The nominees were ...
... when they should have been ...
And the Oscar went to ...
... when they should have been ...
And the Oscar went to ...
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Or should it have gone to Sunset Blvd.? For once, the Academy had an unenviable choice: Two films that took a similar satiric look at the profession of acting and had exceptional scripts and casts. Either one would have been an acceptable winner, but All About Eve perhaps had a slight edge in that it racked up a record-setting fourteen nominations, including five for acting: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Celeste Holm, Thelma Ritter, and George Sanders. Only Sanders won, but Oscars also went to the film's sound and costume design, and to Joseph L. Mankiewicz for screenplay and directing. Mankiewicz thus became the only person to win in consecutive years for both writing and directing, and the only person other than John Ford to win consecutive directing Oscars.
In sober truth, the best picture of the year was probably Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game, an acknowledged masterpiece. But it had been produced in 1939, met with derision and hostility, was banned after the German invasion of France in 1940, and didn't receive a release in the United States that would qualify it for the Oscars until 1950, even then in an incomplete version. Not only had Renoir cut it after the initial reception, the complete negative had been destroyed during the war. But pieces of the negative remained, as well as several prints of the film, and by 1959 a version had been assembled that approximated Renoir's original plan. Still, it's only fair to give a 1950 Oscar to a 1950 film.
In sober truth, the best picture of the year was probably Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game, an acknowledged masterpiece. But it had been produced in 1939, met with derision and hostility, was banned after the German invasion of France in 1940, and didn't receive a release in the United States that would qualify it for the Oscars until 1950, even then in an incomplete version. Not only had Renoir cut it after the initial reception, the complete negative had been destroyed during the war. But pieces of the negative remained, as well as several prints of the film, and by 1959 a version had been assembled that approximated Renoir's original plan. Still, it's only fair to give a 1950 Oscar to a 1950 film.
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