Best Art Direction, 1945

Awards presented March 7, 1946

The nominees were ... 

(Black-and-White)

• Blood on the Sun. Art Direction: Wiard Ihnen; Interior Decoration: A. Roland Fields  
• Experiment Perilous. Art Direction: Albert S. D'Agostino, Jack Okey; Interior Decoration: Darrell Silvera, Claude Carpenter 
• The Keys of the Kingdom. Art Direction: James Basevi, William Darling; Interior Decoration: Thomas Little, Frank E. Hughes 
• Love Letters. Art Direction: Hans Dreier, Roland Anderson; Interior Decoration: Sam Comer, Ray Moyer 
• The Picture of Dorian Gray. Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons, Hans Peters; Interior Decoration: Edwin B. Willis, Hugh Hunt, John Bonar 

(Color) 

• Frenchman's Creek. Art Direction: Hans Dreier, Ernst Fegte; Interior Decoration: Sam Comer 
• Leave Her to Heaven. Art Direction: Lyle Wheeler, Maurice Ransford; Interior Decoration: Thomas Little 
• National Velvet. Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons, Urie McCleary; Interior Decoration: Edwin B. Willis, Mildred Griffiths 
• San Antonio. Art Direction: Ted Smith; Interior Decoration: Jack McConaghy 
• A Thousand and One Nights. Art Direction: Stephen Goosson, Rudolph Sternad; Interior Decoration: Frank Tuttle 

... when they should have been ... 

(Black-and-White) 

• Blood on the Sun. Art Direction: Wiard Ihnen; Interior Decoration: A. Roland Fields
• The Lost Weekend. Art Direction: Hans Dreier, Earl Hedrick; Interior Decoration: Bertram Granger 
• Mildred Pierce. Art Direction: Anton Grot, Bertram Tuttle; Interior Decoration: George James Hopkins 
• The Picture of Dorian Gray. Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons, Hans Peters; Interior Decoration: Edwin B. Willis, Hugh Hunt, John Bonar
• Spellbound. Art Direction: James Basevi, John Ewing; Interior Decoration: Emile Kuri 

And the Oscar went to ... 

(Black-and-White) 

Blood on the Sun. Art Direction: Wiard Ihnen; Interior Decoration: A. Roland Fields. 

James Cagney plays a newspaper editor and Sylvia Sidney a Eurasian counterintelligence agent in pre-World War II Japan. Thick with propaganda, the movie still manages to be fairly entertaining today. Ihnen picked up his second Oscar in a row for the film, which was produced by Cagney and his brother William for their independent production company. This was the only Oscar win for Fields, who was nominated for his work on Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, and should have won for both. 

(Color) 

Frenchman's Creek. Art Direction: Hans Dreier, Ernst Fegte; Interior Decoration: Sam Comer. 

Beautiful but empty-headed Restoration bodice-ripper in which Joan Fontaine enters into a loveless marriage to Ralph Forbes to escape the designs of his rakish friend Basil Rathbone. She escapes to her family home in Cornwall, where she meets handsome pirate Arturo de Cordova. This was the first Oscar win for Dreier, the head of the Paramount art department. He had been nominated eighteen times previously, and would be nominated three more times and win twice. This was the only win out of four nominations for Fegte. This was the first of four wins for Comer, Paramount's head set decorator. He was nominated twenty-six times. 

... when it should have gone to ... 

(Black-and-White) 

The Lost Weekend. Art Direction: Hans Dreier, Earl Hedrick; Interior Decoration: Bertram Granger. 

Hans Dreier

Dreier got his Oscar this year for an opulent romantic drama, but he should have got it for leading his team of designers and decorators in creating one of the starkest and grittiest of Oscar-winning films. Among other things, the designers rebuilt the interior of the New York bar P.J. Clarke's on a soundstage, and the tale is often told that Robert Benchley, homesick for New York, would stop in on the set every afternoon at five, when actor Howard Da Silva, playing the bartender, would pour Benchley a shot. Neither Hedrick nor Granger ever won an Oscar, but this would have been an excellent opportunity for a win, if the Academy had seen fit to nominate them.

Howard Da Silva and Ray Milland in the soundstage P.J. Clarke's

Da Silva behind the bar

Location filming in New York still necessitated set dressing

Milland's Don Birnam has trashed his apartment in search of a bottle he has hidden away

One of Birnam's secret bottles

(Color) 

Leave Her to Heaven. Art Direction: Lyle Wheeler, Maurice Ransford; Interior Decoration: Thomas Little.

In commenting on the art direction of Leave Her to Heaven, I have only to refer to my comments on Leon Shamroy's Oscar for the film: This is a stunning and essential example of what can happen when cinematographers and designers work together. Any objection that the movie would have been better in black-and-white vanishes when you look closely at the work Wheeler, Ransford, and Little put into achieving a cohesive palette, rich yet muted, relying on purples and grays. Having seen what an intelligent use of color can do in Leave Her to Heaven makes me amazed that the Academy should have preferred the candy-box colors of  Frenchman's Creek. Wheeler and Little, as heads of their departments, raked in Oscars and nominations; Ransford was nominated three times but never won. 

Gene Tierney dozes, the redness of her lipstick providing the only jolt of primary color 

The white gown is ironic, the chess game prophetic

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Tierney and Cornel Wilde encounter in a luxurious train car

Predator and prey? Note the Production Code-mandated twin beds. 

Wilde on studio rocks before a painted drop. Noticeable in a still, less so in a theater.

Early American decor, maybe a bit too Laura Ashley, but the quilted dressing gown with its military frogs is a nice touch.

Vincent Price questions Wilde on the witness stand. Note the simplicity of the courtroom, with the circular window suggesting either a halo or the eye of God.