Big Oscar Challenge: Days 86-101

So over August and September I watched 17 films for the Big Oscar Challenge which I sort of abandoned to start watching films for the end of 2010 list. Before I restart the Challenge I'm going to just briefly write about the films I watched back then.

First up was Johnny Belinda which was the 100th film I watched for the challenge and was nominated for Best Picture back in 1949. The film is one of a few in Oscar history to be nominated for all four acting Oscars but won only one of them. That was for Jane Wyman who was absolutely excellent as Belinda, a girl who was born deaf and dumb and was kept seperate from the small town community and instead was raised by her father and aunt on a farm. Belinda is befriended by Lew Ayres' new town Doctor who realises that she is smarter than anyone has given her credit for but then tragedy strikes when Belinda is raped by Locky the local town hero. When Belinda gets pregnant the Doctor is suspected as being the father and to protect Belinda he marries her and plans to take his new family out of town. However while the Doctor is away Locky kills Belinda's father after he finds out what Locky did and then the town plan to take Belinda's baby Johnny away after they decide she is an unfit mother. Belinda is then arrested after killing Locky who is trying to take Johnny away but she is saved by Locky's wife Stella who found out about what Locky did to Belinda. I felt the film was absolutely excellent, the four main players - Wyman, Ayres, Agnes Moorhead as Belinda's aunt and Charles Bickford as her father all thoroughly deserved their Oscar nomiantions as did the film itself. This was a film all about small town suspicion and gossip and what we can do out of spite for example Stella doesn't speak up earlier as she is jealous of Belinda's relationship with the Doctor who she has always been in love with. The film was one of a strong bunch that lost out to Olivier's Hamlet and its become increasingly obvious that that film shouldn't have won the Oscar at the final ceremony of the 1940s.

After Rebecca and Spellbound, the other two Hitchcock films that have been nominated for Best Picture - Suspicion and Foreign Correspondent were the next two films I watched. The former is the better of the two and stars Joan Fontaine as the dowdy daughter of a wealthy General who is swept of her feet by Cary Grant's dashing cad and they are quickly married. As Fontaine's father and later Grant's cousin are both found dead, she starts to suspect he has killed them so he can get money to continue his gambling ways. In the end it turns out that Fontaine's Suspicion was unfounded as Grant was away when both the murders occured. This was possibly one of Hitchcock's better studio pictures as it is based on a simple premise and features two superb lead performances and Fontaine was rewarded with the Best Actress Oscar becoming the only performer to ever win an Acting Oscar in a Hitchcock film. The film is another of the superior offerings that fell to the odd mining drama How Green was My Valley. While I enjoyed Suspicion, I found 1941 nominee Foreign Correspondent a little bit too much with the premise based around political intrigue slightly far-fetched. It stars Joel McCrae, who is pretty decent as the Hitchcock everyman, as a New York reporter who goes to uncover the growing power of Adolf Hitler's Nazi party. As you would expect he is soon thrown into a conspiracy when a Dutch diplomat is killed. While I enjoyed McCrae's performance I thought the film as a whole lacked a certain something especially as it was directed by Hitchcock. But I don't think Alf minded that much as Foreign Correspondent was nominated for Best Picture in the same year as Rebecca won.

Next to the Wild West firstly with John Ford's classic western Stagecoach which fell to the superior Gone With the Wind at the 1940 ceremony. Set primarily in the titular Stagecoach it sees a lot of disparate characters heading from Arizona to New Mexico. Among them are Claire Trevor's prositute Dallas, Thomas Mitchell's alcholic Doc Boone, Lucy Mallory a woman travelling to see her injured husband and a corrupt banker who is trying to abscond with $50,000 dollars from his place of employ. On their way the party pick up and arrest Wayne's fugitive The Ringo Kid but the group have to quickly bond together in order to avoid being finished off by the Apache gangs in the area. Along the way Lucy goes into labour and Doc Boone is called into action and later Ringo and Dallas form a relationship with Ringo proposing to Dallas who doesn't feel herself good enough to deserve happiness. Although some of the party don't make it all the way most of the people get their happy ending or recieve their come uppance. I really did enjoy Stagecoach finding it both a well-shot Western and a very intriguing character piece featuring some great performance especially from Trevor and Mitchell who won the award for Supporting Actor. The other Western was a nominee from the 1944 ceremony, The Ox-Bow Incident, which didn't really have a chance up against Casablanca. Despite this it is an interesting little film about mob mentality after one of their ranchers is supposedly killed in an incident involving cattle rustlers a group of 25 set out to find those responsible. Among thi group is Henry Fonda's Gil and his friend Art who join the group mainly to avoid suspicion themselves when three men are found they are automatically thought to be guilty. After finding the gun belonging to Kinkaide, all but seven of the group agree that the men have to be hung. As the group return they find out that Kinkaide is still alive and the men who they hung had nothing to do with it. The final scene in which all the members of the mob go to the saloon and drink in silence is particularly effective. The Ox-Bow Incident has a simple story and some good turns in a cast lead ably by Fonda, while it didn't do any particular damage at the Oscars I still think it deserved its nomination.

The good thing about this Oscar Challenge is that I am able to watch films that I've never heard of but I really enjoy one of these is The Pied Piper a film about a man who is forced into action to get a group of children out of Nazi-occupied France and get them safely to the U.S. Monty Woolley was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his role as the cumudgonely Howard who begrudgingly takes the children of two parents at the same French resort where he is staying over the border, bit by bit they are joined by other European children and are captured by the Nazis as Woolley almost falls foul of Otto Preminger's German General. Although it wasn't a great film The Pied Piper had a nice tone to it and an enjoyable unstarry cast even though Roddy MacDowall did feature as one of the children. The Pied Piper was a few of the films that I watched druing this period that were involved with World War 2. There was also 1944 nominee In Which We Serve, one of the first British films to be nominated for a plethora of Oscars it revolves around the crew of a ship during the war. It portrays these men as both dedicated to the war effort as well as normal down-to-Earth men. The cast is awfully impressive and includes Noel Coward, John Mills, Celia Johnson and Richard Attenborough in his first ever role. And from 1943 there was Wake Island a rather short film about the Pearl Harbour bombing and how it effected both the soldiers stationed on the island and the men working on a building site there also. The most impressive thing about Wake Island was the final scenes during the attacks by the Japanese for a film made in the 1940s the effects that are used are very real indeed. Another film that seemed like an also-ran inclusion in a year of 10 nominees, this was one that fell against Mrs. Miniver a film that I haven't actually watched yet.

As well as the films showing the reactinos to the war we also had the satirical reaction to the war courtesy of Mr. Charlie Chaplin. The Great Dicator was the only Chaplin-starrer ever to be nominated for Best Picture while the man himself also got nominated for both Best Actor and for his screenplay. The film was historic as it was the first time Chaplin ever spoke in a film and saw him took on a duel role both as a Jewish barber who is fighting in the war as a private and Adenoyd Hynkel a Dictator modelled on a certain Mr. Hitler. Thanks to the farcical nature of the film Chaplin's two characters are mistaken for each other in hilarious circumstances. For a 1940s comedy it is very witty indeed and challenges Hitler's authority and his underlings in quite a strong manner. as the other generals are called Herring and Gerbitsch and if you think about it I'm guessing you could work out who they represent. Continung the tradition of comedies not doing very well at the Oscars, The Great Dictator failed to pick up any of the five awards it was nominated for. Despite that I really enjoyed it and think that it is possibly one of the most infleuntial comedy films of all time and is certainly better remembered than that year's winner the still marvellous Rebecca.

The 1940s Oscar contenders didn't tend to be light-hearted and as well as Chaplin's masterpiece there are only two other pieces that are fairly easy-going. The first is the first winner of the Best Picture Oscar when the field thinned back to five nominees at the 1945 ceremony. Going My Way was a sort of comic musical and featured Oscar winning turns from both Bing Crosby as a young priest and Barry Fitzgerald as the older priest who Crosby has come to take over from. The film is an easy-going film about Crosby's Father O'Malley's efforts to improve the parish by getting all the boys together into a choir as well as mentoring a young woman who also surprisingly has a lovely voice. As the film stars Crosby there is plenty of singing and also plenty of life lessons learnt. Crosby is a fine, jovial lead but it is Fitzgerald as the older priest who seems to have more to do as he realises that he isn't as relevant as he once was. Going My Way was a triumph winning a total of seven Oscars including one for its director Leo McCarey. The other comedy film is The Philadelphia Story a nominee from the 1941 awards it stars Katherine Hepburn alongside Cary Grant as her ex-husband and James Stewart as the reporter come to cover the story of hre relationship. I know The Philadelphia Story much better in its musical version of High Society and had never seen the original version which I quite enjoyed thanks in part to Cary Grant however this was the film that James Stewart won his Oscar for despite him putting in much better turns in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's A Wonderful Life. But The Philadelphia Story was an enjoyable enough fare but it never really bothered Rebecca as a serious contender for Best Picture.

But for every light-hearted film the 1940s, unlike the decade that came before, definitely gave a lot of bleaker moments. For example John Ford's adaptation of  John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath focuses on a family who are going through joblessness and depression and have to hit the road in order to find a better life. Henry Fonda's lead performance as Tom Joad is particularly effective but he lost out to a lesser performance from Stewart in The Philadelphia Story. Ford won a deserved Best Director Oscar and the film also won a Best Supporting Actress for Jane Darwell for playing the Joad matriach desperately trying to keep her family together. The Grapes of Wrath didn't win Best Picture but won that did triumph was The Lost Weekend which looks at an author who is unable to control his alcoholism and goes on a bender. The Lost Weekend did seem like a bit of an odd choice because of its lead being a bit of an anti-hero and to an extent never finding redemption but a cracking script and Ray Milland's lead performance both see the piece becoming a classic. Milland, the script and director Billy Wilder all also won Oscars but the brilliant cinematography failed to capture glory despite it being one of the things that made the film great.

Back to the 1940 ceremony which did have one of the strongest fields with Gone With the Wind beating films like The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Goodbye Mr. Chips. The latter film features Robert Donat as inspirational teacher Mr. Chipping affectionally known as Mr. Chips. The story takes place over 63 years from Chips coming to the all boys school Brookfield Public School and sees Robert Donat giving a great Oscar winning performance as the man himself. During his time at the school, Chips faces resistance from the staff and governers, falls in love and tragically loses his wife in childbirth. The film looks at themes of authority, belonging and lost love and is very well made indeed. Like Johnny Belinda, 1944 nominee For Whom The Bell Tolls was nomianted for all four acting awards and did actually triumph in the Supporting Actress category. The film is an adaptation of Hemmingway's classic tale of a bridge being blown up during the war and stars Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman in the lead roles. But the two supporting performances from Akim Tamiroff as the trechrerous Pablo and Katrina Paxinou as the motherly Pilar. While I film the film a bit long and labourous I thought Cooper was magnficent and also the scenes featuring the explosions were well made considering when the film was produced.

And to end two Film Noirs that possibly should've won the Best Picture award. Firstly Mildred Pierce which lost to The Lost Weekend at the 1946 ceremony. The film sees Joan Crawford's Mildred Pierce recount the story of her life after her second husband is murdered. As the story is told its seems that Mildred will do anything for her oldest daughter Veda but just can't seem to please her. When Mildred divorces Veda's father she has to become a waitess something that infurariates Veda and she can't even be pleased when Mildred starts to make money by owning her own restaurant. Mildred's second husband Monty starts to spend all the money that Mildred makes so much so that she loses her restaurant. It is then revealled that Veda and Monty have been conducting an affair but it is in fact Veda who shot Monty after she found out that he never loved her and like eveyrone else in his life he was simply using her, in the end Mildred fails to protect her daughter and Veda goes to jail. I thoroughly enjoyed Mildred Pierce and in particular Joan Crawford's central performance as Mildred a role that won her a Best Actress Oscar. Everything about the film from the story, to the camerwork, to the twists and turns made it a classic and I think it had a little bit more going for it than The Lost Weekend. There was also One Foot in Heaven a film starring Frederic March that I actually forgot I watched originally which gives you some kind of idea how memorable it was. The long and the short of it is that March stars as a preacher who journeys to a town, clashes with the parishoners and has to face several trials with his children. While the film did have things to say about religion and family it really didn't seem like it should've featured in the Top 10 films of that year.


But possibly won of the biggest Oscar injustices happened the year before at the 1945 ceremony where Best Picture was won by the jovial but lightweight Going My Way. The film that probably should've won that year is Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity a film that is so perfectly plotted and executed that the fact it failed to win any of the six Oscars it was nominated for is a travesty. The film, like Mildred Pierce, is told in flashback by Fred MacMurray's insurance salesman Walter Neff who is confessing all that he has done to his colleague played by Edward G Robinson. MacMurray narrates the tale of how he got dragged into the murder of Mr. Diectrehson so his young wife could collect on his life insurance. The plot thickens when Neff relaises that the lovely Phyllis may not be the innocent victim that he once felt when he gets to know Dietcheson's daughter Lola and finds out that Phyllis may've been instrumental in the death of the original Mrs. Dietrechson. As Robinson's Barton Keyes starts his investigation Neff begins to worry more and more and in the end thanks to Phyliss' deviousness, Neff's part in the plot is finally revealled. I thouroughly enjoyed Double Indemnity and thought that even the six nominations it recieved were too few as there was nothing for either MacMurray who led the whole story or Robinson who has a few cracking scenes in which he acts his socks off. Although this is Barbara Stanwyck's film and she did deservedly get a nomination for her role but lost out to Ingrid Bergman for Gaslight. Stanwyck's Phyllis is the total embodiment of the classic femme fatale - innocent when she needs to be but with a dark side. Although it went home empty handed at the Oscars, Double Indemnity has certainly gone on to be a classic and is certainly a lot more well known than the film that won that year.

Okay catch-up done, Oscar Challenge will return with more winners and nominees from the 1940s.