The year 1938 in film involved some significant events, notably the release of Sergei Eisenstein's classic historical drama, Alexander Nevsky, with a score by Sergei Prokofiev, it was Eisenstein's first sound film. Leni Riefenstahl's documentary Olympia, a propaganda film documenting the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, proves both controversial and influential.
Events January – MGM announces that Judy Garland will be cast in the role of Dorothy Gale in the upcoming The Wizard of Oz film. Ray Bolger is cast as the Tin Woodman and Buddy Ebsen as the Scarecrow. At Bolger's insistence, the roles are switched between the two actors. On July 25, MGM announces Bert Lahr has been cast as the Cowardly Lion. January 21 – Pioneering French film director Georges Méliès, best remembered for groundbreaking films like A Trip to the Moon and The Impossible Voyage, dies in Paris, aged 76. February 4 – Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first-ever American full-length animated feature film, is released nationally in the United States, less than two months after its premiere in Los Angeles. The film is a huge box office success, and briefly holds the record as the highest-grossing sound film of all time. February 24 – The entertainment trade newspaper Variety confirms that the film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) had bought the rights to adapt L. Frank Baum’s beloved children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for the screen. March 12 – Child star Peggy Ann Garner progresses from modelling to an acting role in Little Miss Thoroughbred, which would be her screen debut. April 5 – Noel Langley completes the first script for The Wizard of Oz. April 20 – Leonard Slye appears for the first time on film as Roy Rogers in Under Western Stars. He becomes one of the most popular Western stars being ranked number one from 1943 to 1952 and would become known as "King of the Cowboys". May 7 – Lyricist Yip Harburg and composer Harold Arlen begin work on the musical score for The Wizard of Oz. May 14 – Release of Warner Bros.' epic swashbuckler film The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Critically acclaimed for its vivid use of Technicolor, as well as its memorable action scenes, the film goes on to win three Academy Awards. June 17 – Popular Australian comedian George Wallace stars in the first of his two films with Cinesound Productions, Let George Do It. August 3 – Former silent film star Pearl White goes into a coma in a nursing home in France, suffering from cirrhosis of the liver. October 7 – The Lady Vanishes, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and the first feature film released under a distribution deal between UK's Gaumont-British Picture Corporation and the US Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), is released in London cinemas. October 13 – Filming starts on The Wizard of Oz on the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio lot in Culver City, California, initially with Richard Thorpe as director. October 21 – Buddy Ebsen suffers from a near fatal allergic reaction to the aluminum dust used in his Tin Woodman make-up on the set of The Wizard of Oz. Ebsen is replaced by Jack Haley. December 22 – MGM's first feature film in three-strip Technicolor, Sweethearts, starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, is released. December 23 – Margaret Hamilton is severely burned during a mishap on the set of The Wizard of Oz. Hamilton, cast in the role of the Wicked Witch of the West, leaves the film for six weeks. Orson Welles makes Too Much Johnson, starring Joseph Cotten. It is never completed and first released only in 2013. Producer George Minter establishes Renown Pictures, a British film distributor.
Academy Awards
Best Picture: You Can't Take It with You – Columbia Best Director: Frank Capra – You Can't Take It with You Best Actor: Spencer Tracy – Boys Town Best Actress: Bette Davis – Jezebel Best Supporting Actor: Walter Brennan – Kentucky Best Supporting Actress: Fay Bainter – Jezebel
Top-grossing films (U.S.) The top ten 1938 released films by box office gross in North America are as follows: + Highest-grossing films of 1938 Rank Title Distributor Domestic rentals 1 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs RKO/Walt Disney $3,996,000 2Boys Town MGM $2,828,000. 3 Alexander's Ragtime Band 20th Century Fox $2,630,000 4 Test Pilot MGM $2,431,000 5You Can't Take It with You Columbia $2,182,000 6 Sweethearts MGM $2,017,000Turk, Edward Baron "Hollywood Diva: A Biography of Jeanette MacDonald" (University of California Press, 1998) 7 In Old Chicago 20th Century Fox $1,964,000 8 The Adventures of Robin Hood Warner Bros. $1,928,000Warner Bros financial information in The William Schaefer Ledger. See Appendix 1, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, (1995) 15:sup1, 1–31 p 18 DOI: 10.1080/01439689508604551 9 Love Finds Andy HardyMGM $1,637,000 10 Marie Antoinette $1,633,000
Notable films United States unless stated
A Adiós Buenos Aires, directed by Leopoldo Torres Ríos, starring Amelia Bence – (Argentina) The Adventures of Marco Polo, directed by Archie Mayo, starring Gary Cooper and Basil Rathbone The Adventures of Robin Hood, directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone and Claude Rains The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, directed by Norman Taurog, starring Tommy Kelly Águila o sol (Heads or Tails), directed by Arcady Boytler, starring Cantinflas – (Mexico) Alexander Nevsky, directed by Sergei Eisenstein, starring Nikolay Cherkasov – (USSR) Alexander's Ragtime Band, directed by Henry King, starring Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche and Ethel Merman Algiers, directed by John Cromwell, starring Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, directed by Anatole Litvak, starring Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor and Humphrey Bogart Angels with Dirty Faces, directed by Michael Curtiz, starring James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan and the Dead End Kids
B The Baker's Wife (La femme du boulanger), directed by Marcel Pagnol, starring Raimu – (France) Bank Holiday, starring Margaret Lockwood – (GB) La Bête humaine (The Human Beast), directed by Jean Renoir, starring Jean Gabin and Simone Simon – (France) The Big Broadcast of 1938, directed by Mitchell Leisen, starring W.C. Fields, Martha Raye, Dorothy Lamour and Bob Hope Billy the Kid Returns, directed by Joseph Kane, starring Roy Rogers and Smiley Burnette Block-Heads, directed by John G. Blystone, starring Laurel and Hardy Blondie, directed by Frank R. Strayer, starring Penny Singleton Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, starring Gary Cooper, Claudette Colbert and David Niven Boys Town, directed by Norman Taurog, starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney Bringing Up Baby, directed by Howard Hawks, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant The Buccaneer, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Fredric March
C Carefree, directed by Mark Sandrich, starring Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Ralph Bellamy Carmen, la de Triana (Carmen, the Girl from Triana), directed by Florián Rey, starring Imperio Argentina – (Spain/Germany) Charlie Chan in Honolulu, directed by H. Bruce Humberstone, starring Sidney Toler A Christmas Carol, directed by Edwin L. Marin, starring Reginald Owen The Citadel, directed by King Vidor, starring Robert Donat and Rosalind Russell – (GB) Climbing High, directed by Carol Reed, starring Jessie Matthews and Michael Redgrave – (GB) Cocoanut Grove, directed by Alfred Santell, starring Fred MacMurray College Swing, directed by Raoul Walsh, starring George Burns, Gracie Allen, Martha Raye and Bob Hope Convict 99, directed by Marcel Varnel, starring Will Hay, Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt – (GB) Crime School, directed by Lewis Seiler, starring the Dead End Kids and Humphrey Bogart The Crowd Roars, directed by Richard Thorpe, starring Robert Taylor and Maureen O'Sullivan
D Dangerous to Know, directed by Robert Florey, starring Anna May Wong and Akim Tamiroff The Dawn Patrol, directed by Edmund Goulding, starring Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone and David Niven Diao Chan, directed by Bu Wancang – (China) The Divorce of Lady X, directed by Tim Whelan, starring Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson – (GB) The Drum, directed by Zoltan Korda, starring Sabu and Raymond Massey – (GB) Ducháček Will Fix It (Ducháček to zařídí), directed by Karel Lamač – (Czechoslovakia)
F Ferdinand the Bull, a Disney animated short Fools for Scandal, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, starring Carole Lombard and Ralph Bellamy The Four Companions (Die vier Gesellen), directed by Carl Froelich, starring Ingrid Bergman – (Germany) Four Daughters, directed by Michael Curtiz, starring the Lane Sisters, Claude Rains and John Garfield Four Men and a Prayer, directed by John Ford, starring Loretta Young, Richard Greene, George Sanders and David Niven Four's a Crowd, directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Rosalind Russell and Patric Knowles
G The Gaunt Stranger, directed by Walter Forde, starring Sonnie Hale – (GB) The Girl of the Golden West, directed by Robert Z. Leonard, starring Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy and Walter Pidgeon Give Me a Sailor, directed by Elliott Nugent, starring Martha Raye, Bob Hope and Betty Grable Gold Is Where You Find It, directed by Michael Curtiz, starring George Brent, Olivia de Havilland and Claude Rains
H Hard to Get, directed by Ray Enright, starring Dick Powell and Olivia de Havilland Having Wonderful Time, directed by Alfred Santell, starring Ginger Rogers, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Lucille Ball Her Jungle Love, directed by George Archainbaud, starring Dorothy Lamour and Ray Milland Holiday, directed by George Cukor, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant Honeysuckle (Madreselva), directed by Luis César Amadori, starring Libertad Lamarque – (Argentina) Hotel du Nord, directed by Marcel Carné – (France)
I I Am the Law, directed by Alexander Hall, starring Edward G. Robinson If I Were King, directed by Frank Lloyd, starring Ronald Colman and Basil Rathbone In Old Chicago, directed by Henry King, starring Tyrone Power, Alice Faye and Don Ameche Inspector Hornleigh, directed by Eugene Forde, starring Gordon Harker and Alastair Sim – (GB) International Settlement, directed by Eugene Forde, starring Dolores del Río and George Sanders
J J'accuse!, directed by Abel Gance – (France) Jezebel, directed by William Wyler, starring Bette Davis, Henry Fonda and George Brent Judge Hardy's Children, directed by George B. Seitz, starring Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Cecilia Parker and Fay Holden Just Around the Corner, directed by Irving Cummings, starring Shirley Temple
K Kentucky, directed by David Butler, starring Loretta Young, Richard Greene and Walter Brennan Kentucky Moonshine, directed by David Butler, starring the Ritz Brothers Kidnapped, directed by Alfred L. Werker, starring Warner Baxter and Freddie Bartholomew Kilómetro 111, directed by Mario Soffici – (Argentina) The King Kong That Appeared in Edo (Edo ni Arawareta Kingu Kongu) (lost), directed by Sōya Kumagai – (Japan)
L The Lady Vanishes, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave – (GB) Listen, Darling, directed by Edwin L. Marin, starring Judy Garland, Freddie Bartholomew, Mary Astor and Walter Pidgeon Little Miss Broadway, directed by Irving Cummings, starring Shirley Temple, Edna May Oliver and Jimmy Durante Little Tough Guy, directed by Harold Young, starring the Dead End Kids Lord Jeff, directed by Sam Wood, starring Freddie Bartholomew, Mickey Rooney and Charles Coburn Love Finds Andy Hardy, directed by George B. Seitz, starring Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Cecilia Parker, Fay Holden and Lana Turner
M Mad About Music, directed by Norman Taurog, starring Deanna Durbin and Herbert Marshall The Mad Miss Manton, directed by Leigh Jason, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda A Man to Remember, directed by Garson Kanin, starring Anne Shirley