Part Three of a Read/Watch/Listen bookmark series by the Heights Matchmakers, celebrating the Heights Libraries’ Centennial decade by decade!
Books:
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (1937)
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (1938)
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (1939)
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (1940)
With the publication of her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers, all of twenty-three, became a literary sensation. With its profound sense of moral isolation and its compassionate glimpses into its characters’ inner lives, the novel is considered McCullers’ finest work, and an enduring masterpiece.
At its center is the deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. Each one yearns for escape from small-town life. When Singer’s mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly, the book’s heroine (loosely based on McCullers), finds solace in her music. Brilliantly attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated–and, through Mick Kelly, to the quiet, intensely personal search for beauty.
Native Son by Richard Wright (1940)
The Case of the Constant Suicides by John Dickson Carr (1941)
The Stranger by Albert Camus (1942)
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1943)
Friday’s Child by Georgette Heyer (1944)
The Thurber Carnival by James Thurber (1945)
Movies:
Topper (1937)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
His Girl Friday (1940)
The Mark of Zorro (1940)
This is perhaps the best of the many Zorro films as Tyrone Power gives an outstanding performance as the alternately swishing and swashbuckling son of a 19th century California aristocrat. As a champion of the oppressed, Zorro must face a wicked governor portrayed by J. Edward Bromberg, who, of course, has a beautiful niece whom our hero loves. Basil Rathbone is a delightfully evil assistant to the governor. Based on Johnston McCulley’s novel The Curse of Capistrano, The Mark of Zorro was a remake of the 1920 silent film and by far superior to all the Zorro incarnations. Interspersed with humor and one-liners but still keeping up with the highest of swashbuckling traditions, it is an action-packed story of one man standing against a corrupt, oppressive government on behalf of those less able to bear their burdens.
Casablanca (1942)
Music:
The 1935-38 Return by Original Dixieland Jazz Band (1935-1938)
Artie Shaw and His Orchestra Play 22 Original Big Band Recordings by Artie Shaw (1940)
Young Blue Eyes: Birth of a Crooner by Frank Sinatra (1940-1942)
The Velvet Fog by Mel Tormé (1944-1949)
