Big Oscar Challenge Day 95-96: Catch-up Part 5

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 matriarch 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.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 88-89: Catch-up Part 2

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 prostitute Dallas, Thomas Mitchell's alcoholic 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 receive their comeuppance. 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 thsi 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.