Re: Best Original Story 1942
Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2016 7:00 pm
Damn, this year is dull to write about. Certainly this category.
It'd many years since I saw Holiday Inn, and I don't remember being in any way wowed by it.
I've always been surprised at how highly people seem to regard Pride of the Yankees. I'm of course a devoted Yankee fan, but I find the movie pretty dull. It's not much different from The Sullivans: the fact of a well-known tragic ending doesn't make someone's life, in retrospect, interesting/worthy of dramatization. Especially since Gehrig was known in real life as a rather bland character. (If Babe Ruth had been the one to develop ALS, THAT would have been a story!)
I enjoy Yankee Doodle Dandy quite a bit, for Cagney's exuberance, but writing has nothing to do with that.
The Talk of the Town at least has the virtue of some sharp dialogue and an interesting plot. BJ is right, that it falls short of the better comedies of the era, but its nomination here is no embarrassment.
I voted The Invaders the year's best film (of the nominees), so I have no problem choosing it here for its solid story . It was especially interesting to see a film made in that brief period when Canada was at war with Germany but the U.S. was still neutral. A very effective semi-thriller (I hadn't really registered, till BJ mentioned, its structural resemblance to Ten Little Indians), and well worth the vote here.
It'd many years since I saw Holiday Inn, and I don't remember being in any way wowed by it.
I've always been surprised at how highly people seem to regard Pride of the Yankees. I'm of course a devoted Yankee fan, but I find the movie pretty dull. It's not much different from The Sullivans: the fact of a well-known tragic ending doesn't make someone's life, in retrospect, interesting/worthy of dramatization. Especially since Gehrig was known in real life as a rather bland character. (If Babe Ruth had been the one to develop ALS, THAT would have been a story!)
I enjoy Yankee Doodle Dandy quite a bit, for Cagney's exuberance, but writing has nothing to do with that.
The Talk of the Town at least has the virtue of some sharp dialogue and an interesting plot. BJ is right, that it falls short of the better comedies of the era, but its nomination here is no embarrassment.
I voted The Invaders the year's best film (of the nominees), so I have no problem choosing it here for its solid story . It was especially interesting to see a film made in that brief period when Canada was at war with Germany but the U.S. was still neutral. A very effective semi-thriller (I hadn't really registered, till BJ mentioned, its structural resemblance to Ten Little Indians), and well worth the vote here.