If I were going purely chronologically, I'd do 1939 first, but, honestly, the long-heralded '39 group has never really moved me that much. I'll explain that in greater detail when I have time.
Meantime, 1940 is a year where I can find truly terrific films among both the nominees and omittees. Magilla managed to mention most of the films I truly treasure that somehow failed to make the list: The Shop Around the Corner is one of Lubitsch's most near-perfect romantic comedies; Pinocchio is, along with Snow White, the crown jewel of the Disney-creates-animated-features era; The Thief of Baghdad is worthy to stand alongside Robin Hood as best "children of all ages" films (with special effects that must have seemed otherworldly at the time). I'd give special notice to Pride and Prejudice. Many might recall my turning up my nose at the whole MGM Tradition of Quality. But here, some magical combination of Austen, Huxley, Olivier, Edna May Oliver, and, yes, even Greer Garson, make this perhaps my favorite literary adaptation of the period.
Oh, and throw in The Bank Dick as well -- despite being Fields' most famous/audience-beloved film, it's still pretty wonderful.
Now, the select ten:
Sorry: All This and Heaven Too is a joke. That kid who keeps saying "Mamselle" in a Southern drawl? Barbara O'Neil's ludicrously overdrawn villain? Was there a rule a Bette Davis movie had to be nominated? Well, The Letter covered that. The Letter isn't exactly high art -- Somerset Maugham guaranteed a certain level of mid-range, tastefully controversial subject matter and execution. But the opening sequence via Wyler is a great mood-setter, and the plot is gripping enough. I don't think Davis is as good here as in Jezebel, Dark Victory or Now Voyager, but clearly this beats out Mr. Skeffington any day of the week.
Kitty Foyle being singled out by anyone as among the year's best seems bizarre from this vantage point. I said during the Blind Side brouhaha that I thought Rogers' Oscar here was the strongest precedent for Bullock's -- likable star plays a spunky sort who gets to tell off a bunch of rich folk for their narrow-mindedness. I guess the movie was a hit, and that got it into the race. Not mine.
Yeah, I'm not that fond of The Great Dictator -- at least by comparison to, oh, just about every other Chaplin film between The Gold Rush and A Countess from Hong Kong. But it's not worthless; Jack Oakie is fun, and there are memorable moments. The finale, though, is an embarrassment.
Our Town is a wonderful play. The adaptation isn't awful, and preserves at least some of the play. But making the ending "happy" shows the creators (or studio) didn't have the slightest idea what what special at the core of the material.
All the other nominees are quite deserving. Foreign Correspondent is, yes, probably second-best on the HItchcock list that year, but it has memorable moments (my favorite: the umbrellas), good actors, and a solid plot.
The Philadelphia Story is a remarkable romantic comedy built around an entirely original premise: it's a love triangle involving Katharine Hepburn and two men, neither of whom is the one she's supposed to marry. The interplay among these wonderful actors is a joy to watch -- and let's not overlook Ruth Hussey, a solid counterweight to Hepburn where Stewart is concerned. This is a film that merits its strong reputation.
Eugene O'Neill viewed The Long Voyage Home as the best film version of any of his plays, and, even had he lived to see the later film of Long Day's Journey, I wonder if he might have held onto that opinion. Ford (not my favorite, you all know) really captures the flavor of the seafaring life, and manages to blend four of the Sea plays into a seamless narrative that helps you see why, even prior to his landmark psychological studies, O'Neill was a prized playwright.
I feel uneasy about Rebecca and Hitchcock doing so well in this poll. Hitchcock got Oscar nominations in this period, for film and/or director, for Rebecca, Foreign Correspondent, Suspicion, Spellbound and Lifeboat. In roughly the same span, he turned out The Lady Vanishes, Shadow of a Doubt and Notorious. Which list looms larger in film history? Don't get me wrong: I've always enjoyed Rebecca, for its Gothic flourishes, and the Olivier and Anderson peformances. But it feels more like a Selznick film than a Hitchcock.
Anyway, none of this matters much, because I think The Grapes of Wrath is the year's best film whatever the competition. It's a deeply felt novel that reaches emotions even while making its arguments. And the faces that dot the landscape are indelible: Darwell with her earrings, Carradine in shadow, Fonda about to set out into fugitive-hood. Whatever my issues with Ford (and they're many), this year he found two projects ideally suited to his sensibility that reached mine as well. Grapes/Ford for the tandem win.
Best Picture and Director 1940
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Re: Best Picture and Director 1940
Although this year is less heralded than 1939, I think it's equally great, and this Oscar field once again has some very strong nominees.
Magilla came up with a fairly thorough list of candidates that might have made the cut. I guess there was only so much room at the inn for romantic comedies, but the wonderful His Girl Friday and The Shop Around the Corner certainly should have joined The Philadelphia Story on the ballot, with Hawks and Lubitsch great choices in Director as well. And I find that childhood favorite Pinocchio still holds up beautifully.
All This, and Heaven Too is melodrama with a capital M. I think it’s watchable enough – I don’t think the presence of Bette Davis has ever failed to improve any movie – but its soapiness doesn’t come close to making it Best Picture level.
Kitty Foyle is a pretty lightweight movie, with maybe an even less interesting love triangle than All This, and Heaven Too. Much as I cherish Ginger Rogers in her musicals, she was never a particularly deep dramatic actress, and certainly doesn’t elevate the silliness of this plot. Sam Wood’s nomination is baffling to me, for such a trifle of a movie.
Our Town has the benefit of a great play at its foundation…but it’s also one of the most overly theatrical plays in the American canon, and I wonder how much any film version could capture its essence, its content seems so inextricably wedded to the simplicity of its form. Perhaps a more stylistically adventurous director might have found a way to make a cinematic film version, but Sam Wood’s mostly realistic approach doesn’t feel terribly exciting. And why, oh why, would anyone think of altering one of the most famously poignant endings in the American theater for uplift?!
The Letter is a solid enough romance/mystery, with a couple memorable sequences, most notably the murders that open and close the film, which William Wyler films with a dark, steamy sense of atmosphere. But this is yet another case where I find the film good, but only the Bette Davis performance great. And she’s a life force as usual, able to make the audience despise her for her vicious scheming but also feel sympathy for her predicament as well. But I rate next year’s Wyler-Davis collaboration significantly higher.
Both The Long Voyage Home and Foreign Correspondent fill essentially the same spot on this roster: they’re both the OTHER movie from the directors whose greater triumphs duked it out for the top awards this year. But in no way would I want to dismiss either of these movies either. I was shocked at how well I responded to Ford’s film, that rare men-at-sea epic that isn’t just a lot of noise and machismo. The sense of environment is palpable, the attention to character throughout the episodic plot is almost novelistic, and the deep-focus, shadow-filled photography is gorgeous.
And Foreign Correspondent is even better. It’s a zippy thriller, and another of Hitchcock’s strong entrants in the innocent-man/wrongly-accused subgenre. True, it’s not North by Northwest, but it’s got plenty of international intrigue, macabre humor, suspense (Joel McCrea hanging off the side of the hotel immediately comes to mind), and eye-catching production design (windmills!) to make it memorable, even if it’s not one of Hitchcock’s all-time greats.
I know that some folks around these parts don’t much care for The Great Dictator, but I think the film is one of Chaplin’s best. Its set pieces—from the barber chair race, to Chaplin hiding in the chest when the soldiers arrive, to the beyond iconic dance with the globe—are hugely memorable, and the film still holds up today as a bitingly hilarious anti-war statement. In regards to that last part, I’m aware that some gripe about the film’s final speech, when it really starts to hammer home the movie’s themes, but I think it’s so powerfully written and grippingly performed by Chaplin that it gives the rest of the film’s humor even more genuine weight. But in an alternate universe, I’d have honored Chaplin plenty for his silent work, so I don’t feel bad voting elsewhere this year.
The Philadelphia Story is a gem of a romantic comedy, full of crackling one-liners, ace performers at the top of their game, and a pleasingly quick-moving plot. Someone on this board once wrote that the great strength of the movie is that you never really know which man Tracy Lord will end up with until the film’s conclusion, and I think the subtle emotional shifts in allegiance between the characters give the film strong dramatic foundation beneath the deeply enjoyable screwball-ness. The film may be the high point of George Cukor’s career, and I think the director’s timing (moving the comedy along effortlessly, pausing at the appropriate moments for the seriousness) is impeccable.
But for me, the race comes down to the films that split Best Picture and Director, and I could have happily voted for any combination of the two movies in both categories.
Hitchcock made many great films in his career, but I might personally rank Rebecca among his top five achievements. Beginning with the novel’s enduringly famous opening line, the director crafts a haunting and romantic thriller full of sumptuous production design, literate and witty dialogue, and very fine performances. Olivier broods and Fontaine doubts to superb effect, though of course, Judith Anderson steals the movie as the disturbed housekeeper who won’t let go of the past. And I think the union of Selznick and Hitchcock made for a great match (on screen, at least): the producer’s trademark size and scope gave Hitchcock a far grander canvas upon which to work (even when compared to his best British films) and the director put his own singular stamp on what could have been a stuffier literary adaptation of a much-beloved novel.
Given the way history turned out, if voters HAD to split Picture and Director this year, I’d have preferred Hitchcock to win the Director prize, knowing it was probably the closest he ever came to one.
But Hitchcock would go on to make some even greater films, while for me, The Grapes of Wrath represents the peak of John Ford’s career. So many moments in the film break my heart every time I see them: Ma Joad holding up her earrings one last time, the death of a family member just before the group reaches California, Ma trying to make enough food for all of the kids in the camp, Tom dancing with his mother. Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell are magnificent in their roles, and their key speeches (his “Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there…” and her “We’re the people…”) reflect the grace and resiliency of the human spirit as well as any moment in film history. And the way John Ford crafts the film -- using starkly beautiful photography that turns the landscape into a character, as well as montages that create a larger sense of the Depression beyond the Joad family -- serves to approximate the intercalary chapters from Steinbeck’s novel in cinematic form. Even the music -- those sad strains of "Red River Valley" -- cuts right to the bone emotionally. I find The Grapes of Wrath to be an incredibly touching and sensitively rendered piece of film, and it gets my vote in both Best Picture and Director.
Magilla came up with a fairly thorough list of candidates that might have made the cut. I guess there was only so much room at the inn for romantic comedies, but the wonderful His Girl Friday and The Shop Around the Corner certainly should have joined The Philadelphia Story on the ballot, with Hawks and Lubitsch great choices in Director as well. And I find that childhood favorite Pinocchio still holds up beautifully.
All This, and Heaven Too is melodrama with a capital M. I think it’s watchable enough – I don’t think the presence of Bette Davis has ever failed to improve any movie – but its soapiness doesn’t come close to making it Best Picture level.
Kitty Foyle is a pretty lightweight movie, with maybe an even less interesting love triangle than All This, and Heaven Too. Much as I cherish Ginger Rogers in her musicals, she was never a particularly deep dramatic actress, and certainly doesn’t elevate the silliness of this plot. Sam Wood’s nomination is baffling to me, for such a trifle of a movie.
Our Town has the benefit of a great play at its foundation…but it’s also one of the most overly theatrical plays in the American canon, and I wonder how much any film version could capture its essence, its content seems so inextricably wedded to the simplicity of its form. Perhaps a more stylistically adventurous director might have found a way to make a cinematic film version, but Sam Wood’s mostly realistic approach doesn’t feel terribly exciting. And why, oh why, would anyone think of altering one of the most famously poignant endings in the American theater for uplift?!
The Letter is a solid enough romance/mystery, with a couple memorable sequences, most notably the murders that open and close the film, which William Wyler films with a dark, steamy sense of atmosphere. But this is yet another case where I find the film good, but only the Bette Davis performance great. And she’s a life force as usual, able to make the audience despise her for her vicious scheming but also feel sympathy for her predicament as well. But I rate next year’s Wyler-Davis collaboration significantly higher.
Both The Long Voyage Home and Foreign Correspondent fill essentially the same spot on this roster: they’re both the OTHER movie from the directors whose greater triumphs duked it out for the top awards this year. But in no way would I want to dismiss either of these movies either. I was shocked at how well I responded to Ford’s film, that rare men-at-sea epic that isn’t just a lot of noise and machismo. The sense of environment is palpable, the attention to character throughout the episodic plot is almost novelistic, and the deep-focus, shadow-filled photography is gorgeous.
And Foreign Correspondent is even better. It’s a zippy thriller, and another of Hitchcock’s strong entrants in the innocent-man/wrongly-accused subgenre. True, it’s not North by Northwest, but it’s got plenty of international intrigue, macabre humor, suspense (Joel McCrea hanging off the side of the hotel immediately comes to mind), and eye-catching production design (windmills!) to make it memorable, even if it’s not one of Hitchcock’s all-time greats.
I know that some folks around these parts don’t much care for The Great Dictator, but I think the film is one of Chaplin’s best. Its set pieces—from the barber chair race, to Chaplin hiding in the chest when the soldiers arrive, to the beyond iconic dance with the globe—are hugely memorable, and the film still holds up today as a bitingly hilarious anti-war statement. In regards to that last part, I’m aware that some gripe about the film’s final speech, when it really starts to hammer home the movie’s themes, but I think it’s so powerfully written and grippingly performed by Chaplin that it gives the rest of the film’s humor even more genuine weight. But in an alternate universe, I’d have honored Chaplin plenty for his silent work, so I don’t feel bad voting elsewhere this year.
The Philadelphia Story is a gem of a romantic comedy, full of crackling one-liners, ace performers at the top of their game, and a pleasingly quick-moving plot. Someone on this board once wrote that the great strength of the movie is that you never really know which man Tracy Lord will end up with until the film’s conclusion, and I think the subtle emotional shifts in allegiance between the characters give the film strong dramatic foundation beneath the deeply enjoyable screwball-ness. The film may be the high point of George Cukor’s career, and I think the director’s timing (moving the comedy along effortlessly, pausing at the appropriate moments for the seriousness) is impeccable.
But for me, the race comes down to the films that split Best Picture and Director, and I could have happily voted for any combination of the two movies in both categories.
Hitchcock made many great films in his career, but I might personally rank Rebecca among his top five achievements. Beginning with the novel’s enduringly famous opening line, the director crafts a haunting and romantic thriller full of sumptuous production design, literate and witty dialogue, and very fine performances. Olivier broods and Fontaine doubts to superb effect, though of course, Judith Anderson steals the movie as the disturbed housekeeper who won’t let go of the past. And I think the union of Selznick and Hitchcock made for a great match (on screen, at least): the producer’s trademark size and scope gave Hitchcock a far grander canvas upon which to work (even when compared to his best British films) and the director put his own singular stamp on what could have been a stuffier literary adaptation of a much-beloved novel.
Given the way history turned out, if voters HAD to split Picture and Director this year, I’d have preferred Hitchcock to win the Director prize, knowing it was probably the closest he ever came to one.
But Hitchcock would go on to make some even greater films, while for me, The Grapes of Wrath represents the peak of John Ford’s career. So many moments in the film break my heart every time I see them: Ma Joad holding up her earrings one last time, the death of a family member just before the group reaches California, Ma trying to make enough food for all of the kids in the camp, Tom dancing with his mother. Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell are magnificent in their roles, and their key speeches (his “Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there…” and her “We’re the people…”) reflect the grace and resiliency of the human spirit as well as any moment in film history. And the way John Ford crafts the film -- using starkly beautiful photography that turns the landscape into a character, as well as montages that create a larger sense of the Depression beyond the Joad family -- serves to approximate the intercalary chapters from Steinbeck’s novel in cinematic form. Even the music -- those sad strains of "Red River Valley" -- cuts right to the bone emotionally. I find The Grapes of Wrath to be an incredibly touching and sensitively rendered piece of film, and it gets my vote in both Best Picture and Director.
Re: Best Picture and Director 1940
My picks for 1940:
Best Picture
1. Rebecca
2. His Girl Friday
3. The Letter
4. The Mortal Storm
5. The Philadelphia Story
The 6th Spot: The Shop Around the Corner
Best Director
1. Alfred Hitchcock, Rebecca
2. Howard Hawks, His Girl Friday
3. John Ford, The Grapes of Wrath
4. William Wyler, The Letter
5. George Cukor, The Philadelphia Story
The 6th Spot: Ernst Lubitsch, The Shop Around the Corner
Best Picture
1. Rebecca
2. His Girl Friday
3. The Letter
4. The Mortal Storm
5. The Philadelphia Story
The 6th Spot: The Shop Around the Corner
Best Director
1. Alfred Hitchcock, Rebecca
2. Howard Hawks, His Girl Friday
3. John Ford, The Grapes of Wrath
4. William Wyler, The Letter
5. George Cukor, The Philadelphia Story
The 6th Spot: Ernst Lubitsch, The Shop Around the Corner
Re: Best Picture and Director 1940
What a year. I haven't seen Kitty Foyle or Our Town but the rest are all, at the very least, respectable choices. Hard to argue with the magnificent Rebecca as best picture, but I actually (marginally) prefer Foreign Correspondent, perhaps my favourite of Hitchcock's 40s movies, and its my pick here - although my two favourites of this great year are The Thief of Bagdad (which won several well-deserved Oscars in the below the line categories but which, for me at least, stands up as the greatest and most visually beautiful of all adventure stories) and The Shop Around the Corner, which as Big Magilla has already noted was completely overlooked (why oh why was Frank Morgan, at the very least, not handed a nomination for his marvellous performance?)
RE The Grapes of Wrath I saw it nearly 20 years ago during a university lecture perched on a table and have yet to see it again. I loved the book, liked the film but have been meaning to get around to seeing it under more comfortable circumstances. Its one of the very rare movies I'm almost certain I'd love a whole lot more on second viewing. Don't know why its taken me so long...
For directing Hitchcock is my easy choice. Rebecca may not be typical of his work but its a striking, startling and hugely entertaining movie, and I can take this as a vote for both of his classics that year. George Cukor comes awfully close, though.
RE The Grapes of Wrath I saw it nearly 20 years ago during a university lecture perched on a table and have yet to see it again. I loved the book, liked the film but have been meaning to get around to seeing it under more comfortable circumstances. Its one of the very rare movies I'm almost certain I'd love a whole lot more on second viewing. Don't know why its taken me so long...
For directing Hitchcock is my easy choice. Rebecca may not be typical of his work but its a striking, startling and hugely entertaining movie, and I can take this as a vote for both of his classics that year. George Cukor comes awfully close, though.
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Best Picture and Director 1940
1939 may have the consensus of being the greatest year in movie history, but I would give that distinction to the following year. 1940 was the year most people then alive saw Gone With the Wind and other tail end 1939 releases. In fact, one of that year's very best, Destry Rides Again, wasn't released in L.A. until 1940 so it didn't become eligible for Oscar consideration until then. But 1940 doesnt need the remnants of 1939 to look good, it can do that well enough on its own.
I can't count the times I've seen The Grapes of Wrath, yet every time I see it I find something new in it. John Ford and Daryl Zanuk tone down the harshness of John Steinbeck's masterpiece, but still keep it strong and uncompromising. If the novel comes as close as anything to being The Great American Novel, the film comes as close to anything as being The Great American Movie. Everyone at the time seemed to get that except the Academy which gave the Oscar to the year's second best film, Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick's film of Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca, which though it has many Hitchcock touches, is the least Hitchcokian of all his movies as it adheres to the text and to Selznick's interference.
The advantage that Rebecca had over The Grapes of Wrath was that although both films had premiered early in the year - Grapes in January, Rebecca in March, Rebecca was re-released during Oscar season, Grapes was not. Rebecca was a fine choice, it just wasn't as fine a choice as Grapes.
The year's third best was easily The Philadelphia Story which remains a bright and charming comedy but it wasn't the year's only one. His Girl Friday and The Shop Around the Corner are right up there as well, but were shockingly ignored by the Oscar voters.
Our Town is a beautifully crafted version of the play albeit with a contrived happy ending that doesn't really do justice to the material. Still it's a well deserved nominee, as is the remake of The Letter, written by Somerset Maugham for Gladys Cooper and played in the first version by Jeanne Eagels in Cooper's style, but played quite differently, yet just as brilliantly, by Bette Davis at her finest under William Wyler's direction.
That's five or half the nominees, which deserved their slots. The remainder I have problems with. The Long Voyage Home and Foreign Correspondent are classic Ford and Hitchcock, respectively, but in a year with so many wonderful choices, it doesn't seem fair that these two giants, indisputedly the best in the business, should have two nominees apiece while other greats of the era were left in the cold. Sam Wood had two nominees as well, but his second nominee, the wildly successful Kitty Foyle is hardly in the same league. Anatole Litvak's All This, and Heaven Too from its odd punctuation to its long, long tale of woe is a curious entry on the list and Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator is appreciated more for its daring take on Hitler and Mussolini than for anything truly remarkable about its execution.
Where, though, were the year's other great films? Where were Mervyn LeRoy's Waterloo Bridge; Frank Borzage's The Mortal Storm; Robert Z. Leonard's Pride and Prejudice and Hawks and Lubitsch's mentioned His Girl Friday and The Shop Around the Corner ? Where wereMichael Powell and company's The Thief of Bagdad; Disney's Pinocchio; Rouben Mamoulian's The Mark of Zorro and George Marshall's previously mentioned Destry Rides Again?
The Academy did get Best Director right in honoring John Ford for the second time for The Grapes of Wrath and while Hitchcock should have had two or three Oscars for directing, Rebecca isn't one for which should have won, although he certainly merited the nomination.
Cukor should be there, of course, and Wyler and Wood were good choices, even if Wood was nominated for the wrong film, but those last two slots should have gone to Howard Hawks for His Girl Friday and Ernst Lubitsch for The Shop Around the Corner.
I can't count the times I've seen The Grapes of Wrath, yet every time I see it I find something new in it. John Ford and Daryl Zanuk tone down the harshness of John Steinbeck's masterpiece, but still keep it strong and uncompromising. If the novel comes as close as anything to being The Great American Novel, the film comes as close to anything as being The Great American Movie. Everyone at the time seemed to get that except the Academy which gave the Oscar to the year's second best film, Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick's film of Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca, which though it has many Hitchcock touches, is the least Hitchcokian of all his movies as it adheres to the text and to Selznick's interference.
The advantage that Rebecca had over The Grapes of Wrath was that although both films had premiered early in the year - Grapes in January, Rebecca in March, Rebecca was re-released during Oscar season, Grapes was not. Rebecca was a fine choice, it just wasn't as fine a choice as Grapes.
The year's third best was easily The Philadelphia Story which remains a bright and charming comedy but it wasn't the year's only one. His Girl Friday and The Shop Around the Corner are right up there as well, but were shockingly ignored by the Oscar voters.
Our Town is a beautifully crafted version of the play albeit with a contrived happy ending that doesn't really do justice to the material. Still it's a well deserved nominee, as is the remake of The Letter, written by Somerset Maugham for Gladys Cooper and played in the first version by Jeanne Eagels in Cooper's style, but played quite differently, yet just as brilliantly, by Bette Davis at her finest under William Wyler's direction.
That's five or half the nominees, which deserved their slots. The remainder I have problems with. The Long Voyage Home and Foreign Correspondent are classic Ford and Hitchcock, respectively, but in a year with so many wonderful choices, it doesn't seem fair that these two giants, indisputedly the best in the business, should have two nominees apiece while other greats of the era were left in the cold. Sam Wood had two nominees as well, but his second nominee, the wildly successful Kitty Foyle is hardly in the same league. Anatole Litvak's All This, and Heaven Too from its odd punctuation to its long, long tale of woe is a curious entry on the list and Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator is appreciated more for its daring take on Hitler and Mussolini than for anything truly remarkable about its execution.
Where, though, were the year's other great films? Where were Mervyn LeRoy's Waterloo Bridge; Frank Borzage's The Mortal Storm; Robert Z. Leonard's Pride and Prejudice and Hawks and Lubitsch's mentioned His Girl Friday and The Shop Around the Corner ? Where wereMichael Powell and company's The Thief of Bagdad; Disney's Pinocchio; Rouben Mamoulian's The Mark of Zorro and George Marshall's previously mentioned Destry Rides Again?
The Academy did get Best Director right in honoring John Ford for the second time for The Grapes of Wrath and while Hitchcock should have had two or three Oscars for directing, Rebecca isn't one for which should have won, although he certainly merited the nomination.
Cukor should be there, of course, and Wyler and Wood were good choices, even if Wood was nominated for the wrong film, but those last two slots should have gone to Howard Hawks for His Girl Friday and Ernst Lubitsch for The Shop Around the Corner.