The nominees were ...
- John Ford, How Green Was My Valley
- Alexander Hall, Here Comes Mr. Jordan
- Howard Hawks, Sergeant York
- Orson Welles, Citizen Kane
- William Wyler, The Little Foxes
... when they should have been ...
- John Ford, How Green Was My Valley
- Howard Hawks, Sergeant York
- John Huston, The Maltese Falcon
- Preston Sturges, The Lady Eve
- Orson Welles, Citizen Kane
And the Oscar went to ...
John Ford, How Green Was My Valley.
With this award, Ford became the first director to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat equaled only by Joseph L. Mankiewicz for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve, and only the second (the first was Frank Capra) to have won three directing awards. At this point, the war interrupted Ford's Hollywood career. He went to work, with the commission of lieutenant commander in the navy, producing documentaries in support of the war effort, two of which, The Battle of Midway and December 7th, won Oscars. After the war, his work was dismissed by contemporary critics as evidence of a decline in talent, but it's now seen by many critics and film historians as his finest period, including such great Westerns as My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, and The Searchers, all of which, it now seems shocking to observe, received no Oscar nominations.
With this award, Ford became the first director to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat equaled only by Joseph L. Mankiewicz for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve, and only the second (the first was Frank Capra) to have won three directing awards. At this point, the war interrupted Ford's Hollywood career. He went to work, with the commission of lieutenant commander in the navy, producing documentaries in support of the war effort, two of which, The Battle of Midway and December 7th, won Oscars. After the war, his work was dismissed by contemporary critics as evidence of a decline in talent, but it's now seen by many critics and film historians as his finest period, including such great Westerns as My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, and The Searchers, all of which, it now seems shocking to observe, received no Oscar nominations.
... when it should have gone to ...
Orson Welles, Citizen Kane.
Of course. Welles was the first person to receive simultaneous nominations as producer, actor, director, and writer. (The only other one is Warren Beatty, who did it twice, for Heaven Can Wait and Reds.) Dubbed "the boy wonder" by the publicity machine, Welles came to Hollywood after a critically successful theatrical career and a famous stint on radio that included the War of the Worlds broadcast on Halloween 1938 that had much of the nation believing that Martians had landed in New Jersey. Still in his mid-twenties, he was given carte blanche by RKO, a major if troubled studio. But although Citizen Kane is one of the acknowledged cinematic masterpieces, Welles's career turned out to be a case of too much too soon. His battle with William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate on whose life Kane is clearly based, is the stuff of legends, many of which were spun by Welles. He claimed that the negative of his film would have been burned if he had not carried a rosary to a meeting with the chief Hollywood censor, Joseph I. Breen. At a key moment, Welles said, he let the rosary fall from his pocket, giving Breen the impression that Welles was really a nice Catholic boy. It's not quite clear from the anecdote why Breen would have had the power to destroy the negative in any case, but Hearst's desire to see the film destroyed or banned was very real. And Welles's taking on the publisher was seen by many in Hollywood as proof of his arrogance and untrustworthiness. Though his subsequent career is illuminated by flashes of brilliance, nothing ever came together again for him as superbly as Kane did.
Of course. Welles was the first person to receive simultaneous nominations as producer, actor, director, and writer. (The only other one is Warren Beatty, who did it twice, for Heaven Can Wait and Reds.) Dubbed "the boy wonder" by the publicity machine, Welles came to Hollywood after a critically successful theatrical career and a famous stint on radio that included the War of the Worlds broadcast on Halloween 1938 that had much of the nation believing that Martians had landed in New Jersey. Still in his mid-twenties, he was given carte blanche by RKO, a major if troubled studio. But although Citizen Kane is one of the acknowledged cinematic masterpieces, Welles's career turned out to be a case of too much too soon. His battle with William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate on whose life Kane is clearly based, is the stuff of legends, many of which were spun by Welles. He claimed that the negative of his film would have been burned if he had not carried a rosary to a meeting with the chief Hollywood censor, Joseph I. Breen. At a key moment, Welles said, he let the rosary fall from his pocket, giving Breen the impression that Welles was really a nice Catholic boy. It's not quite clear from the anecdote why Breen would have had the power to destroy the negative in any case, but Hearst's desire to see the film destroyed or banned was very real. And Welles's taking on the publisher was seen by many in Hollywood as proof of his arrogance and untrustworthiness. Though his subsequent career is illuminated by flashes of brilliance, nothing ever came together again for him as superbly as Kane did.
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| Welles, in a wheelchair because of a broken ankle, directs Dorothy Comingore in the opera scene from Citizen Kane |
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