Awards presented March 4, 1943
The nominees were ...
... when they should have been ...
And the Oscar went to ...
Mrs. Miniver. Wartime anglophilia takes hold, resulting in a phony, hokey, sappy picture of Brits with their chins held high and their upper lips stiffened.
... when it should have gone to ...
Preston Sturges's greatest film, and one of the great films about Hollywood, received not a single Oscar nomination, perhaps because its target is the movie industry's reverence toward high seriousness, of which the Academy is itself most egregiously guilty. (
Viz., the Oscar to
Mrs. Miniver.) It opens with a dedication
"To the memory of those who made us laugh: the motley mountebanks, the clowns, the buffoons, in all times and in all nations, whose efforts have lightened our burden a little, this picture is affectionately dedicated." But that is perhaps the only note of earnestness that creeps into the movie. Something of a box office disappointment, and perhaps still not as widely known as it deserves to be,
Sullivan's Travels remains dear to the hearts of many filmmakers, including the Coen brothers, who took the title of their film
O Brother, Where Art Thou? from the "serious" film that Sullivan wants to make.
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