Don’t you just love classic movies, I for one adore my classics (as I’m sure you will find out) and 2014 marks the 75th Anniversary of what many critics and movie fanatics call the greatest year as a whole for quality classic movies, 1939. 1939 brought us the ultimate family movie in “Wizard of Oz”, everyone must have a special place in their lives for this film, for generations it has opened up the imaginations of youth. Frank Capra and James Stewart gave us the ever brilliant “Mr Smith Goes to Washington”. A film about corruption in politics, but has a wonderful sense of patriotism, James Stewart’s look of wonder and excitement as he looks at all the various monuments of the capital, I’m not an American but even I feel kinda of moved at these scenes. These two went on to do the fantastic “Its a wonderful life”. Charles Laughton gave us one of the greatest performances of all time in “Hunchback of Notre Dame”, it was a painful character performance and helped us feel so much pity for Quasimodo, it reminds me of John Hurt in the “Elephant Man” which was released 1980 so Charles was first!. Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks Jr teamed up for “Gunga Din”, not a film I enjoyed but I can understand it been regarded a classic. We also had Robert Donat who was amazing in the very touching journey through life drama of a well loved teacher, “Goodbye Mr Chips”. Errol Flynn traded his Swash-buckler image in for revolvers to become a cowboy in “Dodge City” to huge commercial success. The great Greta Garbo proved she was still Box Office success with “Ninotchka”, which came behind Gone With The Wind and Oz as third most successful film of the year. To top off 1939 we had of course the film that swept the Academy Awards… “Gone With The Wind”, which happens to be a personal favorite of mine. There is many more films from that year too that are regarded as classics. If you own the 70th Anniversary edition of “Gone With The Wind” there is a very insightful documentary on 1939 which talks about all the great films released by each studio in turn, its a great watch, its also narrated by Kenneth Branagh. What I want to know is, What is your favorite movie and acting performance of 1939? And do you think 1939 was the greatest as a whole?. I’ll end on this..Brace yourself for what no doubt will be endless Blu ray/DVD releases of 75th Anniversary editions of most of the films from 1939. I will be posting reviews of new and classic films so keep an eye on this site, keep listening and checking out the brilliant shows these guys do.