollywood in 1939. I was around then (7 years old) and my folks took me to see many of them. I was disappointed by Gone With the Wind because it didn’t have any battle scenes. I remember there was an intermission before the Reconstruction scenes started. My older sister was working and could afford the dollar or so admission to see an advance showing before the regular first run. I prevailed on my folks to see The Wizard of Oz a second time, because I wanted to see where the good witch’s green globe came from. As a kid, of course, I didn’t appreciate the dramas. I didn’t like Bette Davis then and still don’t. First run movie tickets cost 30 cents, and children’s half that. I think we went to the movies about once a week. My father was a Frisco railroad office supervisor in Springfield, Mo., a city of about 60,000 then. It was at the junction of the railroad’s two lines from St. Louis to the southwest and Kansas City to the southeast, and was the city’s largest employer with major shops located there. He was making about $200 a month in the 1930’s on which he supported five adults, my two sisters and me. We had a comfortable middle-class lifestyle, with a car and a few luxuries. His salary was cut $100 overnight in 1931 when the Depression hit. My mother said he would come home every night and tell her of someone else who had been laid off. He worked six and a half days a week until after World War II (only Sunday afternoon off) and took maybe three days of vacation a year. Apparently the employees who didn’t show up all those days were the ones who were first laid off. When in 1945 the railroad announced that the offices would be closed on the weekends, some of the higher-ups were quite angry. My dad’s boss
Mr. Craig, I laughed when I read your view of “Gone With The Wind” as a seven-year-old, it reminded me of a man I knew back in the 80’s who told me of going to see “Wee Willie Winkie,” the Shirley Temple classic, with a group of friends and expecting to see a real “battle royal” like they had in “Gunga Din.” Hey, it was a British Army in India film, right? Boy were they mad when Shirley stopped the impending war! Forty-plus years later and he still hadn’t forgiven her!
I kind of share your opinion of “GWTW.” After the Civil War it’s just a soap opera. Big deal. As far as I’m concerned the two best movies of 1939 are “The Wizard Of Oz” and “Dodge City.” But there’s so many other great ones it’s no wonder 1939 is considered the greatest year in American film history. “The Watershed Year.”