William K. Everson on 1939, the golden year of the Western

On location in Pineville, McDonald County, Missouri: Jesse James (1939) with Henry Fonda, Tyrone Power. Photo: Joplin Globe.

On location in Pineville, McDonald County, Missouri: Jesse James (1939) with Henry Fonda, Tyrone Power. Photo: Joplin Globe.

On location in Pineville, McDonald County, Missouri: Jesse James (1939) with Nancy Kelly, Tyrone Power. Photo: Greenbriar Picture Shows.

William K. Everson on the year 1939 in his book The Hollywood Western (New York: Citadel Press, 1992), adopting some of the contents of A Pictorial History of the Western Film (1969).

"An outstanding year in many ways, 1939 was quite certainly the one of a major renaissance of the Western film, and of the launching of the biggest and longest sustained cycle of Westerns ever. At least ten deluxe Westerns were released throughout 1939 and the catalyst for most of them was the political climate in Europe". (p. 204)

"Few Americans believed that the United States would actually be embroiled in a war, but feeling against Nazi Germany ran high, none could deny that dark days lay ahead, and the patriotic zeal that had lain dormant for almost two decades was suddenly rekindled" (p. 204).

Stand Up and Fight / Kapteeni Peloton (MGM / W. S. Van Dyke / Robert Taylor, Florence Rice)
US premiere 6 Jan 1939
Helsinki premiere  1 June 1939
   WKE: "the first major Western to take up the social issue of slavery" (p. 205).

Jesse James / Jesse James, suuri seikkailija (Fox / Henry King / Tyrone Power, Nancy Kelly)
US premiere 27 Jan 1939
Helsinki premiere 13 Aug 1939
    WKE is not impressed: "long drawn out and tame". "More related to the Depression years than contemporary Europe". "In the long run, the main function of Jesse James was to establish the place of the badman 'biography' as one of the three main thrusts of the upcoming Western cycle". (p. 205)

Let Freedom Ring / Vapauden laulu (MGM / Jack Conway / Nelson Eddy, Virginia Bruce)
US premiere 24 Feb 1939
Helsinki premiere 27 Aug 1939
    WKE discusses the film's relevance to the US vs. the Nazis. (p. 205).

Stagecoach / Hyökkäys erämaassa (Walter Wanger Productions / John Ford / John Wayne, Claire Trevor)
US premiere 3 March 1939
Helsinki premiere 23 Nov 1951
    WKE: "it was the Ford film that ensured that the new revival of interest was no flash in the pan but was here to stay" (p. 205). Finally established Wayne as a major star.

The Oklahoma Kid / Oklahoman sankari (Warner Bros. / Lloyd Bacon / James Cagney, Rosemary Lane)
US premiere 11 March 1939
Helsinki premiere 16 July 1939
    WKE: "little more than an outrageous though highly entertaining frolic, with Cagney and Bogart transferring their big city personas to the West without the slightest change of pace". (p. 206-207).

Dodge City / Lännen valloittajat (Warner Bros. / Michael Curtiz / Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland)
US premiere 8 April 1939
Helsinki premiere 19 Nov 1939
    WKE: "the town, an armed camp run by a despot, could be equalled with Europe, and the soft-spoken, hopefully neutral marshal who brings law and order was a prophecy of America's potential role in the world conflict". "Among other things, the film provided proof of the grandeur-inducing capabilities of Technicolor. Seen in color, it was a grand-scale epic (...)." (p. 208)

Union Pacific / Urhojen tie (Paramount / Cecil B. DeMille / Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea)
US premiere 5 May 1939
Helsinki premiere 17 Sep 1939
    WKE: "Paramount's last epic Western of the decade was not only one of its best, but also one of DeMille's best". Joel McCrea took a major step forward to establish himself in Union Pacific as an actor in the same league as Gary Cooper. One of the blockbusters of 1939, and the longest talkie Western yet.

Man of Conquest (Republic / George Nichols, Jr. / Richard Dix, Gail Patrick)
US premiere 15 May 1939
Not released in Finland.
    WKE: "one of the most interesting (and most forgotten) of the revitalized epics, and a credit to a small company like Republic whose first really big production it was". The big mass action scenes of the fall of the Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto don't have the spectacle that Warners could have given them, they do benefit from the ultra vigorous second-unit direction (Reaves Eason) and stuntwork (Yakima Canutt). Sam Houston is one of the most potentially interesting  of all the Western empire builders, and it is surprising that Man of Conquest is the only big film made on his life. "Again, the plight of refugees from Santa Anna's tyranny is made to equate that of refugees, and oppressed minorities, in the Europe of 1939".

Drums Along the Mohawk / Liekehtivä erämaa (Fox / John Ford / Claudette Colbert, Henry Fonda)
US 10 Nov 1939
Helsinki premiere 3 Nov 1940
    WKE: The first Western to go into release after Britain and France officially declared war on Germany, and to address itself, obliquely to that war. Unusually harsh and realistic (despite its Technicolor photography) in establishing the pain, suffering, loss, and sacrifice of war.

Destry Rides Again / Ei mikään enkeli (Paramount / George Marshall / Marlene Dietrich, James Stewart)
US premiere 29 Dec 1939
Helsinki premiere 21 Nov 1943
    WKE: Friends of producer Joe Pasternak insist that he saw Destry as a very specific anti-Nazi allegory, and that it could be broken down point by point, character to character to prove it.

...

Elsewhere Everson discusses or mentions also:

Frontier Marshal / Rautaisin ottein (Fox / Allan Dwan / Randolph Scott, Nancy Kelly)
US premiere 28 July 1939
Helsinki premiere 29 Oct 1939
    WKE: A decent production but far from an "A", it was relatively short, but Allan Dwan's experienced direction and a good cast turned it into a surprisingly successful film that was sold as an "A". [WKE may somehow mix Fox's two 1930s films both called Frontier Marshal.] (p. 187, introduction to The Thirties).

Geronimo / Punainen ratsastaja (Paramount / Paul Sloane / Preston Foster, Ellen Drew)
US premiere 26 Nov 1939
Helsinki premiere 22 Dec 1940
    [WKE mentions Geronimo, "on which more later" but there is only a still with a caption] (p. 154, 207).

...

1939 reissue:
Tumbleweeds / Aavikon kulkuri (William S. Hart Productions / King Baggot / William S. Hart, Barbara Bedford)
US premiere 20 Dec 1925
Helsinki premiere 12 Sep 1927
William S. Hart, the first master director of Westerns, made his last film, Tumbleweeds, released for Christmas 1925; during the following year John Ford and Henry King released their last silent Westerns. Significantly, Hart reissued Tumbleweeds in 1939. (p. 55-58).

...

Everson concludes that the immediate cycle broke down into three basic groups: 1) the epic themes of national progress, 2) the town-taming Westerns, and 3) the badman cycle. The boom continued for a full three years, even upgrading the quality of B Westerns.

"Just as 1919 was a remarkable year that laid the groundwork for major changes and advances in the twenties, so had 1939 prepared the way for the Western's most prolific and distinguished decade, the forties" (William K. Everson).