1947 Alternate Oscars

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 ✱.

1947 Alternate Oscars

As you may have guessed, I've seen Miracle On 34th Street more than a couple of times — like every single Thanksgiving since the beginning of time. Katie-Bar-The-Door and I consider it the official kickoff to the Christmas season.

If you've never seen Jane Greer before, I'd recommend a double feature of Out of the Past and The Big Steal. She's the ultimate femme fatale in the first; a smart, wise-cracking, adventurous companion in the second.

Why didn't she make more good movies after her big break in 1947's Out of the Past? Easy. Studio head Howard Hughes set out to ruin her career at RKO. He demanded she sleep with him, she said she was married, he said if she didn't sleep with him he'd ruin her career, and she said fine, she'd go home and have babies instead.

Which she did (one of whom, Lawrence Lasker, went on to write War Games and produce Sneakers). But nobody should have to be a party to their own rape just to hang on to a job.

The sole reason she was in The Big Steal (her lone movie in a two-plus year stretch) is because she was the only actress willing to work with Mitchum after his marijuana bust — and RKO had checked with them all. They approached Greer on a Saturday, she said she'd work with Mitchum anytime, anywhere, which was good because location shooting in Mexico started two days later on Monday morning. She wound up wearing the clothes made for Lizabeth Scott.

(I wrote about The Big Steal here.)

Some more Jane Greer trivia: she finally got out of her contract at RKO in 1951, and slowly began to rebuild her career. But then while filming Run For The Sun (1956) with Richard Widmark in South America, she got a bacterial infection and wound up so sick she nearly died.

After that, it was mostly bit parts and cameos, most notably in Against All Odds with Jeff Bridges, a loose remake of Out of the Past, where she plays the treacherous mother of the character she played in that classic noir.

Ah, what might have been.

As always, my choices are noted with a ★. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔.

Alternate Oscars: Vote For The Best Picture Of 1947

Variations On A Gag #2—Getting Married To Inherit Money

Blog pal Who Am Us Anyway said in a comment the other day "Now, it's a sad commentary on me—I mean, on people—but a compendium of Stooges bits followed by clips of their bits' origins might-could have the same effect the British blues bands had on 60s kids who otherwise might never have listened to Muddy Waters or Robert Johnson ..."

That is a great idea. And all it would require is a little effort on the part of yours truly. But as you can see, I've been making as little effort as possible recently, and there's a ballgame on at 1 p.m. to boot. So you'll have to wade through these unedited and draw your own conclusions.

First up is Seven Chances, Buster Keaton's feature-length comedy in which the Great Stoneface must get married by the end of the day or lose a large inheritance. Hard on its heels are not one but two Three Stooges shorts, In the Sweet Pie and Pie (here it's three women who have to get married—to Moe, Larry and Curly) and Brideless Groom (a Shemp one where he's the one who must get married). That's six Stooges for the price of one!

Hold hands, you lovebirds!

Seven Chances (1925)


In The Sweet Pie and Pie (1941)


Brideless Groom (1947)

The Katie-Bar-The-Door Awards (1947)

"The high-priced actors like Cary Grant back at the studios got all the lights. So ours was lit with cigarettes."—Robert Mitchum on film noir

PICTURE (Drama)
winner: Out of the Past (prod. Warren Duff)
nominees: Black Narcissus (prod. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger); Body and Soul (prod. Bob Roberts); Brighton Rock (prod. Roy Boulting); Crossfire (prod. Adrian Scott); Gentleman's Agreement (prod. Darryl F. Zanuck); Nightmare Alley (prod. George Jessel); Odd Man Out (prod. Carol Reed)

PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Miracle On 34th Street (prod. William Perlberg)
nominees: The Bishop's Wife (prod. Samuel Goldwyn); The Ghost And Mrs. Muir (prod. Fred Kohlmar); Monsieur Verdoux (prod. Charles Chaplin)

PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Quai des Orfèvres (prod. Roger De Venloo and Louis Wipf)
nominees: Nagaya shinshiroku (The Record Of A Tenement Gentleman) (prod. Shochiku Films); La Perla (prod. Óscar Dancigers)

ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Robert Mitchum (Out of the Past)
nominees: John Garfield (Body and Soul); Robert Montgomery (Ride the Pink Horse); James Mason (Odd Man Out); Gregory Peck (Gentleman's Agreement); Tyrone Power (Nightmare Alley)

ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Edmund Gwenn (Miracle On 34th Street)
nominees: James Baskett (Song of the South); Charles Chaplin (Monsieur Verdoux); Cary Grant (The Bachelor And The Bobby-Soxer and The Bishop's Wife); Rex Harrison (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir); Harold Lloyd (The Sin of Harold Diddlebock); William Powell (Life With Father and The Senator Was Indiscreet)

ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Deborah Kerr (Black Narcissus)
nominees: Joan Crawford (Possessed and Daisy Kenyon); Jane Greer (Out of the Past); Susan Hayward (Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman); Dorothy McGuire (Gentleman's Agreement)

ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Gene Tierney (The Ghost And Mrs. Muir)
nominees: Irene Dunne (Life With Father); Gale Storm (It Happened On 5th Avenue); Loretta Young (The Bishop's Wife)

DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Jacques Tourneur (Out of the Past)
nominees: Henri-Georges Clouzot (Quai des Orfèvres); Edward Dmytryk (Crossfire); Edmund Goulding (Nightmare Alley); Yasujirô Ozu (Nagaya shinshiroku a.k.a. The Record Of A Tenement Gentleman); Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (Black Narcissus); Carol Reed (Odd Man Out)

DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: George Seaton (Miracle On 34th Street)
nominees: Charles Chaplin (Monsieur Verdoux); Joseph L. Mankiewicz (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir)

SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Richard Widmark (Kiss of Death)
nominees: Kirk Douglas (Out of the Past); William Frawley (Miracle On 34th Street); James Gleason (The Bishop's Wife); Porter Hall (Miracle On 34th Street); Gene Lockhart (Miracle On 34th Street); Robert Ryan (Crossfire); Monty Woolley (The Bishop's Wife)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Kathleen Byron (Black Narcissus)
nominees: Gloria Grahame (Crossfire); Celeste Holm (Gentleman’s Agreement); Martha Raye (Monsieur Verdoux); Anne Revere (Body and Soul)

SCREENPLAY
winner: Daniel Mainwaring (as Geoffrey Homes) from his novel Build My Gallows High (Out of the Past)
nominees: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, from the novel by Rumer Godden (Black Narcissus); George Seaton, from a story by Valentine Davies (Miracle on 34th Street); Charles Chaplin, from an idea by Orson Welles (Monsieur Verdoux)

SPECIAL AWARDS
Jack Cardiff (Black Narcissus) (Cinematography)

Jane Greer Night On TCM

It's Jane Greer night on Turner Classic Movies, starting with Out of the Past at 8 p.m., the quintessential film noir also starring Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas. If you've never seen it, well good god, man, why not? When I say Jane Greer is the only femme fatale in movie history I'd let shoot me, this is the film I'm referring to.

At 10 p.m. is the second of Greer's two movies with Robert Mitchum, The Big Steal, a romantic-comedy noir directed by Don Siegel who went on to direct the original version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the Clint Eastwood classic Dirty Harry. The Big Steal was Mitchum's first movie after the infamous marijuana bust and the actress orginially cast, Lizabeth Scott, backed out at the last minute, fearing the publicity might damage her career. Greer, on the other hand, jumped at the chance and the result is one of the most underrated films of its era.

The complete line-up, from TCM's website:

8:00 PM Out of the Past (1947) A private eye becomes the dupe of a homicidal moll. Dir: Jacques Tourneur Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas. BW-97 mins

10:00 PM The Big Steal (1949) Seduction and murder follow the theft of an Army payroll. Dir: Don Siegel Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, William Bendix. BW-71 mins

11:30 PM The Company She Keeps (1951) A lady con artist sets out to steal her parole officer's fiance. Dir: John Cromwell Cast: Lizabeth Scott, Jane Greer, Dennis O'Keefe. BW-83 mins

1:00 AM Station West (1948) A federal agent takes on a gang of gold thieves. Dir: Sidney Lanfield Cast: Dick Powell, Jane Greer, Agnes Moorehead. BW-80 mins

2:30 AM Run for the Sun (1956) A British traitor hunts humans in the jungles of Mexico. Dir: Roy Boulting Cast: Richard Widmark, Trevor Howard, Jane Greer. BW-99 mins

4:15 AM Desperate Search (1953) A man fights to find his children after their plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness. Dir: Joseph Lewis Cast: Howard Keel, Jane Greer, Patricia Medina. BW-71 mins

Remember, all times are Eastern Daylight Savings Time.

No rest for the weary tonight, huh.