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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Never Say Die (1939 film)

1939 film by Elliott Nugent

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 20, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Never Say Die is a 1939 American romantic comedy film starring Martha Raye and Bob Hope. Based on a play of the same title by William H. Post and William Collier Sr., which ran on Broadway for 151 performances in 1912, the film was directed by Elliott Nugent and written for the screen by Dan Hartman, Frank Butler and Preston Sturges. The supporting cast features Andy Devine, Alan Mowbray, Gale Sondergaard, Sig Ruman and Monty Woolley.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Never Say Die (1939 film)” is 1939 film by Elliott Nugent. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Never, film and Elliott, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1939, 1912—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Never, film and Elliott is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1939 film by Elliott Nugent” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 20, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1939 and 1912.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Never Say Die (1939 film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Never Say Die (1939 film) primary sources, Never Say Die (1939 film) archive and Never research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Never Say Die (1939 film)”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Never Say Die (1939 film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.