Best Cinematography 1941

1927/28 through 1997
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Which of the 1941 nominees for Best B&W and Color Cinematography were best?

The Chocolate Soldier (Karl Freund)
0
No votes
Citizen Kane (Gregg Toland)
7
50%
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Joseph Ruttenberg)
0
No votes
Here Comes Mr. Jordan (Joseph Walker)
0
No votes
Hold Back the Dawn (Leo Tolver)
0
No votes
How Green Was My Valley (Arthur C. Miller)
1
7%
Sergeant York (Sol Polito)
0
No votes
Sun Valley Serenade (Edward Cronjager)
0
No votes
Sundown (Charles Lang)
0
No votes
That Hamilton Woman (Rudolph Maté)
0
No votes
Aloma of the South Seas (Wilfrid M. Cline, Karl Struss, William E. Snyder)
0
No votes
Billy the Kid (William V. Skall, Leonard Smith)
0
No votes
Blood and Sand (Ernest Palmer, Ray Rennahan)
4
29%
Blossoms in the Dust (Karl Freund, W. Howard Greene)
2
14%
Dive Bomber (Bert Glennon)
0
No votes
Louisiana Purchase (Harry Halleneberger, Ray Rennahan)
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 14

Big Magilla
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Best Cinematography 1941

Post by Big Magilla »

B&W

Ten nominees are a bit much and yet they still managed to screw up the nominations here. No The Devil and Daniel Webster AKA All That Money Can Buy, Ball of Fire, The Lady Eve, Meet John Doe, High Sierra or The Sea Wolf, yet they managed to nominate a forgettable B picture like Sundown.

Neither Sundown nor fluff like The Chocolate Soldier and Sun Valley Serenade or the misguided remake of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde had any chance here, so the less said about them the better.

Here Comes Mr. Jordan with its deft balance of the realistic and the fantastic and Hold Back the Dawn with its now even more fascinating look at the U.S.-Mexico border were impressive as were the battle scenes mixed with the dramatic ones in That Hamilton Woman and Sergeant York, but the real race here was between Citizen Kane and How Green Was My Valley.

I am one of the few here or anywhere else who thinks that How Green Was My Valley was a better overall film than Citizen Kane, but as beautifully photographed as Valley was by Arthur C. Miller, Gregg Toland's artful, innovative work on Citizen Kane was and remains without peer.

Miller not only won for How Green Was My Valley, but went on to win two more Oscars for The Song of Bernadette and Anna and the King of Siam. He as well compensated. Toland was not.

Toland won his only Oscar for Wuthering Heights but wasn't even nominated for The Grapes of Wrath but was for The Long Voyage Home in the year between Heights and Kane. Kane would be his last nomination. He wasn't even nominated for The Best Years of Our Lives, The Bishop's Wife or Enchantment which would have bene a posthumous nomination for the genius who died too soon at 44.

Toland's work on Citizen Kane was as good as it gets and he should have won a second Oscar for it. It gets my vote.

Color

Except for the winner, the gloriously photographed Blood and Sand, there's nothing here. The only other nominee of note is Blossoms in the Dust and that would have worked just as well in black-and-white.

Blood and Sand gets my vote.
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