Alright already (or all right already, depending on your preferences. "Alright" has been in circulation since the end of the American Civil War, but "all right" is still more frequently used. Some people have strong opinions about this, as they seem to have strong opinions about everything. It's a symptom of the age as the United States begins to resemble Northern Ireland in the times of The Troubles. Me, I don't care) ...
Where was I? Oh, yes. The Monty Woolley Question. I have been asked privately many times now — too many times — "Monty Woolley? Is a supporting actor?" With those eyes like "Are you insane?!?" and then after I explain my reasoning, those eyes like you get when the doctor tells you that, yes, you are, in fact, insane. You poor, poor thing ...
So, Monty Woolley is now a lead actor — and you do what you want, but James Cagney be damned, I'm still voting for him! He was great!
Replacing Woolley (and Henry Travers) in the supporting actor category are Paul Henreid and some guy named Ronald Reagan in their best roles. In that category, as much as I like a sweaty Van Heflin in anything, especially Airport, I'm voting for Sig Ruman as "Concentration Camp" Ehrhardt in, with apologies to The Producers, the funniest movie ever made with Nazis in it, To Be Or Not to Be. Very, very hard to get a laugh with Nazis in the picture, especially these days with so many neo-Nazis running around. Neo or not, they're a bunch of genuine jackasses ...
But I digress. If you voted yesterday, you'll be able to vote for actor and supporting actor today. If you didn't vote yesterday, what the hell, man?!.
Have at it.
My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.
Seasons greetings, all ye faithful readers! As Katie-Bar-The-Door puts the finishing touches on Bedford Falls, I thought I'd put the finishing touches on my alternate Oscars polls — three quick votes on some of the supporting acting categories that I've had time to rethink. Have at it!
My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. Best animated feature winners are noted with an @. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.
My choices are noted with a ★. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔.
Another great year for actresses, with Bette Davis, Greer Garson, Veronica Lake and Carole Lombard all turning in the best performances of their careers (in my humble opinion). I made my choice, but the final choice, as always, is up to you.
Alternate Oscar guru Erik Beck of the Boston Becks writes "Thought you would include Casablanca here since it was released in November of 1942 though it didn't get an Oscar eligible L.A. release until February of 1943.
But where, where, where, where is Sullivan's Travels, my number one film of the year? How is it not here?"
He makes a good point. I have been placing movies in the year of their release rather than Oscar eligibility to avoid a situation where, say, 1953's Tokyo Story winds up competing for best picture in 1972 simply because nobody in Japan thought American audiences would cotton to Ozu. But for voting purposes, Casablanca works so much better in 1943 than 1942.
Then I got to thinking why not do a hybrid, with American films competing in their year of Oscar eligibility and foreign (including British) films competing in the year of release in their home countries.
I know, you don't care.
But here, in case you do, is a revised poll for 1942. Eventually, when I transfer these polls to their permanent pages, I'll revise polls for 1933, 1934, 1936, 1937 and 1941 as well.
A screwball comedy starring Rosalind Russell and Janet Blair, about two sisters from Columbus, Ohio, one a writer, the other an actress, who move to New York City, figuring if they can make it there, they can make it anywhere.
Any movie that ends with a cameo from the Three Stooges gets a thumbs-up from me. Russell received her first of four Oscar nomination for this (she never won). Blair is good, too.
On January 5, 1942, the Warner Brothers publicity office (in)famously planted an item with the press to the effect that young contract players Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan and Dennis Morgan had been chosen to star in the studio's upcoming production of Casablanca, a wartime romance based on an unproduced stageplay by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. The Hollywood Reporter picked up the story and newspapers nationwide passed it along.
And for decades thereafter, movie fans have shuddered at the thought of the classic film that almost wasn't.
Don't worry though. Producer Hal Wallis never actually considered Reagan for the lead (or George Raft either, for that matter, persistent myth to the contrary). Instead, the press release was a common publicity ploy of the time, floating the names of actors in connection with various projects, both to keep the actors' names in front of the public and to create buzz for a forthcoming movie. Warner Brothers could just as easily have said Jack Benny instead of Ronald Reagan—and indeed, another Casablanca publicity release had Benny stopping by the set and appearing in one of the crowd scenes. Probably never happened, but I keep looking for him.
Nevertheless, I can't help but wonder what sort of movie Casablanca might have been with Reagan, Sheridan and Morgan in the lead roles.
Certainly the film would have lost a lot of its international flavor. And no matter what you think of them as actors, Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan and Dennis Morgan were no Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman or Paul Henreid. Reagan and Sheridan made five movies together—Kings Row, The Angels Wash Their Faces, Cowboy From Brooklyn, Juke Girl and Naughty But Nice—and Sheridan and Morgan made four—Thank Your Lucky Stars, Shine On Harvest Moon, Wings for the Eagle and One More Tomorrow. With the exception of Kings Row, there's hardly a decent movie in the bunch.
Anyway, it never happened, not even close. Still, we'll always have the '80s. Here's looking at you, Gipper!
By 1942, war had been raging in Europe for more than two years, and in Asia for more than ten, but you'd never know it from the movies of the era. As far as Hollywood was concerned, the war started when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and not one minute before. Not that Hollywood's myopia was anything unique—their indifference was very much in step with the rest of America's.
Once they discovered the war, though, they discovered it with a vengeance.
Hollywood's war fell into three overlapping phases—the rally-the-troops phase as the country's leaders coaxed Americans from their deeply-ingrained isolationism; the middle phase when films began to examine exactly what we were fighting for; and the final phase, when Hollywood was already anticipating the shape of the post-war world.
Casablanca, the classic romance starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, was very much part of the first phase, which is why I have included it here, rather than in 1943 where I usually think of it belonging (it did, after all, win the Oscar for best picture that year). But in fact, Casablanca actually premiered in November 1942, and more to the point it is the story of one man's journey from personal isolationism to fully-committed patriotism—the essence of a first phase film. As such, it belongs with such titles as Mrs. Miniver, To Be Or Not To Be and Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Still, seeing it here makes my head spin a bit.
For those of you playing along at home, Casablanca would have swept the same Katie awards whether I had placed it in 1942 or 1943. But in case you're wondering, if I had put it in 1943, the winners in 1942 would have been Cat People (picture/drama), Alan Ladd (actor/drama), Greer Garson (actress/drama), Orson Welles (director/drama), Van Heflin (supporting actor) and To Be Or Not To Be (screenplay).
The other awards would, of course, have stayed the same.
PICTURE (Drama) winner:Casablanca (prod. Hal B. Wallis) nominees:Cat People (prod. Val Lewton); In Which We Serve (prod. Noel Coward); The Magnificent Ambersons (prod. Orson Welles); Now, Voyager (prod. Hal B. Wallis); Random Harvest (prod. Sidney Franklin)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical) winner:To Be Or Not To Be (prod. Ernst Lubitsch) nominees:Bambi (prod. Walt Disney); The Palm Beach Story (prod. Buddy G. DeSylva and Paul Jones); Woman of the Year (prod. Joseph L. Mankiewicz); Yankee Doodle Dandy (prod. Hal B. Wallis and Jack B. Warner)
PICTURE (Foreign Language) winner:Chichi ariki (There Was a Father) (prod. Shôchiku Film) nominees:Aniki Bóbó (prod. António Lopes Ribeiro); L’Assassin Habite… au 21 (The Murderer Lives at Number 21) (prod. Alfred Greven)
ACTOR (Drama) winner: Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca) nominees: Ronald Colman (Random Harvest); Gary Cooper (The Pride Of The Yankees); Joseph Cotten (The Magnificent Ambersons); Alan Ladd (This Gun For Hire and The Glass Key)
ACTOR (Comedy/Musical) winner: James Cagney (Yankee Doodle Dandy) nominees: Jack Benny (To Be Or Not To Be); Joel McCrea (The Palm Beach Story); Spencer Tracy (Woman Of The Year); Monty Woolley (The Man Who Came To Dinner)
ACTRESS (Drama) winner: Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca) nominees: Bette Davis (Now, Voyager); Greer Garson (Mrs. Miniver and Random Harvest); Simone Simon (Cat People)
ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical) winner: Carole Lombard (To Be Or Not To Be) nominees: Jean Arthur (The Talk of the Town); Claudette Colbert (The Palm Beach Story); Katharine Hepburn (Woman Of The Year); Veronica Lake (I Married A Witch); Ginger Rogers (The Major And The Minor)
DIRECTOR (Drama) winner: Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) nominees: Mervyn LeRoy (Random Harvest); Irving Rapper (Now, Voyager); Jacques Tourneur (Cat People); Orson Welles (The Magnificent Ambersons); William Wyler (Mrs. Miniver)
DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical) winner: Ernst Lubitsch (To Be Or Not To Be) nominees: Michael Curtiz (Yankee Doodle Dandy); George Stevens (Woman of the Year and The Talk of the Town); Preston Sturges (The Palm Beach Story); Billy Wilder (The Major and the Minor)
SUPPORTING ACTOR winner: Claude Rains (Casablanca) nominees: Van Heflin (Johnny Eager); Walter Huston (Yankee Doodle Dandy); Ronald Reagan (Kings Row); Sig Ruman (To Be Or Not To Be); S.Z. Sakall (Casablanca); Henry Travers (Mrs. Miniver); Dooley Wilson (Casablanca); Conrad Veidt (Casablanca)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS winner: Agnes Moorehead (The Magnificent Ambersons) nominees: Mary Astor (The Palm Beach Story); Gladys Cooper (Now, Voyager); Susan Peters (Random Harvest); Mary Wickes (The Man Who Came To Dinner)
SCREENPLAY winner: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, from the play "Everybody Comes To Rick's" by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison (Casablanca) nominees: Noel Coward (In Which We Serve); Orson Welles, from the novel by Booth Tarkington (The Magnificent Ambersons); Edwin Justus Mayer, story by Melchior Lengyel (To Be Or Not To Be)
SPECIAL AWARDS Nicholas Musuraca (Cat People) (Cinematography); Albert S. D'Agostino; Al Fields and Darrell Silvera (The Magnificent Ambersons) (Art Direction-Set Decoration)
"That's Typing" Tuesday, in which I share unpolished, unpublished writings from my vast store of unpolished, unpublished writings. On Tuesdays.
Some thoughts about Dooley Wilson, Humphrey Bogart and the ending of Casablanca.
[SPOILERS DEAD AHEAD] Every now and then I see a complaint—or maybe just a plaintive wail—about the ending of Casablanca, along the lines of "But what about Sam?"
On an emotional level, I get it. Sam has followed Rick to hell and back, from at least Paris and probably before, all the way to this dead end job playing piano in a restaurant, and Rick just drops him like an unwieldy subplot, running off with Louie instead. What the frak?
But logically, it makes complete sense. I think Rick figures the trip to the airport is strictly a one way ticket to the afterlife. After he gets Lazlo and Ilsa on the plane, at best, he's going to wind up in a concentration camp; more than likely, the Gestapo will stand him up against a wall. That's not the sort of end you ask a good friend to share.
"Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of." Indeed.
That Rick gets away is wholly unexpected. You can't blame the man for that.
I like to think he and Louie went back and got Sam. It's the romantic in me. And Carl and Sasha, too, and the croupier and the doorman. And Yvonne. She was pretty hot even if she was no Ingrid Bergman, but then Ingrid Bergman is on her way to America with another man, so what the hell.
And then, because it's also a great movie, Rick busts the cast of The Maltese Falcon out of jail—and now we've got Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Mary Astor along for the ride, too. Actually, we can have Greenstreet there twice since he also played Ferrari in Casablanca, and Lord knows he was fat enough to play two characters.
You've got a pretty good size army together by now.
Actually, this is just about what happened in Passage to Marseille, where Bogart, Rains, Lorre and Greenstreet reunited to fight Nazis. They even brought in Michael Curtiz to direct it.
Now if they'd only brought in Howard Koch and the Epstein brothers to write it ...
Named for Katie-Bar-The-Door, the Katies are "alternate Oscars"—who should have been nominated, who should have won—but really they're just an excuse to write a history of the movies from the Silent Era to the present day.
To see a list of nominees and winners by decade, as well as links to my essays about them, click the highlighted links:
Remember: There are no wrong answers, only movies you haven't seen yet.
The Silent Oscars
And don't forget to check out the Silent Oscars—my year-by-year choices for best picture, director and all four acting categories for the pre-Oscar years, 1902-1927.
Look at me—Joe College, with a touch of arthritis. Are my eyes really brown? Uh, no, they're green. Would we have the nerve to dive into the icy water and save a person from drowning? That's a key question. I, of course, can't swim, so I never have to face it. Say, haven't you anything better to do than to keep popping in here early every morning and asking a lot of fool questions?
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