1949--The Year in Review

Easily my most obscure Best Picture pick from the 1940s is Robert Wise's boxing noir The Set-Up, constructed in real time way before Fred Zinneman's 1952 western High Noon made it widely known a movie could be built in this fashion (though I suppose Hitchcock's 1948 film Rope did it earlier). I know many will have problems with this pick, simply because Carol Reed's extremely popular The Third Man appears as competition. But I think Reed's movie lacks a bit of energy when its main assets--Orson Welles and composer Anton Karas--aren't apparent. Wise's film, meanwhile, is still as strong and economical as it was the day of its release--a damning indictment of boxing, and its bloodthirsty fans, too (almost as good in this respect was Mark Robson's soapier boxing film Champion, with Kirk Douglas in the lead). The UK output was particularly lively this year, with comedic masterpieces Kind Hearts and Coronets, Passport to Pimlico and Whisky Galore, while Japan gave us prime films from Ozu and Kurosawa. Alec Guinness wins the lead actor award for his robust, eight-character performance in Kind Hearts and Coronets, while Olivia De Havilland lands her second lead nod in a row for her devastating show in William Wyler's The Heiress. The Oscars, meanwhile, saw fit to give its top awards to Robert Rossen's All The King's Men--a groundbreaker when released but sadly dated today (though Mercedes McCambridge's hard-bitten supporting turn still resonates). NOTE: These are MY choices for each category, and are only occasionally reflective of the selections made by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka The Oscars). When available, the nominee that actually won the Oscar will be highlighted in bold. 

PICTURE: THE SET-UP (US, Robert Wise)
(2nd: The Third Man (UK, Carol Reed), followed by:
The Heiress (US, William Wyler)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (UK, Robert Hamer)
White Heat (US, Raoul Walsh)
Late Spring (Japan, Yasujiro Ozu)
On the Town (US, Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly)
Stray Dog (Japan, Akira Kurosawa)
A Letter to Three Wives (US, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
Battleground (US, William A. Wellman)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (US, John Ford)
The Window (US, Ted Tetzlaff)
Champion (US, Mark Robson)
Criss Cross (US, Robert Siodmak)
Adam’s Rib (US, George Cukor)
Whisky Galore (UK, Alexander Mackendrick)
All the King’s Men (US, Robert Rossen)
Come to the Stable (US, Henry Koster)
Madame Bovary (US, Vincente Minnelli)
The Big Steal (US, Don Siegel)
Passport to Pimlico (UK, Henry Cornelius)
Jour de Fête (France, Jacques Tati)
Border Incident (US, Anthony Mann)
It Happens Every Spring (US, Lloyd Bacon)
Colorado Territory (US, Raoul Walsh)
The Fountainhead (US, King Vidor)
Sands of Iwo Jima (US, Allan Dwan)
Caught (US, Max Ophuls)
Intruder in the Dust (US, Clarence Brown)
I Shot Jesse James (US, Samuel Fuller)
Samson and Delilah (US, Cecil B. De Mille)
Take Me Out to the Ball Game (US, Busby Berkeley)
Mighty Joe Young (US, Ernest B. Schoedsack))

ACTOR: Alec Guinness, KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (2nd: James Cagney, White Heat, followed by: Broderick Crawford, All the King’s Men; Toshiro Mifune, Stray Dog; Dennis Price, Kind Hearts and Coronets; Robert Ryan, The Set-Up; Kirk Douglas, Champion; Joseph Cotten, The Third Man; John Wayne, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon; Spencer Tracy, Adam’s Rib) 

ACTRESS: Olivia De Havilland, THE HEIRESS (2nd: Setsuko Hara, Late Spring, followed by: Katharine Hepburn, Adam’s Rib; Loretta Young, Come to the Stable; Joan Bennett, The Reckless Moment; Patricia Neal, The Fountainhead; Jane Greer, The Big Steal; Jennifer Jones, Madame Bovary; Deborah Kerr, Edward My Son; Jeanne Crain, Pinky)  

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Orson Welles, THE THIRD MAN (2nd: Ralph Richardson, The Heiress, followed by: James Whitmore, Battleground; Wylie Watson, Whisky Galore; Dan Duryea, Criss Cross; Kirk Douglas, A Letter to Three Wives; Dean Jagger, Twelve O’Clock High; Arthur Kennedy, Champion; William Bendix, The Big Steal) 

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Mercedes McCambridge, ALL THE KING'S MEN (2nd: Thelma Ritter, A Letter to Three Wives, followed by: Keiko Awaji, Stray Dog; Celeste Holm, Come to the Stable; Margaret Wycherley, White Heat; Joan Greenwood, Kind Hearts and Coronets; Ethel Waters, Pinky; Jean Cadell, Whisky Galore; Jean Hagen, Adam’s Rib; Judy Holliday, Adam’s Rib)

DIRECTOR: Robert Wise, THE SET-UP (2nd: Carol Reed, The Third Man, followed by: Robert Hamer, Kind Hearts and Coronets; Yasujiro Ozu, Late Spring; Akira Kurosawa, Stray Dog; William Wyler, The Heiress; Raoul Walsh, White Heat; Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, On The Town;Joseph L. Mankiewicz, A Letter to Three Wives; William A. Wellman, Battleground)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Graham Greene, THE THIRD MAN (2nd: Valentine Davies and Shirley Smith, It Happens Every Spring, followed by: T.E.B. Clarke, Passport to Pimlico; Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, White Heat; Ryuzo Kikushima and Akira Kurosawa, Stray Dog; Carl Foreman and Ring Lardner, Champion)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Robert Hamer and John Dighton, KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (2nd: Ruth Goetz and Augustus Goetz, The Heiress, followed by; Art Cohn, The Set-Up; Kogo Noda and Yasujiro Ozu, Late Spring; Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Vera Caspery, A Letter to Three Wives; Compton Mackenzie and Angus McPhail, Whisky Galore)

ANIMATED SHORT FILM: LONG HAIRED HARE (Chuck Jones; Bugs Bunny) (2nd: Begone Dull Care (Canada, Norman McLaren), followed by: For Scent-imental Reasons (Chuck Jones; Pepe Le Pew); Little Rural Riding Hood (Tex Avery); High Diving Hare (Friz Freleng); Fast and Furry-Ous (Chuck Jones; Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote); Bad Luck Blackie (Tex Avery); The Counterfeit Cat (Tex Avery))

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: LAND OF PROMISE (aka DIM LITTLE ISLAND) (UK, Humphrey Jennings) (2nd: Who Done It? (Edward Bernds; The Three Stooges), followed by: The Lead Shoes (Sidney Peterson)

BLACK-AND-WHITE CINEMATOGRAPHY: Paul Vogel, BATTLEGROUND (2nd: Milton Krasner, The Set-Up, followed by: Yuharu Atsuta, Late Spring; Robert Krasker, The Third Man; Robert Surtees, Intruder in the Dust; Leo Tover, The Heiress; Franz Planer, Criss Cross)

COLOR CINEMATOGRAPHY: Winton Hoch, SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON (2nd: Harold Rosson, On The Town, followed by: Robert Planck and Charles Schoenbaum, Little Women)

BLACK-AND-WHITE ART DIRECTION: THE FOUNTAINHEAD, Madame Bovary, Late Spring, The Set-Up, The Heiress

COLOR ART DIRECTION: LITTLE WOMEN, The Adventures of Don Juan, Saraband

BLACK-AND-WHITE COSTUME DESIGN: KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS, The Heiress, Madame Bovary

COLOR COSTUME DESIGN: LITTLE WOMEN, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Samson and Delilah 

FILM EDITING: THE SET-UP, Champion, Battleground, All The King's Men, The Window

SOUND: THE SET-UP, All The King's Men, Twelve O'Clock High, Champion, Sands of Iwo Jima



ORIGINAL SCORE: Anton Karas, THE THIRD MAN (2nd: Aaron Copland, The Heiress, followed by: Miklós Rózsa, Criss Cross; Dimitri Tiomkin, Champion; Victor Young, Samson and Delilah)

ADAPTED OR MUSICAL SCORE: Roger Edens and Lennie Hayton, ON THE TOWN (2nd: Morris Stoloff and George Duning, Jolson Sings Again, followed by: Roger Edens and Conrad Salinger, Take Me Out to the Ball Game)



ORIGINAL SONG: "Baby, It's Cold Outside" from Neptune's Daughter (Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser) (2nd: “Through a Long and Sleepless Night” from Come to the Stable (Music by Alfred Newman, lyrics by Mack Gordon); "My Foolish Heart: from My Foolish Heart (Music by Victor Young, lyrics by Ned Washington)

SPECIAL EFFECTS: MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, 12 O' Clock High

MAKEUP: KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS, The Heiress, Sampson and Delilah

1948--The Year in Review

So far, my choices as to best of the 1940s have included John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath, Orson Welles' Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt, Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity, Marcel Carne's Children of Paradise, Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life and Charles Chaplin's Monsiuer Verdoux. But, out of all these splendid films, I return to this year's winner again and again nowadays--I find I never get tired of it, it so fills me with excitement. Whenever I begin John Huston's dazzling examination of human greed called The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and hear Max Steiner's wonderful score blasting away again, I feel like I'm settling down for the most beefy, appetizing dinner imaginable (complete with beans--ya gotta eat your beans). It's the kind of work that could get people who've never before seen a black-and-white film immediately enthusiastic about old movies (if I were teaching a course on movie history, this would be the one I'd program instantly--it's just impossible to get restless with this masterpiece). The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is everything a great work of cinema should be--weird, dangerous, radically engrossing, insightful, and crafted with fussy visual detail from top to bottom. The acting here is sublime, with each of the three leads play off each other to sensational effect (there are few supporting performances in film history more gripping, more hilarious and true, than Walter Huston's show as Howard, the straight-talking miner who acts as the film's iron moral compass; it should be noted, this film stands as the first that won Oscars for a father-and-son team in the same year (only the Coppola's have matched it, in 1974 with The Godfather Part II). And, man, how great is Humphrey Bogart in this movie? His Fred J. Dobbs is a lush, grubby, regally besmudged madman, deluded and bent on self-destruction; whenever I see him covered in that Mexican dust and grime, almost looking like a crazed, hairy monkey (50s' TV host Dave Garroway's chimpanzee TV-cohort J. Fred Muggs was probably named after Bogart's character), I say to myself  "This is easily Bogart's most daring, without-a-wire performance." And I love Tim Holt, too, elegantly gentle as the one relatively sane member of this batty trio. Even Bruce Bennett as the sad, laconically wise interloper Cody and Alphonso Bedoya as the film's villainous Gold Hat are unforgettable (Bedoya gets the movie's most famous line: "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges"). Huston's heart-pounding quasi-western really places the viewer right there, pick in hand, toiling in the heated grime, suffering beneath that sun-soaked, gold-stuffed mountain...so much so that you feel like having a cool shower after watching the low dealings happening in this sierra's shadows. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is fun and smart and disturbing in equal measure, and I can't imagine anyone in the Academy voting against it for Best Picture (especially since it ended up winning three of the year's major awards).

But it happened, and instead, the Academy decided to finally give much of its acclaim to the British film industry, which had been toiling in unfair obscurity for decades before being cited for Lawrence Olivier's abbreviated version of Hamlet, which is fine but far from the best of the year (now, it really stands as a living document of Olivier's talents as an actor, and less as a show of his directing aplumb--his earlier Henry V was easily more astonishing, and I suspect this Best Picture choice was a make-up award for ignoring the legendary actor for so many years). Still, there are so many better 1948 UK movies the Academy could've lauded--Carol Reed's tense The Fallen Idol, Michael Powell's dizzying The Red Shoes, or David Lean's perfect adaptation of Oliver Twist, for example (then again, aside from The Red Shoes, which won a few accolades this year, maybe these movies weren't seen on US shores for years to come--the releases of non-American movies back then were a bonafide mess, and that's also why colossal titles like Italy's Bicycle Thieves and Germany Year Zero weren't considered for 1948 awards). Though Sierra Madre captains a major sweep in this overview, there's still room for the brilliantly colored images of Powell's The Red Shoes, a film too vibrant to ignore. Oliver Twist and The Fallen Idol still come into play here, too, and my choice for best Live Action Short film of the year was also a British film--a taut 40-minute photoplay called To The Public Danger, only the second production directed by future James Bond auteur Terrence Fisher. And, once again, the wildly funny and creative animator Tex Avery contributed another masterpiece involving a hilariously dyspeptic cat. 1947 might have been a dud of a year, but 1948--on US and other shores--more than made up for it. I mean...wow...such a period for film noir (They Live By Night, The Naked City, Raw Deal, Force of Evil, Key Largo, Call Northside 777), comedy (Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, Unfaithfully Yours, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein), musicals (Easter Parade, The Pirate, Romance on the High Seas) and westerns (Red River, Fort Apache, Yellow Sky). It was a time of ridiculous riches--a gold mine, if you will. NOTE: These are MY choices for each category, and are only occasionally reflective of the selections made by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka The Oscars). When available, the nominee that actually won the Oscar will be highlighted in bold.

PICTURE: THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (US, John Huston)
(2nd: The Red Shoes (UK, Michael Powell), followed by:
The Fallen Idol (UK, Carol Reed)
Bicycle Thieves (Italy, Vittorio De Sica)
Germany Year Zero (Italy/West Germany, Roberto Rossellini)
Red River (US, Howard Hawks)
Oliver Twist (UK, David Lean)
Letter from an Unknown Woman (US, Max Ophuls)
Raw Deal (US, Anthony Mann)
They Live by Night (US, Nicholas Ray)
He Walked By Night (US, Alfred Werker and Anthony Mann)
Yellow Sky (US, William A. Wellman)
Force of Evil (US, Abraham Polonsky)
Key Largo (US, John Huston)
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (US, H.C. Potter)
The Naked City (US, Jules Dassin)
Hamlet (UK, Lawrence Olivier)
Call Northside 777 (US, Henry Hathaway)
I Remember Mama (US, George Stevens)
The Snake Pit (US, Anatole Litvak)
Portrait of Jennie (US, William Dieterle)
The Search (US, Fred Zinnemann)
Macbeth (US, Orson Welles)
Louisiana Story (US, Robert Flaherty)
Sorry, Wrong Number (US, Anatole Litvak)
Unfaithfully Yours (US, Preston Sturges)
Fort Apache (US, John Ford)
Easter Parade (US, Charles Walters)
Rope (US, Alfred Hitchcock)
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (US, Charles Barton)

ACTOR: Humphrey Bogart, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (2nd: Ralph Richardson, The Fallen Idol, followed by: Alec Guinness, Oliver Twist; John Garfield, Force of Evil; John Wayne, Red River; Lawrence Olivier, Hamlet; Lamberto Maggioranni, Bicycle Thieves; Cary Grant, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House; Richard Basehart, He Walked by Night)

ACTRESS: Olivia De Havilland, THE SNAKE PIT (2nd: Joan Fontaine, Letter from an Unknown Woman, followed by: Barbara Stanwyck, Sorry, Wrong Number; Irene Dunne, I Remember Mama; Jennifer Jones, Portrait of Jennie; Jane Wyman, Johnny Belinda; Myrna Loy, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House; Moira Shearer, The Red Shoes)

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Walter Huston, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (2nd: Robert Newton, Oliver Twist, followed by: Montgomery Clift, Red River; Edward G. Robinson, Key Largo; Tim Holt, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre; Walter Brennan, Red River; Oscar Homolka, I Remember Mama; Thomas Gomez, Force of Evil; Melvyn Douglas, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jean Simmons, HAMLET (2nd: Anne Baxter, Yellow Sky, followed by: Ethel Barrymore, Portrait of Jennie; Barbara Bel Geddes, I Remember Mama; Kay Walsh, Oliver Twist; Mary Clare, Oliver Twist; Claire Trevor, Key Largo; Betsy Blair, The Snake Pit; Barbara Lawrence, Unfaithfully Yours) 



DIRECTOR: John Huston, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (2nd: Vittorio De Sica, Bicycle Thieves, followed by: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger, The Red Shoes; Carol Reed, The Fallen Idol; David Lean, Oliver Twist; Howard Hawks, Red River; Roberto Rossellini, Germany Year Zero; Max Ophuls, Letter from an Unknown Woman

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Roberto Rossellini, Carlo Lizzani, Max Colpet, and Sergio Amadei, GERMANY YEAR ZERO (2nd: Albert Maltz and Malvin Wald, The Naked City, followed by:  Lamar Trotti and W.R. Burnett, Yellow Sky; Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours; Richard Schwizer, The Search) 

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: John Huston, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (2nd: Oreste Biancoli, Suso D'Amico, Vittorio De Sica, Adolfo Franci, Gherardo Gherardi, Gerardo Guerrieri, and Cesare Zavattini, Bicycle Thieves; followed by: Graham Greene, Leslie Storm and William Templeton, The Fallen Idol; David Lean and Stanley Haynes, Oliver Twist; Borden Chase and Charles Schnee, Red River; Abraham Polonsky and Ira Wolfort, Force of Evil) 

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: TO THE PUBLIC DANGER (UK, Terrence Fisher) (2nd: In The Street (Helen Levitt); The Dim Little Island (UK, Humphrey Jennings); Meditation on Violence (Maya Deren); Mother's Day (UK, James Broughton) ANIMATED SHORT FILM: THE CAT THAT HATED PEOPLE (Tex Avery) (2nd: Back Alley Oproar (Friz Freleng; Sylvester and Porky Pig), followed by: Pecos Bill (Clyde Geronmi and Walt Disney); The Foghorn Leghorn (Robert McKimson; Foghorn Leghorn); Half-Pint Pygmy (Tex Avery); Haredevil Hare (Chuck Jones; Bugs Bunny and Marvin the Martian); Gorilla My Dreams (Robert McKimson; Bugs Bunny)) BLACK-AND-WHITE CINEMATOGRAPHY: Joseph H. August and Lee Garmes, PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (2nd: William Daniels, The Naked City, followed by: John Alton, He Walked Bu Night; Joseph MacDonald, Yellow Sky; Guy Green, Oliver Twist) COLOR CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jack Cardiff, THE RED SHOES (2nd: Harry Stradling, Jr., Easter Parade, followed by: Winton C. Hoch, William V. Skall and Joseph A. Valentine, Joan of Arc) BLACK-AND-WHITE ART DIRECTION: THE FALLEN IDOL, Oliver Twist, Johnny Belinda, I Remember Mama, Portrait of Jennie COLOR ART DIRECTION: THE RED SHOES, Easter Parade, The Pirate BLACK-AND-WHITE COSTUME DESIGN: OLIVER TWIST, Hamlet, Letter From an Unknown Woman, The Fallen Idol, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre COLOR COSTUME DESIGN: THE RED SHOES, Easter Parade, Romance on the High Seas FILM EDITING: THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, Red River, The Naked City, He Walked By Night, The Red Shoes SOUND: THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, Red River, The Snake Pit, The Naked City, Yellow Sky ORIGINAL SCORE: Max Steiner, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (2nd: Dimitri Tiomkin, Red River, followed by: Brian Easdale, The Red Shoes; Alfred Newman, The Snake Pit; Dimitri Tiomkin, Portrait of Jennie) ADAPTED OR MUSICAL SCORE: Johnny Green and Roger Edens, EASTER PARADE (2nd: Lennie Hayden, The Pirate, followed by: Victor Young, The Emperor Waltz) ORIGINAL SONG: "It's Magic" from ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS (Music by Jule Stein, lyrics by Sammy Cahn) (2nd: "Buttons and Bows" from The Paleface (Music by Jay Livingston, lyrics by Ray Evans), followed by: "Be A Clown" from The Pirate (Music and lyrics by Cole Porter); "A Couple of Swells" from EASTER PARADE (Music and lyrics by Irving Berlin); "Steppin' Out With My Baby" from Easter Parade (Music and lyrics by Irving Berlin)) MAKEUP: THE RED SHOES, Oliver Twist, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre