The nominees were ...
- Dark Victory
- Gone With the Wind
- Goodbye, Mr. Chips
- Love Affair
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
- Ninotchka
- Of Mice and Men
- Stagecoach
- The Wizard of Oz
- Wuthering Heights
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Okay, we can now argue about this one after years in which it was venerated as the greatest Hollywood movie. Is Gone With the Wind really a better picture than Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Stagecoach, or The Wizard of Oz, to name four other nominees from this Hollywood annus mirabilis? Does its legacy of racist sentimentality about the Old South or its retrograde attitude toward Rhett's spousal rape of Scarlett not vitiate the award? Perhaps. But GWTW remains an iconic film for all its faults. It gave the great Hattie McDaniel one of the few truly memorable roles for a black actor in this era, and producer David O. Selznick did make attempts to tone down the racism of Margaret Mitchell's novel. And it's difficult to name a more fascinating film performance than Vivien Leigh's Scarlett.
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