Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 85-87: Catch-Up Part 1

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 we start with the first five.

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 separate 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 nominations 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 it's 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 occurred. 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.