When they award this year’s Oscars on Sunday night the nationwide and worldwide television audience will approach one billion people. And while some of the interest is about ‘who’s wearing what’ and ‘being seen with whom’ and which celebrity can make the best or worst acceptance speech, the Academy Awards ceremony reminds us that, despite home video, the internet and hundreds of cable channels, movies in theatres are still a major part of our culture.

But, while 2006 was a good year with fine films and fine acting performances, it still pales in comparison to another year from long ago, a year in which the quality was wide and deep and many fine films and performances were almost ignored in an embarrassment of riches.

1939 is considered by most film critics and historians to be the finest year in motion picture history. If you look closely, it’s hard to argue.

‘Gone with the Wind’, a certified American classic, was named best picture for 1939, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Among the films that finished behind ‘Gone with the Wind’ were ‘Stagecoach’, ‘Wizard of Oz’, ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Mr. Smith goes to Washington.’ All five of those films I just mentioned are considered among the top 100 movies ever made (out of more than 200-thousand in the last century).

But those movies were all nominated as best picture. Here are some movies which were not nominated: ‘Gunga Din’, ‘Beau Geste’, ‘The Four Feathers’, ‘Drums along the Mohawk’, ‘Young Mr. Lincoln’, ‘Only Angels have Wings’, ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ and ‘Golden Boy’.

In any other year of that era most of those would have been nominated in the best picture category. They are all worth seeing.

But it’s not just the movies. In the acting categories were such names as Clark Gable, Laurence Olivier, Jimmy Stewart, Thomas Mitchell, Vivien Leigh, Bette Davis, Greer Garson, Irene Dunne, Greta Garbo and Olivia de Havilland, all of them among the biggest names in Hollywood history.

But at least they were nominated. Among those who missed nominations were Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Cary Grant, Charles Laughton, William Holden, John Wayne, Jean Arthur, Barbara Stanwyck, Claudette Colbert and Maureen O’Hara, like those above they are some of the biggest names in movie history and actors who would likely have been nominated in any other year.

As for directors; among those nominated were John Ford, Frank Capra, William Wyler and Victor Fleming. Not nominated were Howard Hawks, George Stevens, William Wellman and Cecil B DeMille.

In recent paragraphs you have just read the names of those who make up a ‘who’s who’ of Hollywood history, names that would be mentioned as being among the best ever at what they did. I checked, and almost all of them have been the subject of at least one book, if not more.

I guess my only point in all this is to emphasize that while there are good movies and performances every year, we should not forget or ignore those that came before. Many of the movies made 50, 60 or even 70 years ago are well worth the effort to find them. The same can be said for the actors and directors I mentioned above. Quality in any area is worth seeking out, no matter how old the product may be and for movies 1939 is a good place to start.

BOOK OF THE WEEK

‘The Right Stuff’ 1980 by Tom Wolfe

This is the book about the beginnings of the U.S. space program that turned into the popular movie of the same title three years later. Wolfe, one of this country’s best writers for many years, takes what could be a dry, technical subject and by concentrating on the personalities involved turns it into a book you can’t put down. Starting with test pilot Chuck Yeager, the very embodiment of ‘the right stuff’, Wolfe weaves a tale of courage and science with concentration on test pilots and the original seven Mercury Astronauts. As history it’s terrific; as a tale of the ‘larger than life’ personalities who make up the flying fraternity, it’s even better.