Round Up 1939

According to the Internet Movie Database, of the 1,126 films made in 1939, 27 fall under the headings of horror, science fiction or fantasy. They are:

Arrest Bulldog Drummond 
Buck Rogers 
Buck Rogers 
Charlie Chan at Treasure Island 
Every Madman to His Specialty 
Gulliver's Travels 
Night of the Mayas 
On Borrowed Time 
S.O.S. Tidal Wave 
Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge 
Seven Brothers 
Son of Frankenstein 
Television Spy 
The Cat and the Canary 
The Devil's Daughter 
The Face at the Window 
The Golden Key 
The Gorilla 
The Hound of the Baskervilles   
The Man They Could Not Hang 
The Phantom Creeps 
The Phantom Wagon 
The Return of Doctor X 
The Sign of Death 
The Wizard of Oz   
Torture Ship 
Tower of London 

1939 is the year of The Wizard Of Oz. Personally, I can think of nothing so destructive to the suspension of disbelief necessary to a true fantasy film than characters who break into musical numbers every ten minutes, so as wonderful as this film may be (and, personally, I'm not so convinced), it doesn't fulfill my particular criteria for this blog. It's a musical much more than it is a fantasy film, and its Dinseyfied approach to fantasy is not my cup of tea at all.

It's also the year of the Bob Hope/Paulette Goddard remake of The Cat and the Canary (see that wonderful publicity still, above?).  Bob Hope never made a movie in which he didn't play Bob Hope, and it's also destructive to true fantasy to never be able to forget that what you're watching is the latest in a series of vehicles for a star to whom nothing of consequence can ever occur, thus this falls squarely under the heading of a comedy rather than a horror film. The film is very good fun, and makes a nice double-feature with Hope's The Ghost Breakers (1940), but, again, not what I'm in search of on this blog. That said, the original and the 1978 Radley Metzger remake are both superior to this version.

And, last, but certainly not least, the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce The Hound of the Baskervilles. It's a great movie, and Conan Doyle's original novel certainly gave rise to a great many (usually lesser) supernatural mysteries, but this one goes the Mrs. Radcliffe route and reveals its spectre to be the catspaw of a criminal very much alive: thus, detective movie rather than fantasy film. Absolutely recommended, but I'll discuss this one if I ever get around to the survey of detective movies I'd like to do before I die.