Best Picture and Director 1942

1927/28 through 1997
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Please select one Best Picture and one Best Director

The Invaders AKA 49th Parallel
3
9%
Kings Row
0
No votes
The Magnificent Ambersons
7
21%
Mrs. Miniver
6
18%
The Pied Piper
0
No votes
The Pride of the Yankees
0
No votes
Random harvest
1
3%
The Talk of the Town
0
No votes
Wake Island
0
No votes
Yankee Doodle Dandy
0
No votes
Michael Curtiz - Yankee Doodle dandy
2
6%
John Farrow - Wake Island
0
No votes
Mervyn LeRoy - Random Harvest
3
9%
Sam Wood - Kings Row
1
3%
William Wyler - Mrs. Miniver
11
32%
 
Total votes: 34

Sabin
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1942

Post by Sabin »

Mister Tee wrote
I presume you mean a film that wins picture/director/screenplay/at least one acting award/at least one tech. It startled me that you have to go back as far as American Beauty to find one (and it did it bare minimum: one in each category). But then I looked back further and found, goddamn, it's not as common as you'd expect. There are actors/writers movies (Terms of Endearment/Kramer vs. Kramer) that win no techs, big sweepers that fail at screenplay (My Fair Lady, Ben-Hur) or acting (Return of the King, The Last Emperor).
I meant "Best Shot." Which Best Movie was also Best Directed, Best Acted (one acting nod is fine), Best Written, and Best Shot. It might seem arbitrary but it isn't. All About Eve won Best Picture, Director, Acting, and Writing... but voters didn't think it was the most beautiful. I could go on. But it's rare that voters agree that the best film of the year is also the best directed, has some of the best acting, is the best written, and is the most beautiful. These qualities weren't split up. They were honored together. I'm sure we could split hairs about production design being evidence of beauty, but the brevity of the list speaks for itself:

- American Beauty (1999)
- Gandhi (1982)
- A Man for All Seasons (1966)
- The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
- On the Waterfront (1954)
- From Here to Eternity (1953)
- Mrs. Miniver (1942)
- Gone with the Wind (1939)

All of them have one thing in common: they won a lot of Oscars. American Beauty has the fewest with five (a huge tally today), but Gandhi had eight, The Bridge on the River Kwai had seven, A Man for All Seasons won six, On the Waterfront had eight, From Here to Eternity had eight, Mrs. Miniver had six, Gone with the Wind had eight (plus two honorary).
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1942

Post by Mister Tee »

Sabin wrote: But Mrs. Miniver cleaned up with twelve nominations and six wins, taking home Oscars for directing, two for acting, writing, cinematography, and Best Picture. The last time a movie took home close to that haul was American Beauty (which only brought home one acting award). That's a strong haul.
Since, as I indicated in my nearly-decade-old comment below, I find the nominees of 1942 mostly uninteresting, it's hard for me to work up the energy to play the game this year. But this statement of yours I found quite fascinating.

I presume you mean a film that wins picture/director/screenplay/at least one acting award/at least one tech. It startled me that you have to go back as far as American Beauty to find one (and it did it bare minimum: one in each category). But then I looked back further and found, goddamn, it's not as common as you'd expect. There are actors/writers movies (Terms of Endearment/Kramer vs. Kramer) that win no techs, big sweepers that fail at screenplay (My Fair Lady, Ben-Hur) or acting (Return of the King, The Last Emperor).

Here are the ones I found, working backward from American Beauty, with the non-qualifiers listed in parentheses in between):

(Shakespeare in Love misses only director. Titanic fails at acting and screenplay. The English Patient -- prime candidate -- is Billy Bob-bed out of contention. Braveheart doesn't even have an acting nomination)

Forrest Gump, amazingly, makes it, assuming editing counts as a prime tech -- film, director, actor, screenplay, editing and visual effects.

(Schindler's List and Dances with Wolves miss on acting. Unforgiven out on screenplay. Silence of the Lambs -- and later Rain Man -- gets no tech. Driving Miss Daisy could actually have made it had the directors not rendered Beresford impossible. The Last Emperor, for all its prizes, wasn't even nominated in acting. Platoon no acting or writing. The Ameche upset over Brandauer keeps Out of Africa from qualifying)

Amadeus makes the team -- only one actor, but so many techs plus film/director/screenplay makes it the strongest entry so far.

(Terms of Endearment is another no-tech)

Gandhi, god help us, qualifies -- solely because of the worst screenplay decision in history.

(Chariots of Fire misses director & acting. Ordinary People, Kramer vs. Kramer and Annie Hall all crap out below the line. Deer Hunter, in between, misses screenwriting. Rocky only wins 3. Cuckoo's Nest, like the other two movies to win film/director/actor/actress, takes nothing below screenplay.)

How many would have guessed Godfather II was one of our winners? Production design and score aren't top-level tech, but winning this broad a coalition of prizes is impressive -- especially since many of them were dubious going into the evening.

(The Sting has no acting. The Godfather missed director & techs.)

The French Connection makes it, just barely: Film, Actor, Director, Screenplay, Editing.

Patton, amazingly, also qualifies -- Film, Director, Actor, Screenplay, Production Design, Sound, Editing.

(Midnight Cowboy only won 3. Oliver missed screenplay and acting. In the Heat of the Night failed at director.)

A Man for All Seasons, perhaps another surprise entry: Film, Actor, Director, Screenplay, Cinematography and Costumes. Still no film matching the two acting prizes to Mrs. Miniver that started this conversation.

(In this era of epics and musicals, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Lawrence of Arabia, West Side Story, and Ben-Hur all miss screenplay. Tom Jones, The Apartment and Gigi win no acting prizes.)

The Bridge on the River Kwai qualifies: Film, Actor, Director, Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Score. A classic sweeper -- but still, only one actor.

(Around the World in 80 Days misses director. Marty has no techs.)

On the Waterfront and From Here to Eternity seem our strongest yet: Film, Director, Screenplay, two acting awards apiece, and a few techs each -- Cinematography maybe cheapened by the black-and-white-ness, but Editing solid for both. Clearly Mrs. Miniver's equal in awards strength.

(Four of the five best picture winners between 1948-1952 failed at best director-- Greatest Show on Earth, An American in Paris, All the King's Men, Hamlet)

The exception: All About Eve, a surprise (to me) inclusion on this list -- though b&w costumes is a pretty weak tech entry. But, credit where it's due: Film, Director, Supporting Actor, Screenplay, Costumes.

(Gentleman's Agreement misses screenplay and techs)

The Best Years of Our Lives gets Editing and Score to finish off its plate of Film, Director, Screenplay and two actors. Easy qualifier.

(The Lost Weekend misses techs)

Whether Going My Way rates a place on the list depends on how you feel about Song as a tech. Otherwise, it got two actors and two screenplays to go with Film and Director.

(Casablanca's a no-go with its 3-only prizes -- the same 3 as Midnight Cowboy, if you're counting.)

Mrs. Miniver we know.

(How Green Was My Valley misses under Screenplay. Rebecca wins only 2 awards)

Surely you knew Gone with the Wind was making this list. Cinematography, Editing and Production Design to go along with Film, Director, Screenplay and two acting awards. I think it''s a strong contender for overall champ with that roster, but you can argue for a few others.

(Forget about pre-1939. It Happened One Night is the only one comes close, and, like its successors Cuckoo's Nest and Silence, its success bottomed out at screenplay.)

So, 15 or 16 in total (depending how you classify Going My Way). And none in this millennium, with current trends suggesting we may never see another. I've honestly been surprised the number is so low.
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1942

Post by Sabin »

Big Magilla wrote
With How Green Was My Valley out of the way in 1941, Sergeant York would likely have sailed to an easy victory over Citizen Kane.
Its nominations might have gone to The Maltese Falcon for Best Picture, Director (John Huston), and Supporting actor (Peter Lorre), with Citizen Kane scoring its nomination for Best Supporting Actress (Dorothy Comingore).
The only upside to this is that Howard Hawks would actually win an Academy Award for Best Director. So, the big shift is: Sergeant York takes home at least four Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Film Editing. With How Green Was My Valley out of the way, it's conceivable that Sergeant York could take home Best Cinematography B&W (Sol Polito had three nominations over four years) and Art Direction B&W as well, but who knows?

As for no Mrs. Miniver, Yankee Doodle Dandy takes home Best Picture and Director along with Actor, Scoring of a Musical Picture, and Sound Recording.
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1942

Post by Big Magilla »

Casablanca opened in New York in November, 1942 and would have opened everywhere else before the end of the year, but as soon as it was announced that the Big 3 (Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin) would be meeting in Casablanca in January 1943, Warner Bros. withheld it to coincide with the meeting for the free publicity that would generate. It was not the favorite going into the 1943 Oscar race. For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Song of Bernadette were, but with the Big 3 meeting in January, it might have been buoyed by the publicity though it would not have been a major threat to Mrs. Miniver.

In Which We Serve, which had won both the New York Film Critics and National Board of Review awards, was so well like and thought shafted since it was unable to get an Oscar qualifying run in 1942 that they gave it an honorary award that year and nominated it for regular awards the following year. It may have had some impact were it Oscar eligible in 1942, but Mrs. Miniver was virtually unbeatable.

Those films would have factored in the nominations more than in any potential wins. They would most likely have knocked The Pied Piper and 49th Parallel out of Best Picture contention. Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains would likely have taken Monty Wooley, Teresa Wright (in Best Actress), and Frank Morgan out of contention in the acting races. Curtiz's Best Director nod would probably have been for that instead of Yankee Doodle Dandy, though he could have been nominated for both, though it's hard to say who he might have knocked out to grab that second nod.

Had How Green Was My Valley been knocked out of the 1941 race due to its late L.A. release, and considered in 1942, with Casablanca and In Which We Serve not eligible, then the film would knock The Pied Piper out of Best Picture consideration, John Ford would knock someone out of Best Director, probably either Sam Wood or John Farrow. Donald Crisp would be nominated in place of Frank Morgan and he would win. Sara Allgood would be nominated in place of Susan Peters. It would have been nominated in the six other categories it was nominated for in 1941, possibly winning Direction, Cinematography, and Screenplay or some combination thereof over Mrs. Miniver but not Best Picture and no one was going to touch Greer Garson in Best Actress.

With How Green Was My Valley out of the way in 1941, Sergeant York would likely have sailed to an easy victory over Citizen Kane.
Its nominations might have gone to The Maltese Falcon for Best Picture, Director (John Huston), and Supporting actor (Peter Lorre), with Citizen Kane scoring its nomination for Best Supporting Actress (Dorothy Comingore).
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1942

Post by Sabin »

Big Magilla wrote
More realistically, I would ask what would have happened if Casablanca and In Which We Serve had been eligible ....
We can play that as well. I keep forgetting how early in "1943" Casablanca opened. It really hung around and picked up in general consciousness like Annie Hall or The Silence of the Lambs.

If Casablanca or In Which We Served had been eligible, could they have possibly made a significant impact on the race? Casablanca only won three Academy Awards in 1943 (PIcture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay). Could Michael Curtiz have beaten out William Wyler who by 1942 was clearly a deserving master? Maybe its best chance would've been for Best [Adapted] Screenplay.
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1942

Post by Big Magilla »

More realistically, I would ask what would have happened if Casablanca and In Which We Serve had been eligible or if the last minute cut-off which preempted In Which We Serve had been put into place a year earlier so that How Green Was My Valley which opened in L.A. on 1/12/1942 would have been eligible in 1942 instead of 1941.

Mrs. Miniver was such a film of its time that it's impossible to imagine anything beating it at the 1942 Oscars, but OK, I'll play,

Given the patriotic fervor of the day, I would suspect that Yankee Doodle Dandy would prevail over the two nominated war films, Wake Island and The Invaders aka 49th Parallel. Woman of the Year would probably have gotten a bigger MGM push to take the place of Mrs. Miniver.

I see Spencer Tracy in Woman of the Year replacing Walter Pidgeon in Mrs. Miniver in the Best Actor race, with Joel McCrea in Sullivan's Travels next in line.

Greer Garson would be nominated instead for Random Harvest, and still win Best Actress. Teresa Wright would likely be pushed for supporting actress instead of Best Actress for The Pride of the Yankees, probably to the benefit of Claudette Colbert in The Palm Beach Story.

With Henry Travers out of Best Supporting Actor contention, I'd hope for a nod for Tim Holt in The Magnificent Ambersons.

Although Wright, like Garson in Best Actress, would still be in contention for Best Supporting Actress, she would lose to Agnes Moorehead in The Magnificent Ambersons. Mary Astor in The Palm Beach Story could grab Dame May Whitty's slot.

With William Wyler out of Best Director, Michael Curtiz would be on solid ground to win for Yankee Doodle Dandy and subsequently follow John Ford to back-to-back directing Oscars with Casablanca the following year. George Stevens gets the nomination for Woman of the Year.

Its screenplay nomination goes to The Magnificent Ambersons with The Talk of the Town winning.

Cinematography defaults to The Pride of the Yankees with Wake Island replacing Mrs. Miniver in the nominations.

Its Best Film Editing nomination goes to The Magnificent Ambersons.

Mrs. Miniver's special effects nomination goes to Wake Island.

Its Sound Recording nomination goes to Wake Island.

Nominations pick-ups: The Magnificent Ambersons, Wake Island, and Woman of the year - 3 each; The Palm Beach Story -2; Random Harvest - 1.

Wins pick-ups: Yankee Doodle Dandy - 2; The Magnificent Ambersons, Random Harvest, The Pride of the Yankees, and The Talk of the Town - 1 each.
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1942

Post by Sabin »

From the outside, 1942 looks like a very important year for Hollywood. The United States spent the entire year at war, which was largely supported by the entertainment industry. Perhaps someone could correct me but it would seem as though there was a political nature to these films, tackling issues of the warfront and the homefront.

I'll be honest: of this lineup, I've only seen The Magnificent Ambersons and Yankee Doodle Dandy. I have no idea how significant they factored into the race. I don't know what I'm talking about. But Mrs. Miniver cleaned up with twelve nominations and six wins, taking home Oscars for directing, two for acting, writing, cinematography, and Best Picture. The last time a movie took home close to that haul was American Beauty (which only brought home one acting award). That's a strong haul.

What would've taken its place if Mrs. Miniver wasn't in play?

The Pride of the Yankees was close behind Mrs. Miniver's tally with eleven nominations, including Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Screenplay and Story, and it won for Best Film Editing. But it missed out on a nomination for Best Director because its director, Sam Wood, was nominated for Kings Row. Kings Row was additionally nominated for Best Picture and Cinematography B&W. This seems confusing that Oscar voters nominated a director for a movie that received only two additional nominations as opposed to ten. Either way, if Mrs. Miniver was taken off the table, so would Theresa Wright's chances for Best Supporting Actress -- but also her competition for Best Actress. The Pride of the Yankees writer Herman Mankiewicz would also have a shot at second Oscar -- and his first solo -- with Mrs. Miniver out of the way.

Would Kings Row or The Pride of the Yankees take over?

Or would it be Yankee Doodle Dandy? With eight nominations and a nominated director that was going to win the following year (Michael Curtiz). It would go on to win more Oscars than any other film besides Mrs. Miniver (Best Actor, Musical Score, and Sound Recording). It is nominated for Best Director, Film Editing, and Writing (although Motion Picture Story -- can someone tell me if this is a "lesser" writing award than the other two?). I don't recall being much of a fan of the film or it seeming like a Best Picture winner but... perhaps?

The only other Best Picture nominated for Film Editing was Talk of the Town which pulled in seven nominations total, but no directing or acting nominations. Random Harvest grabbed seven as well, for Best Picture, Directing, two for acting, writing, scoring, but no cinematography or editing. Would Mrs. Miniver's exit open up room for Random Harvest?

I could keep going but which film stands to gain the most from Mrs. Miniver's exit (like Wake Island or The Magnificent Ambersons) and which might come around to win?
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1942

Post by The Original BJ »

I agree with the general consensus on the excluded efforts: the comedies got royally screwed. Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story, and To Be or Not to Be are all more original, entertaining, and thematically rich than almost the entire Best Picture slate. I'd also advocate for Bambi, Disney's last triumph of the era, and a beautiful piece of animation.

As for this slate, I have a clear choice for Best Picture, though I just as easily could have voted "NO" in Best Director.

The war was an understandably popular subject for films of the era (and immediately afterward), but today, a lot of these movies come off like Wake Island: generic and seriously deficient in the narrative/originality department. John Farrow has got to be one of the most workmanlike nominees ever in the Director category -- even by Academy standards, it's pretty rare for a film with this level of artlessness to make it onto the ballot.

I agree precisely with Mister Tee's take on The Pied Piper. There's something inherently engrossing and emotional about the early chunk of the film, as we watch Monty Woolley's character leading a ragtag group of children across war-torn Europe. But once Preminger's Nazi shows up, the story really starts to stretch credulity, and I don't know that it ever fully recovers.

Sports are fairly uninteresting to me, so movies on the subject really have to be dramatically engaging for me to respond to them. The Pride of the Yankees -- a standard entry in my least favorite genre, the biography -- isn't that. And Gary Cooper in dramatic do-gooder mode generally strikes me as dull. The finale is admittedly hard to resist -- that speech is a thing of beauty -- but overall I find the movie watchable but not exciting.

As far as the biographies go, the subject matter of Yankee Doodle Dandy is much more to my taste. (And to answer the question posed, kids today are still very much raised on those Cohan songs -- or at least, we were in the '90's.) And James Cagney is an absolute joy to watch -- that "Yankee Doodle Boy" number is a spectacular piece of showmanship. But I think it's a case of a grade-A performance surrounded by a grade-B movie, and a lot of the narrative problems that typically plague biographies (i.e. the lack of one) pop up here as well. As for Michael Curtiz, he mounts those musical numbers with aplomb, but I've voted for him before and will do so again (spoiler alert?) and that's plenty for a director who wasn't without talent but who definitely wasn't a singular artist either.

The Talk of the Town is an enjoyable enough comedy, with the legal/moral elements giving it a decent enough dramatic underpinning. And it's full of good actors in the lead roles. But it's not a terribly special movie either -- honestly, I had to look up the plot to remind myself which one this was. And given the humorous efforts that DIDN'T make the lineup, it doesn't seem fair that this inferior one did.

I'll probably get flak for this...but I sort of like Kings Row, up to a point. I once saw it described as a Blue Velvet for the 1940's, and though it's obviously not the qualitative equal of Lynch's film, there's a perversity on display that makes the film seem a lot more fresh and engaging than some of the Tradition of Quality pictures of this era. Of course, the movie definitely teeters on the edge of being too much, but in its most memorable moments (like Ronald Reagan's "Where's the rest of me?!") it achieves a grotesque quality that's hard to shake. Sam Wood deserves points for the movie's bizarre highs, though I have qualms about picking a director whose movie almost seems to be running away from him at all times.

The Invaders is a very solid film that makes its 10 Little Indians-style narrative quite engaging despite its episodic nature, through a series of memorable vignettes across the Canadian countryside. The movie definitely has a propagandistic edge to it, though a very interesting one, given that it not only chooses Nazis as its protagonists, but shows quite a range of political viewpoints and character types even among them. And, yes, that final encounter with the last Nazi is a great, stirring moment. I don't know that the movie is much of a personal favorite, and it definitely lacks the appealing flash of some of Powell/Pressburger's superior efforts, but I would have preferred the directing team to anyone on the Best Director ballot.

Damien used to say of Mrs. Miniver that it's not as good a film as people thought in 1942, but that it's a better movie than it's usually given credit for now. I'll support that take on the movie. There are a lot of admirable qualities to the film, particularly the acting, starting with Greer Garson's radiant heroine, but extending to the memorable supporting cast as well. There are also some very memorable moments: Mrs. Miniver's encounter with the German, the family in the bomb shelter, Teresa Wright's final scene in the car, and the closing church service come immediately to mind. But there's a lot of fluff as well, beginning with the hat buying sequence, and extending to a lot of the flower stuff, and I agree that the movie thinks that it is making a more significant statement than its less than complex propaganda actually is. It's certainly understandable why this would have so strongly affected audiences at the time, though. From an artistic standpoint, Wyler was a good director, and he's in charge of a big project here. But it's not a terribly personal effort, even by his standards, which aren't as auteurist-y as his umpteen nominations might suggest.

I think Random Harvest is a lovely little movie. And I have to disagree with Mister Tee on the moment that he feels the movie loses course -- I was actually relieved I thought the movie DIDN'T mess up that moment. Greer Garson appears as Colman's secretary, but there's no overly-dramatic music, no obvious close-up...she just walks in, sits down, and the audience slowly comes to the heartbreaking realization that he doesn't remember her. I think moments like this epitomize the delicate, understated quality of the movie. (I mean, up to a point. It still is a '40's romance, after all.) Colman and Garson make for a lovely couple -- him reserved, still hurting from war; her full of grace even amidst the saddest of circumstances -- and her final "Smithy!" and his turn back toward her makes for a beautiful, lump-in-the-throat moment. It's a very memorable romance for me. Mervyn LeRoy, though, wasn't much of a director overall, and I don't even think he was much of a director THIS year, but I do like his movie, and he does enough right to get at least a passing glance from me.

But Orson Welles should have won Best Picture and Director for the second year in a row for The Magnificent Ambersons. And I'm not judging the film that might have been -- I think the movie as it stands merits the recognition on its own. It's such a beautiful portrait of small-town America -- and I mean truly BEAUTIFUL, with that amazing house set and the gorgeous camerawork that captures it. And though the studio-imposed ending is indeed a happier one than Welles would have wanted, the film on the whole is full of such dark nostalgia for the turn-of-the-century Midwest -- its Christmas parties, automobile excursions, grimy factories -- that it becomes one of the cinema's most haunting portraits of the loss of American innocence. And the cast is full of actors who work so well as part of an ensemble, with Agnes Moorehead's great performance as the disturbed Aunt Fanny the acting trump card. I do one day hope we'll find that missing footage to the film, but it's hard for me to lament that when what we do have is so ambitious in terms of its visual dazzle, narrative complexity, and emotional impact. Best Picture, no question.

In Best Director, I don't have the option of picking Welles. Or Preston Sturges. Or Preston Sturges again. Or Ernst Lubitsch. Or Powell/Pressburger. So...I guess after picking the Minafers in Best Picture I'll go with the Minivers in Best Director. Wyler's film has the biggest scope of any of the Director candidates, and he's overall the most talented director on the list. Given my lack of enthusiasm for that ballot across the board, that's enough.
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1942

Post by Reza »

Voted for Wyler and his Mrs Miniver

Best Picture
1. Mrs. Miniver
2. The Palm Beach Story
3. Random Harvest
4. Sullivan's Travels
5. Yankee Doodle Dandy

The 6th Spot: The Magnificent Ambersons

Best Director
1. Preston Sturges, The Palm Beach Story
2. William Wyler, Mrs. Miniver
3. Orson Welles, The Magnificent Ambersons
4. Preston Sturges, Sullivan's Travels
5. Michael Curtiz, Yankee Doodle Dandy

The 6th Spot: Mervyn LeRoy, Random Harvest
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1942

Post by Big Magilla »

Mister Tee wrote:Powell/Pressburger’s films in this period were unfailingly inventive and believable, and they didn’t really get the attention they deserved from the Academy (Col. Blimp, for instance, is way better than most of the 1943 nominees).
Perhaps, but it was a 1945 release in the U.S.
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1942

Post by Mister Tee »

I'm having a hell of a time making choices in each category, though for different reasons.

First, those missing: I can't say I see it as a banner year in any respect. Probably To Be or Not to Be would top my ballot. Of the Sturges' two, I actually prefer The Palm Beach Story, though I know Sullivan's Travels is thought to be the more profound. Both films are funny, but Palm Beach achieves a level of zizziness that few films of this or any era match.

When I first saw Kings Row, I had a Joe Pesci/My Cousin Vinny reaction -- "You were SERIOUS about that?" I found the plot floridly, hilariously over the top. Peyton Place is a model of subtlety by comparison. No -- it won't be getting my vote.

Wake Island won John Farrow the NY Critics' directing award; one can only assume post-Pearl Harbor patriotic fervor made critics lose their usual judgment. This is very much standard-issue war picture, with noble deaths alongside broad comic relief. About the only thing memorable about the film is, it appears to be the source of the old saw "There are no atheists in foxholes".

Thanks to BJ pointing me to YouTube, I finally filled in the long-time gap that was The Pied Piper. I actually found the first half or so of the picture better than expected: Woolley wasn't the full-on caricature curmudgeon he so regularly played, the kids weren't adorable beyond toleration, and the logistics of the plot moved along pretty well. Unhappily, this came to a crashing halt when Otto Preminger entered the film. Not only did the geographic progress stop dead, the story (not exactly documentary realism to begin with) became harder and harder to believe, and, more importantly, not as interesting as a simple continuing escape-route story would have been. I rate the movie half and half; it certainly doesn't contend for my vote.

Random Harvest is another movie I liked up to a point. I enjoy a good amnesia plot as much as the next guy, and was happily watching the unravelling of it. But when Greer Garson walked in as Colman's assistant, the plot went out the window, and a -- for me -- far less engaging swoony romance took over.

Talk of the Town is a fairly routine film of its era, full of forthright liberal beliefs and concerns for civil liberties. And, of course, a sweet love story/slight triangle. The three stars, Grant/Colman/Arthur, are an advantage in any setting, and the film is engaging enough. How it got so far in the best picture/screenplay race is another matter.

Needless to say, as a Yankee fan, Pride of the Yankees is dear to my heart. But, honestly, there's not much of a movie there. Lou Gehrig was by all accounts a man of honor as well as talent, but the story of his rise to slugger stardom doesn’t have alot of friction. Had he not come down with a crippling disease, there would have been no reason whatever to make this movie. Obviously the legendary "I consider myself the luckiest man..." speech is going to evoke tears from anyone (my grandfather was at the stadium that day, and never forgot it), but it doesn’t justify the 90 minutes that preceded it.

Mrs. Miniver is World War II as viewed from an English tea-shop. I think the concept is defensible – depicting war via its impact on ordinary citizens – but there’s something too self-satisfied about the film; it appears to feel it’s making a more important statement than it actually is. Wyler as always provides talent and taste, but his work here is nowhere near his highest standard. The film’s dominant performance at that year’s Oscars seems like a “you had to be there” thing.

I advocated loudly in the best actor thread for Cagney’s Yankee Doodle Dandy Oscar, but the film that contains it is obviously a lesser thing, more or less a variation on The Great Ziegfeld (“And then he produced…”). One’s pleasure in the film may be limited by how much affection one has for Cohan’s boisterous songbook. I more or less grew up on his songs (do people, still?), and, though they’re hardly the sort I’d seek out today, I still have a soft spot for many (Give My Regards to Broadway above all). Plus, I find the Cagney performance just such a joy to watch that I can sit through the film more easily than many others of its ilk. As a best picture prospect, however, it’s hard to defend.

My choice comes down to the two remaining, and I find the choice devilishly difficult. The Magnificent Ambersons has much great beauty in it. The opening montage, simultaneously describing the mores of small town America and setting multiple plots in motion, is extraordinary. The set-piece that is the Ambersons’ ball – the criss-cross of various characters as they glide up and down grand staircases – is breathtaking, clearly the work of a master director. The first half of the film is pretty undeniably great. But then it goes awry, and we are confronted by a conundrum of history. We KNOW there was massive studio interference, and that the film Welles originally set out in these final segments was not what we see today. But I don’t know we can automatically intuit that all issues would be miraculously resolved if we just saw Welles’ original cut. Critics in recent decades have taken to assuming the best (Welles, as a result of being treated so poorly in real time, has been given every benefit of doubt by posterity). But it’s not as if there aren’t other Welles films (Lady from Shanghai, The Stranger) that start out like masterpieces and drift into muddle. It’s a leap of faith to assume The Magnificent Ambersons is the best film of 1942…even though its best parts are unquestionably greater than anything else seen that year.

But there’s another film that comes reasonably close in quality and DOESN’T lose its way at any point: the Powell/Pressburger collaboration variously titled The 49th Parallel/The Invaders. Like Mrs. Miniver, this film takes place far from the battlefield, but it evokes the sense of wartime more vividly as we watch the stranded Nazis make their way cautiously through enemy territory toward a neutral border. (And, yes, it’s a kicky irony to know that neutral country is the US) The film is basically a set of vignettes (often involving famous faces), and they’re engaging/gripping along the way, building to Raymond Massey’s triumphant engagement with the last remaining Nazi. Powell/Pressburger’s films in this period were unfailingly inventive and believable, and they didn’t really get the attention they deserved from the Academy (Col. Blimp, for instance, is way better than most of the 1943 nominees). The team won’t get my vote in 1948, so, given my doubts about Ambersons in toto, here I’ll take my one chance to honor their distinguished careers. Though it’s a very near call.

Under director, my quandary is the opposite: do I really have to choose one of these guys? Three of them are non-entities making unimpressive films. Another (Michael Curtiz) has a decent track record, but he’s already won from me/us in 1938 and will at least get consideration next year. The pretty much leaves me with Wyler, whose work is not close to what he did in 1936 (and will do in 1946). But at least he’s a worthy talent, so, even though his film is not to my taste…the least ugly child is the family beauty. Wyler it is.
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Best Picture and Director 1942

Post by Big Magilla »

Sullivan's Travels; To Be or Not to Be; The Palm Beach Story; Woman of the Year; My Sister Eileen; The Man Who Came to Dinner - 1942 was quite a year for comedy although you wouldn't know that from a quick perusal of the year's Best Picture nominees. The only comedy to make the list of ten was the rather serious comedy, The Talk of the Town. Also missing from the line-up were the last of Disney's early masterpieces, Bambi, and the year's most enduring women's film, Now, Voyager.

The raging war accounted for five of the actual nominees although only Wake Island was an out-and-out war film. The Invaders AKA 49th Parallel was about a stranded U-Boat off the coast of Canada; The Pied Piper was about the escape of children from the Nazi invasion of easern France; Yankee Doodle Dandy was first and foremost a musical but George M. Cohan's patriotism is one of the fim's main themes. The winner, Mrs. Miniver, features several war scenes but is mostly about the British homefront.

The remaining four nominees included two looks at America's past, Kings Row and The Magnificent Amberson; a look at Britain after the last war, Random Havest and one look at contemporary Americana, the Lou Gehrig biopic, The Pride of the Yankees.

My favorite films of 1942 are Casablanca, not eligible until 1943 because its L.A. release was held back until January and Sullivan's Travels which Oscar ignored altogether. Mrs. Miniver gets my vote by default in a close race with Yankee Doodle Dandy; The Pride of the Yankees and Random Harvest with The Magnificent Ambersons the only other nominee that mkes my list of the year's ten best films.

Among the directors, Sam Wood is once again nominated for the wrong film - Kings Row instead of The Pride of the Yankees; John Farrow is nominated for directing Hollywood's first look at a real war situation in Wake Island while Michael Curtiz (Yankee Doodle Dandy; Mervyn LeRoy (Random Harvest) and William Wyler (Mrs. Miniver) would likely have been nominated no matter what. Wyler gets my vote.
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