After leaving Universal he began a long collaboration with Samuel Goldwyn for whom he directed such classics as Dodsworth ( 1936 ), These Three ( 1936 ), Dead End ( 1937 ), Wuthering Heights ( 1939 ), The Westerner ( 1940 ), The Little Foxes ( 1941 ) and The Best Years of Our Lives ( 1946 ).

They were hugely successful, which ultimately led to their appearance in a Broadway play in 1939, " The Streets of Paris ", and signing with Universal Studios in 1940.

In 1940 they were signed by Universal Studios for the film One Night in the Tropics.

Shortly after making this film, Scott portrayed Wyatt Earp in Frontier Marshal ( 1939 ) and, for Universal, starred with Kay Francis in When the Daltons Rode ( 1940 ).

He starred in several popular films at this time, including The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi alongside Betty Grable in 1933 and Search for Beauty ( 1934 ), and in 1936 was Flash Gordon in the very successful Flash Gordon serial, followed by two sequels, released by Universal in 1938 and 1940.

In 1935, the studio was severed from Universal and became Walter Lantz Productions under Lantz's direct control, and in 1940 Lantz managed to gain the copyright for his characters.

A 1940 court decision obligated Sullavan to fulfill her original 1933 agreement with Universal.

** The Green Hornet ( serial ), the 1940 Universal movie serial based on the radio series

As Assistant Secretary of War from 1937 to 1940, Johnson advocated Universal Military education and training, rearmament, and expansion of military aviation.

Unlike Frankenstein and Dracula, and other, later Universal horror films, this film had no sequels, but rather was semi-remade in the 1940's b-film The Mummy's Hand ( 1940 ), and its sequels, The Mummy's Tomb ( 1942 ), The Mummy's Ghost ( 1944 ), The Mummy's Curse ( 1944 ), which were later spoofed in 1950's Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.

* L. S. Amery, " Days of Fresh Air, Being Reminiscences of Outdoor Life " ( London: Hutchinson Universal Book Club, 1940 ).

In 1940, he moved to Universal for two musicals, both with scores by immortal composers: The Boys from Syracuse, with the stage score ( severely cut ) by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, and One Night in the Tropics, with an original score by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields which produced no hit songs.

The cartoon is noted for being the first appearance of Woody Woodpecker, and was released by Universal Pictures on November 25, 1940.

He was not averse to quitting a job when in conflict with those in charge -- as he did while directing at the Mill Pond Theater in 1940 and writing for Universal in 1943.

A film version was released on August 9, 1940 by Universal Pictures.

In 1940 they moved to Universal Pictures, where they were scheduled to star in The Boys from Syracuse, but were removed from that production and reassigned to make brash B comedies with music.

In the US it is illegal under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 to offer Universal Life Insurance as an " investment " to individuals, but it is frequently offered by agents as a tax-advantaged financial vehicle from which they can borrow as needed later without tax penalties.

The rabbit's hyperactive personality and laughing voice provided by Mel Blanc predated the 1940 Walter Lantz / Universal Pictures release Knock Knock which starred Andy Panda and introduced cartoon audiences to Woody Woodpecker which was created for the Lantz studio by Hardaway after his departure from the Leon Schlesinger / Warner Brothers studio.

However, production of a single model came to be preferred and the Universal design appeared in 1940 ; this would be the most widely produced of the Carriers.

My Little Chickadee ( 1940 ) is a Universal comedy / western motion picture starring Mae West and W. C. Fields, with Joseph Calleia, Ruth Donnelly, Margaret Hamilton, Donald Meek, Willard Robertson, Dick Foran, George Moran, William B. Davidson, and Addison Richards.

In 1940, she landed a contract with Universal Studios.

A stand-out role for Reynolds was as the waitress and loyal girlfriend opposite wrongly-accused Richard Cromwell in Universal Pictures's anti-Nazi action drama entitled, Enemy Agent ( 1940 ).

The Invisible Man Returns is a 1940 horror science fiction film from Universal.

The Invisible Woman is a science fiction, comedy film that was released near the end of 1940 by Universal.

* 1940 – The " Aufbau Ost " directive is signed by Wilhelm Keitel.

After the Tripartite Pact was signed by Axis Powers Germany, Japan and Italy, in October 1940, Stalin traded letters with Ribbentrop, with Stalin writing about entering an agreement regarding a " permanent basis " for their " mutual interests.

This fit nicely with Matsuoka's plans, and on 27 September 1940, the Tripartite Pact was signed.

On March 5, 1940, in what would later be known as the Katyn massacre, orders were signed to execute 25, 700 Polish POWs, labeled " nationalists and counterrevolutionaries ", kept at camps and prisons in occupied western Ukraine and Belarus.

Germany and the Soviet Union entered an intricate trade pact on February 11, 1940, that was over four times larger than the one the two countries had signed in August 1939.

In August 1940, the Soviet Union briefly suspended its deliveries under their commercial agreement after their relations were strained following disagreement over policy in Romania, the Soviet war with Finland, Germany falling behind in its deliveries of goods under the pact and with Stalin worried that Hitler's war with the West might end quickly after France signed an armistice.

* 1940 – World War II: The Tripartite Pact is signed in Berlin by Germany, Japan and Italy.

* September 16 – WWII: The Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 is signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt, creating the first peacetime draft in U. S. history.

After the Master and Variety labels collapsed in late 1937, Mills placed Ellington back on Brunswick and those small group units on Vocalion through 1940, when Ellington signed back to Victor ( and the small groups were placed on Bluebird ).

The " Axis powers " formally took the name after the Tripartite Pact was signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan on 27 September 1940, in Berlin.

In September 1940 Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact.

Under King Michael I and the military government of Antonescu, Romania signed the Tripartite Pact on November 23, 1940.

Despite Finnish resistance, a peace treaty was signed in March 1940, wherein Finland ceded some key territory to the Soviet Union, including the Karelian Isthmus, containing Finland's second-largest city, Viipuri, and the critical defensive structure of the Mannerheim Line.

The Tripartite Pact, also the Three-Power Pact, Axis Pact, Three-way Pact or Tripartite Treaty was a pact signed in Berlin, Germany on September 27, 1940, which established the Axis Powers of World War II.

Several small treaties were signed with Estonia and Latvia in 1939 and 1940 concerning the emigration of Baltic Germans and the liquidation of their educational, cultural, and religious institutions.

Following the fall of France and the second French-German armistice, signed near Compiègne on 22 June 1940, life for many in France continued more-or-less normally.

In November 1940, Wang's government signed the " Sino-Japanese Treaty " with the Japanese, a document that has been compared with Japan's Twenty-one Demands for its broad political, military, and economic concessions.

In February 1940, the Treaty was taken to Waitangi for display in the Treaty house during the Centenary celebrations – this was possibly the first time the Treaty had been on public display since it was signed.

The card was signed " Tommy, Liverpool, January 1940 ", and on it were the words ( quoted from W. H. Auden ): " The world is love.

He then signed with Decca in early 1936 and one session each for Decca in 1936, 1937 and 1940.

Andrews signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn and nine years after arriving in Los Angeles was offered his first movie role in William Wyler's The Westerner ( 1940 ), starring Gary Cooper.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to support Britain, however, and in 1940 signed the Lend-Lease Act, which permitted an expansion of the " cash and carry " arms trade to develop with Britain, which controlled the Atlantic sea lanes.

In 1940 an agreement was signed and Trujillo donated of his properties for settlements.