Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Days 372-374: Days of Future Past Part Four

We rewind once again and this time embark on a journey through three films that were nominated for Best Picture during the 1940s.

We kick off with an Oscar favourite; a biopic in the form of Yankee Doodle Dandy which focused on the life of composer and showman George M. Cohan. As somebody who wasn't particularly familiar with the name the only thing that drew my eye to the film was the title itself. Indeed, it was later revealed to me that Cohan wrote a number of patriotic songs including 'Over There' which was played to honour the men serving in the First World War. Yankee Doodle Dandy's patriotic nature meant that it had a lot in common with the last 1940s film I watched, Sergeant York. Both were flag-waving endeavours, both starred Joan Leslie as the female lead and both won the award for Best Actor. However I felt that James Cagney's portrayal of Cohan was miles better than Gary Cooper's turn in Sergeant York the previous year. Cagney captivated the screen throughout proving himself to be a fine theatrical presence but also was able to add more pathos to the role when the script required it. The musical numbers that were scattered throughout Yankee Doodle Dandy helped me to understand just why Cohan deserved to have a whole film devoted to him. If I have once criticism of Yankee Doodle Dandy, it's the linear approach that screenwriters Robert Buckner and Edmund Joseph employ. The film sees Cohan narrate his life story to President Roosevelt in a manner that I found quite dry although the musical aspect of the piece more than made up for it. Ultimately I found Yankee Doodle Dandy to be a rather easy watch which was bolstered by a blistering turn from James Cagney.

Nominated alongside Yankee Doodle Dandy in 1943 was Kings Row, a film based on the novel by Henry Bellamann about a number of youngsters growing up in a small town. The film begins with meeting the five characters we'll be spending time with as schoolchildren, which in a way helped to understand their motivations as we saw them grow up in prior years. Among the cast of twentysomethings were Ann Sheridan, Betty Field and a certain whipper-snapper by the name of Ronald Reagan. In fact Reagan's performance as the initially privileged Drake McHugh was possibly the best of the five turns given by the younger cast members. I believe that that has something to do with the fact that McHugh has the most to deal with from losing his inheritance to having his legs lopped off by a sadistic surgeon. As you can tell by that description alone there's a lot of bleak moments in Kings Row including suicide, murder and mental illness. I feel the melodramatic tone of Kings Row was what put me off it especially seeing as the three female members of the cast gave incredibly hammy turns. Erich Wolfgang Korngold's score was similarly overbearing and definitely left little to the imagination. At the same time I can't say that I wasn't moved by anything that happened in Kings Row and I discovered that I'd become invested in at least two of the characters. However, I ultimately believe that Kings Row will be one of the films I've watched throughout this challenge that will soon fade from my memory in the coming weeks.

Yankee Doodle Dandy and Kings Row ended up both losing the Best Picture prize to quaint English war yarn Mrs. Miniver which would also see Greer Garson pick up the Lead Actress award. One year later Garson would pair up with her Mrs Miniver co-star Walter Pidgeon for yet another biopic in which would see her portray the brilliant Marie Curie. However the lead characters of Marie and Pierre Curie are the only brilliant things in this really stale and dull biopic. If I didn't know any better I would've thought that Madame Curie had been made in the early 1930s rather than the mid-1940s. There are plenty of things wrong with Madame Curie not least its script which was ridiculously expositional. I wasn't surprised to learn that the script had gone through many rewrites after original scribe Aldous Huxley left the project in 1938. Rather than feeling like a cinematic release, Madame Curie looks like it's been cobbled together as an educational film to inform America's schoolchildren about the discovery of radium. After winning Best Actress the prior year, it appeared as if Greer Garson was exhausted from all the awards ceremonies as she appeared to be simply going through the motions throughout Madame Curie. Walter Pidgeon was slightly better in his role as Pierre; but the pair showed none of the excellent chemistry they shared in Mrs. Miniver and Blossoms in the Dust. One thing you could say in Madame Curie's favour is that it's a thorough retelling of Pierre and Marie's life and work together so if you wanted to know their story this is probably a good starting point. But, apart from being an educational tool, there's very little praise I can heap onto a film which I struggled to watch from beginning to end.

Next time we return to the 21st century and go on a marathon of Best Actor winning pictures.

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.

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.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 60: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

At the start of the film Four Daughters, Claude Rains is on the piano while his four on screen daughters are playing various instruments and singing. For a moment what I thought I was going to get was a light-hearted musical romp as Rains chastises the girls for not getting into classical music and instead blowing bubble-gum and reading romance magazines. But instead of being independent all of the girls want to be married especially eldest sister Emma, played by Gale Page the only one of the Four Daughters not portrayed by the real life Lane sisters, who wants romance and a knight in shining armour. As the film rolls on each girl apart from Kay gets a suitor, Thea's suitor is the much older Ben while Emma starts to get interested in a man named Ernest. Then composer Felix Deitz comes around catching Emma's eye but instead romancing younger sister Ann. However the film's most interesting character is the wise-cracking cynical composer Mickey Borden who starts to fall for Ann and convinces her that Emma is in love with Felix. On Ann and Felix's wedding day she runs off and marries Mickey and we see their life isn't as happy as either would think. Returning on Christmas Ann and Mickey find that Emma and Ernest are together and that Kay has gone off to London to sing on the radio. Mickey drives Felix to the station and on the way back gets into an accident and later passes away but at the end of the film we get the impression that Felix and Ann will get together once again.

If the plot sounds a little melodramatic then that's because this film was totally over the top. I think the one problem I had with it was that it couldn't really decide what it wanted to be first of all it was a bit musical and light-hearted with the girls talking about boys a lot and various suitors popping up but towards the end it all started to get a little serious with Ann and Mickey getting into debt and then him dying in a car accident. But the main problem was that I just didn't connect with any of the characters and the Lane sisters acting wasn't up to much. There were some good performances from the supporting players especially from Claude Rains as the girl's father and May Robson as their aunt. The best character of all though was Mickey and he was ably played by John Garfield, who was nominated as Best Supporting Actor. However I feel that this film was just something that Michael Curtiz did to fill his time between making the much more well-known The Adventures of Robin Hood and Angels with Dirty Faces.