Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 109: Nun of Your Business

If you ever find yourself in a tie-break at a quiz and the question is what is the first ever film sequel to be nominated for an Oscar, I have the answer - The Bells of St. Mary's. Never heard of it? Well it is the sequel to Going My Way, the winning film at the 1945 Oscar ceremony. A year later we meet Bing Crosby's Father O'Malley continuing improving the church system by moving to a flagging catholic school run by a bunch of nuns which is in dire need of repair. O'Malley clashes with the unrealistic views of the nuns who hope to convince local business owner Mr Borgadus to give them the new complex he is building to house the school. O'Malley's unconventional techniques also incur the wrath of the lead nun Sister Mary Benedict convincingly portrayed by Ingrid Bergman. We also follow the story of Patsy Gallagher whose daughter appeals to the Father to allow her to start the school as she doesn't know what to do with her. Obviously Patsy reforms her way and starts to improve her grades but Mary and O'Malley clash again when she fails her final exam and can't graduate. The ending involving Mary Benedict's removal from the nunnery is odd as it is really neither happy or sad but maybe the message just is that life goes on. Although they did succeed in moving St. Mary's after appealing to the good nature of Borgadus who was suffering from various illnesses and the next year would become an iconic figure as Clarence the Angel in It's a Wonderful Life.

Back to the Bells of St. Mary's a sequel to a film that I felt did not deserve to win the Best Picture Oscar over the tremendous Double Indemnity. But St. Mary's is only a sequel in the fact that it continues the adventures of the same characters, it doesn't really reference O'Malley's work in Going My Way and instead presents this as an entirely new story. Although it is very similar, Bing Crosby arrives at a Catholic institution the locals are suspicious but then won round and he ends up getting what he wants. After winning a Best Actor Oscar the year before, Crosby's performance really hasn't changed but that really doesn't matter. As an actor Crosby can instantly put me at ease as his style is very relaxed and that works well for the character. Ingrid Bergman was also nominated after a win for Gaslight the year previous, her sister Mary Benedict could be a clichéd stuck-up character but she can go toe-to-toe with Bing and they spark off each other with their very asexual chemistry. The film does suffer from being very overlong and also there are entire sequences that I felt could've been cut out but it is decent entertainment and if you like a good nun-based film you could do a lot worse.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 103: Bergman Goes Bonkers

So we're back with a few updates from my recent delving into the archive for the Big Oscar Challenge. Now when you ask most people which film did Ingrid Bergman win her Best Actress Oscar for they would answer Casablanca. However she was not successful in her quest to be crowned Best Actress that year, Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette triumphed, but one year later she got the prize for the film Gaslight. That film was also nominated for Best Picture and sees Bergman's Paula being sent to Italy following the death of her opera-singing aunt. She returns to the place of the murder years later accompanied by her new husband Gregory Anton. Soon Paula begins to think she is going mad, she hears sounds above her and when she goes out she ends up getting hysterical and mistakenly mislaying items to find them later on. Of course as the audience we know that it is Anton sending her barmy so he can go off and do whatever it is he is doing. Anton also employs a new maid Nancy, an incredibly young and sort of sexy Angela Lansbury, who is very stand offish towards her new mistress and her stubborn nature sends Paula even more nutty. Unbeknownst to Paula help is on its way in the form of Joseph Cotten's Cameron, a policeman who recognises Paula and links her to the crime at the house years before. Cameron enlists the help of Paula's nosy neighbour to try and gain access to the house and also uses junior policeman to try and get information out of Nancy during nightly hanky panky. Things come to a head when Anton finds out what Cameron has been trying to do and Paula discovers the truth about her new love. But, I won't spoil it for you if you haven't guessed.

Gaslight builds very strongly with the first half an hour getting the audience member hooked into the mystery surrounding Paula's aunt's death. Paula's meeting with her soon-to-be neighbour Miss Thwaites, played by the glorious Dame May Robson, is both comic and sinister in tone and sets up the central mystery of the film. However once Paula starts to go mad things feel a bit repetitive with Anton, played by the over-the-top Charles Boyer, blatantly making her feel more ill at ease than she already is. The best parts of the film's second half mainly come from Lansbury, nominated here for Best Supporting Actress, her turn as the young, flirty and obstinate Nancy are very fun to watch. Joseph Cotten also plays his part well even if he once again is playing the gallant hero trying to help the vulnerable Paula out of her life. For her part Bergman is very good but not as strong as she was playing in Ilsa in Casablanca and it's a shame that she won the Oscar here beating Claudette Colbert in Since You Went Away which was arguably a much better performance but Bergman still deserved the Oscar she didn't win the year before. Overall this is an interesting mystery thriller which gets a bit repetitive but is saved by some interesting performances.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 97-98: Catch-up Part 6

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 governors, 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 nominated 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 treacherous Pablo and Katrina Paxinou as the motherly Pilar. While I film the film a bit long and laborious I thought Cooper was magnficent and also the scenes featuring the explosions were well made considering when the film was produced.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 74: It's All a bit Mental

Although many people consider Alfred Hitchcock to be the greatest director of all time most of his most famous works, such as Psycho, Rear Window, North by Northwest and Vertigo, were never nominated for Oscars. Instead only four of his pictures made betweeen 1940 and 1946 were nominated for Oscars. This was the period in which Hitch was working for David O Selznick something that he hated doing and eventually left to set up his own production company. The first of the four films was his only winner - Rebecca and the last of the four is the focus of this entry, that film being Spellbound. Spellbound focuses on Green Manners Mental Instution and specifically on Dr Constance Peterson, played by Ingrid Bergman. Green Manners is having a change of direction as the head of the institution Dr Murchinson is being replaced by a younger model in Gregory Peck's Dr Edwards. However it soon emerges that Peck isn't who says he is and is a man with amnesia moonlighting as Edwards. Peterson decides to help Peck's character escape and try and find out what he's hiding and who he really is. She does this with the help of her old mentor Dr Brulov, played by an Oscar-nominated Michael Chekhov, who specialises in analysing dreams and piece by piece the puzzle comes together. To say anymore would be to ruin the film for those who haven't seen it however I would like to highlight two scenes. One is a dream that Peck has which Brulov and Peterson then analyse. The whole dream sequence is a master class in surrealism and responsibility for the scene was handed from Hitchcock over to surrealist Salvador Dali who brilliantly depicted someone's psyche although one of the scenes featuring Bergman as a statue didn't make the final cut. The other scene sees one of the characters pointing a gun at someone else, the shot is focused on the gun and as the character who the gun is focused on leaves the room we follow the gun as it is rotated around and pointed at the head of the person who is holding it. When the shot is fired the screen then goes red, the film's only splash of colour, which gives the death about significance.

Another thing that should be highlighted is Miklos Rosza's Oscar winning score, which is able to capture both the romantic and dramatic elements of the film and almost dominated the entire film at some points. Neither Bergman or Peck were nominated, although Bergman was nominated for another film, I think Peck overall didn't demonstrate his full potential as an actor while Bergman's performance was decent enough given Constance a cold edge which was easily thawed with the appearance of Peck. One of my main criticisms is that I didn't really buy their romance which was one of the points that the film's narrative focused on and overall this film wasn't one of Hitchcock's best. But I'm glad I watch Spellbound as its one of the only Hitchcock films I've never seen and even though it's not one of Hitch's best it's still a very well made and well conceived picture.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 66: You Must Remember This

At the 1944 Oscar ceremony, ten films were nominated for Best Picture, this was the last time this would happen until 2010. The film that triumphed that year was obviously one that is still hailed as a classic that is Casablanca. Those who haven't seen Casablanca, and I will stop chastising people for not seeing these films, will still know lines from it 'here's looking at you kid', 'of all the gin joints in all the world she had to walk into mine' and 'Louis, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship'. There's also the 'Play it Again Sam' quandary as that line doesn't appear in the film when Bogart tells piano player Sam to play 'As Time Goes By', the song which also is something that people would associate with the film. The basic plot concerns people stuck in Casablanca trying to travel from Nazi occupied Europe to the neutral Lisbon and then on to America. Our central figure is Humphrey Bogart's Rick who is seemingly uninvolved in all the struggles that are going on around him and instead is happy to take people's money whether they be Nazi officers or those trying to escape. The item that keeps the plot moving are letters of transit, documents which let whoever holds them travel freely around Europe, which end up in Rick's possession after they are handed him by a petit thief who is arrested by the Nazi Officers. Rick's former love Ilsa, played by Ingrid Bergman, comes into his bar and back into his life after the two had a fleeting romance in France years earlier. Ilsa along with her husband Victor are another couple trying to leave Casablanca and is after letters of transit himself. From there the film is both a love triangle and a thriller revolving around the transit papers will Rick give them willingly to Ilsa and will they be discovered in his possession by Claude Rains' corrupt cop Louis. Again I'm not going to ruin it for you either you've seen it already or you really need to watch it.

One thing I do really love about Casablanca is the characterisation. None of the main leads are either truly good or bad, even the despicable Louis has a moment of redemption in the film's final scenes. Rick's motivations are unclear for most of the film, and he certainly isn't a hero preferring to be a passive figure during this war. While Ilsa isn't just a wallflower and seems to more in control then husband Victor in terms of their quest for the papers. I also have to applaud the art direction in particular Rick's cafe, in which the majority of the film is set, comes to life through the hustle and bustle of the various patrons and the gambling rooms in the back. Of the performances themselves Bogart is amazing in the lead while Bergman manages to hold her own. Also I do love Claude Rains as Louis, he is incredibly slimy but also humorous and straight-laced when he needs to be. Rains and Bogart were both nominated for acting awards but neither were successful while Bergman wasn't even nominated for her role here, although she did get a nomination this year for her role in Whom The Bell Tolls. As well as Best Picture, the Adapted Screenplay and Michael Curtiz's direction also won, but I think Casablanca should've swept the board. But again this is a classic which more than deserves its place as one of the 82 films that have won Best Picture.