A long, long time ago, I promised myself that if anyone ever came up to me and said, "Can you stake a fellow American to a meal," I'd give him twenty bucks. But no one ever has, and anyway, $20 doesn't go nearly as far as it used to.
PICTURE (Drama) winner:The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (prod. Henry Blanke) nominees:The Fallen Idol (prod. Carol Reed); Force Of Evil (prod. Bob Roberts); Fort Apache (prod. Merian C. Cooper and John Ford); Key Largo (prod. Jerry Wald); The Lady From Shanghai (prod. Orson Welles); Letter From An Unknown Woman (prod. John Houseman); The Naked City (prod. Mark Hellinger); Red River (prod. Howard Hawks)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical) winner: The Red Shoes (prod. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) nominees:Easter Parade (prod. Arthur Freed); A Foreign Affair (prod. Charles Brackett); Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (prod. Melvin Frank and Norman Panama); Unfaithfully Yours (prod. Preston Sturges)
PICTURE (Foreign Language) winner:Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves) (prod. Giuseppe Amato and Vittorio De Sica) nominees:Germania anno zero (Germany Year Zero) (prod. Roberto Rossellini and Salvo D'Angelo); La terra trema (The Earth Trembles) (prod. Salvo D'Angelo); Xiao cheng zhi chun (Spring in a Small Town) (prod. Wenhua Film Company); Yoidore tenshi (Drunken Angel) (prod. Sôjirô Motoki)
ACTOR (Drama) winner: Humphrey Bogart (The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre) nominees: Montgomery Clift (The Search and Red River); John Garfield (Force of Evil); Alec Guinness (Oliver Twist); Laurence Olivier (Hamlet); Edward G. Robinson (Key Largo); Takashi Shimura (Yoidore tenshi a.k.a. Drunken Angel); James Stewart (Call Northside 777); John Wayne (Red River)
ACTOR (Comedy/Musical) winner: Rex Harrison (Unfaithfully Yours) nominees: Fred Astaire (Easter Parade); Cary Grant (Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House); Bob Hope (The Paleface); Anton Walbrook (The Red Shoes); Clifton Webb (Sitting Pretty)
ACTRESS (Drama) winner: Olivia de Havilland (The Snake Pit) nominees: Irene Dunne (I Remember Mama); Joan Fontaine (Letter From An Unknown Woman); Rita Hayworth (The Lady From Shanghai); Jennifer Jones (Portrait Of Jennie); Barbara Stanwyck (Sorry, Wrong Number); Jane Wyman (Johnny Belinda)
ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical) winner: Marlene Dietrich (A Foreign Affair) nominees: Linda Darnell (Unfaithfully Yours); Judy Garland (Easter Parade); Myrna Loy (Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House); Moira Shearer (The Red Shoes)
DIRECTOR (Drama) winner: John Huston (The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre) nominees: Vittorio De Sica (Ladri di biciclette a.k.a. Bicycle Thieves); John Ford (Fort Apache); Howard Hawks (Red River); Akira Kurosawa (Yoidore tenshi a.k.a. Drunken Angel); Max Ophüls (Letter From An Unknown Woman); Orson Welles (The Lady From Shanghai)
DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical) winner: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Red Shoes) nominees: Preston Sturges (Unfaithfully Yours); Billy Wilder (A Foreign Affair)
SUPPORTING ACTOR winner: Walter Huston (The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre) nominees: Lionel Barrymore (Key Largo); Charles Bickford (Johnny Belinda); Melvyn Douglas (Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House); Thomas Gomez (Key Largo and Force Of Evil); Tim Holt (The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre); Everett Sloane (The Lady From Shanghai)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS winner: Claire Trevor (Key Largo) nominees: Ethel Barrymore (Portrait Of Jennie); Agnes Moorhead (Johnny Belinda); Jean Simmons (Hamlet); Marie Windsor (Force Of Evil)
SCREENPLAY winner: John Huston, based on the novel by B. Traven (The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre) nominees: Graham Greene, from his short story "The Basement Room" (The Fallen Idol); Howard Koch, from the novel by Stefan Zweig (Letter From An Unknown Woman); Borden Chase and Charles Schnee, from the short story by Borden Chase (Red River); Preston Sturges (Unfaithfully Yours)
SPECIAL AWARDS Charles Lawton, Jr. (The Lady From Shanghai) (Cinematography)
The best film of 1943 was The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, a brilliant comedy of manners from England's Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger that gently and wittily took Britain's military leaders to task—pretty daring considering that Britain was at the time still locked in a death struggle with Nazi Germany. Winston Churchill responded by trying (unsuccessfully) to suppress the film and it was a big hit in its home country. When it arrived in America two years later, Hollywood showed the prime minister how it's done—straightening out the film's flashback chronology and so chopping it up as to render it an incomprehensible mess and a box office flop, promptly forgotten.
Fortunately, it has been restored to its full glory, and features Deborah Kerr in not one but three star-making roles.
Over here, Hollywood produced a trio of outstanding films—The Ox-Bow Incident, Wild Bill Wellman's tense story of a mob determined to mete out its own brand of justice; Shadow of a Doubt, Alfred Hitchcock's brilliant tale of a serial killer come home to visit his family; and I Walked With A Zombie, a voodoo-infused retelling of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre from the master of atmospheric horror, Val Lewton.
I tried on all three of them for the top prize in drama, finally opting for The Ox-Bow Incident. Not only is it a gripping story with terrific performances all around, it's also a prime example of America grappling (albeit indirectly) with the question of why we were fighting the war—merely to survive at any cost or to preserve our higher ideals as well? It's an uncompromising film from beginning to end, a real achievement with a war on and the Production Code in effect. It's also entertaining, a tribute to Wellman, actors Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews, and author-producer Lamar Trotti. A real must-see.
PICTURE (Drama) winner:The Ox-Bow Incident (prod. Lamar Trotti) nominees:I Walked With A Zombie (prod. Val Lewton); Sahara (prod. Harry Joe Brown); Shadow Of A Doubt (prod. Jack H. Skirball); So Proudly We Hail! (prod. Mark Sandrich); The Song of Bernadette (prod. William Perlberg)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical) winner:The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp (prod. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) nominees:Cabin In The Sky (prod. Arthur Freed); Heaven Can Wait (prod. Ernst Lubitsch); The More The Merrier (George Stevens)
PICTURE (Foreign Language) winner:Vredens dag (Day of Wrath) (prod. Carl Theodor Dreyer and Tage Nielsen)
ACTOR (Drama) winner: Joseph Cotten (Shadow Of A Doubt) nominees: Humphrey Bogart (Sahara); Henry Fonda (The Ox-Bow Incident); Paul Lukas (Watch on the Rhine); Mickey Rooney (The Human Comedy)
ACTOR (Comedy/Musical) winner: Joel McCrea (The More The Merrier) nominees: Don Ameche (Heaven Can Wait); Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson (Cabin in the Sky); Roger Livesey (The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp)
ACTRESS (Drama) winner: Teresa Wright (Shadow Of A Doubt) nominees: Anne Baxter (Five Graves To Cairo); Ingrid Bergman (For Whom The Bell Tolls); Jennifer Jones (The Song Of Bernadette); Ida Lupino (The Hard Way)
ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical) winner: Deborah Kerr (The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp) nominees: Jean Arthur (The More The Merrier); Gene Tierney (Heaven Can Wait); Ethel Waters (Cabin In The Sky)
DIRECTOR (Drama) winner: William A. Wellman (The Ox-Bow Incident) nominees: Carl Theodor Dreyer (Vredens dag a.k.a. Day of Wrath); Alfred Hitchcock (Shadow Of A Doubt); Jacques Tourneur (I Walked With A Zombie)
DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical) winner: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp) nominees: Ernst Lubitsch (Heaven Can Wait); Vincente Minnelli (Cabin in the Sky); George Stevens (The More The Merrier)
SUPPORTING ACTOR winner: Charles Coburn (The More The Merrier) nominees: Dana Andrews (The Ox-Bow Incident); Rex Ingram (Cabin in the Sky and Sahara); Erich von Stroheim (Five Graves to Cairo); Anton Walbrook (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS winner: Lena Horne (Cabin In The Sky and Stormy Weather) nominees: Jean Brooks (The Seventh Victim); Jane Darwell (The Ox-Bow Incident); Veronica Lake (So Proudly We Hail!); Katina Paxinou (For Whom The Bell Tolls)
SCREENPLAY winner: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp) nominees: Lamar Trotti, from the novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark (The Ox-Bow Incident); Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson and Alma Reville, from a story by Gordon McDonell (Shadow of a Doubt)
SPECIAL AWARDS "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe" (Cabin in the Sky) music by Harold Arlen; lyrics by E.Y. Harburg (Song)
The best director of 1930-31, Fritz Lang, is celebrating a birthday today. He has lots of company.
Coincidentally, his cinematographer on M, Fritz Arno Wagner, was also born on this day, just four years after Lang. Wagner was cinematographer not only on M, but also on Nosferatu, the first two Dr. Mabuse movies—144 in all. That's Wagner on the right, Lang on the left. No idea who's lurking behind the camera. Probably some extra looking to wangle a piece of cake.
It's also Emeric Press- burger's birthday, who teamed up with Michael Powell to produce the best movies ever to come out of Great Britain (see, e.g., The Red Shoes). Born in Austria before the Great War, Pressburger was writing screenplays in Berlin at the same moment Lang and Wagner were filming their crime masterpiece.
"The worst things that happened to me were the political consequences of events beyond my control," Pressburger later said of fleeing Nazi Germany for England. "The best things were exactly the same."
I like to think the three men celebrated their birthdays together by watching this 1931 animated comedy produced by another December 5th-born legend, Walt Disney. In honor of these famously hard working men, I give you the 1931 Walt Disney cartoon, The Busy Beavers.
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?
A long, long time ago, I promised myself that if anyone ever came up to me and said, "Can you stake a fellow American to a meal," I'd give him twenty bucks. But no one ever has, and anyway, $20 doesn't go nearly as far as it used to.
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