Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 99-101: Catch-up Part 7

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 waitress something that infuriates 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 revealed 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 camerawork, 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 parishioners 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 Diectrechson so his young wife could collect on his life insurance. The plot thickens when Neff realises that the lovely Phyllis may not be the innocent victim that he once felt when he gets to know Diectrechson'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 revealed. I thoroughly enjoyed Double Indemnity and thought that even the six nominations it received 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.