Gunga Din (1939)

Dir: George Stevens
Plot: Three British soldiers and their water-boy encounter intrigue and danger on the trail of mythical gold in imperial India.


It's been said a thousand times, but it bears repeating -1939 was a remarkable year in cinema. It might well be THE year in cinema, at least as far as Hollywood goes. Miracles were wrought in all genres across the board - Garbo laughed, Vivien Leigh's cut-glass vowels went all Southern belle on us, and Thomas Mitchell shrewdly hedged his Oscar bets by adopting various disguises in an apparent attempt to star in every nominated picture of the year (of course, it paid off - out of the 5 Oscar-nominated films he starred in that year, it was his turn in Stagecoach that brought him his personal glory).

Holiday (1938)

Dir.: George Cukor
Plot: An adventurous young man travels to meet his fiancee's stuffy, aristocratic family but finds himself becoming increasingly drawn to her free-spirited sister.


Cary Grant was never as winning, Katharine Hepburn never as fascinating as they both are here, playing two confirmed individuals amongst a flock of wealthy sheep in New York high society. He is Johnny, a poor boy made good, an orphan who put himself through Harvard and is now on the cusp of a successful career, and she is Linda, the eccentric eldest child of a suffocatingly staid family. He arrives at their mansion engaged to her sister Julia, one of those dry, unexciting types that Cary Grant characters always seem to pick first before seeing sense. Upon getting to know her father, Johnny begins to realise that a dull future in business has already been mapped out for him and starts to wonder what he really wants. In the meantime, he strikes up a friendship with Julia's unconventional sister, whose spontaneous nature seems to offer a glimpse of a different kind of life.