Awards presented February 27, 1941
The nominees were ...
... when they should have been ...
And the Oscar went to ...
Rebecca. On the face of it, not a bad choice. It inaugurated Alfred Hitchcock's Hollywood career and gave Laurence Olivier, Judith Anderson, and George Sanders juicy roles to play. But is it really a more distinguished film than
The Grapes of Wrath,
The Great Dictator, or
The Philadelphia Story, to name three of the nominees?
... when it should have gone to ...
That the Academy undervalues comedy is a truism. That it consistently undervalued Cary Grant as an actor is well known. And that it almost totally ignored the extraordinary work of director Howard Hawks is a crime that should live in infamy. This remake of
The Front Page, with the inspired transgendering of the character of Hildy Johnson from male to female, moves at a blistering pace and features Grant and Rosalind Russell at the peak of their powers. Is that enough to qualify it as a best picture -- over the socially conscious drama of
The Grapes of Wrath and the inspired mockery of Hitler by Charles Chaplin in
The Great Dictator? Well, has either of those films stood up as well to the test of time as
His Girl Friday? We can see today where
Grapes pulls its punches, and Chaplin's high-minded harangue at the end of
Dictator detracts from the film's earlier mockery. Whereas
His Girl Friday continues to bubble merrily along, while still managing to get in some well-timed hits at the venality of city governments and the press that covers them -- lessons still unlearned today. The real shame is that this film got not a single nomination in any category. Zero. Null. Zippo. Zilch.
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