Best Writing, 1939

Awards presented February 29, 1940

The nominees were ... 

(Original Story) 

• Mildred Cram, Leo McCarey, Love Affair 
• Lewis R. Foster, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 
• Felix Jackson, Bachelor Mother 
• Melchior Lengyel, Ninotchka 
• Lamar Trotti, Young Mr. Lincoln 

(Screenplay) 

• Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch, Ninotchka 
• Sidney Buchman, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 
• Sidney Howard, Gone With the Wind 
• Charles MacArthur, Ben Hecht, Wuthering Heights 
• R.C. Sherriff, Claudine West, Eric Maschwitz, Goodbye, Mr. Chips  

... when they should have been ... 

(Original Story) 

• Mildred Cram, Leo McCarey, Love Affair 
• Howard Hawks, Only Angels Have Wings 
• Felix Jackson, Bachelor Mother 
• Melchior Lengyel, Ninotchka 
• Lamar Trotti, Young Mr. Lincoln 

(Screenplay) 

• Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch, Ninotchka 
• Jules Furthman, Only Angels Have Wings
• Sidney Gilliatt, Frank Launder, The Lady Vanishes 
• Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allan Woolf, The Wizard of Oz 
• Dudley Nichols, Ben Hecht, Stagecoach 

And the Oscar went to ...

(Original Story) 

Lewis R. Foster, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. 

Foster's story was originally called "The Gentleman From Montana," although in the film the state Mr. Smith represents is never named. Foster had begun his career writing gags for the silent comedies produced by Hal Roach. He also began directing in 1936, but was more successful as a screenwriter. He received a second nomination for the screenplay of The More the Merrier.

(Screenplay) 

Sidney Howard, Gone With the Wind. 

Howard was killed in a tractor accident on his Massachusetts farm a few months before Gone With the Wind premiered. His first draft of a screenplay was four hundred pages long, enough for a six-and-a-half-hour film. So other hands were turned to it: Jo Swerling, Oliver Garrett, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Lee Mahin, John Van Druten, and Ben Hecht (who allegedly made his contributions without ever reading Margaret Mitchell's novel). In his biography of David O. Selznick, David Thomson puts it this way: Howard "was only designated writer, the figure around whom other efforts congregated. His was the draft to be rewritten, the wall against every other ball could be thrown." But Howard got sole credit, in part as a gesture of respect to his memory, and his widow took home the Oscar. He had previously been nominated for his screenplay for Dodsworth, and had received a Pulitzer Prize for his play They Knew What They Wanted, which had been filmed twice, in 1928 and 1930, and would be remade in 1940, though it's best known as the play on which Frank Loesser's musical The Most Happy Fella was based. 

... when it should have gone to ... 

(Original Story) 

Lamar Trotti, Young Mr. Lincoln.

Lamar Trotti

People expect this kind of historical drama/biopic to be stiff and boring. It isn't, thanks not only to Henry Fonda's terrific performance in the title role and John Ford's direction, but also to Trotti's screenplay, which focuses on the backwoods lawyer's defense of two young men accused of murder. A former journalist, Trotti came to Hollywood in 1932 and went to work at 20th Century-Fox, where he spent most of his career. In 1939 alone, he wrote the screenplays for The Story of Alexander Graham Bell and Drums Along the Mohawk, as well as Young Mr. Lincoln, all of which reflect his deep interest in American history. He won an Oscar for Wilson, and was nominated again for There's No Business Like Show Business.

Henry Fonda in Young Mr. Lincoln 

 (Screenplay)

Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch, Ninotchka. 

Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder

Walter Reisch

This was the first of seven writing nominations for Brackett and twelve writing nominations for Wilder, the latter a long-held record until Woody Allen surpassed him on the way to racking up his fifteen writing nominations. Reisch accrued four nominations, and shared an Oscar with Brackett for the 1953 Titanic. Brackett won two more Oscars in collaboration with Wilder on Sunset Blvd. and The Lost Weekend. And Wilder added another writing win in his post-Brackett collaboration with I.A.L. Diamond on The Apartment. (Wilder also picked up producing and directing Oscars, bringing his total to six, plus an Irving Thalberg award.) Starting in 1938, Brackett and Wilder collaborated on thirteen screenplays -- a remarkable pairing, considering that Brackett was from a patrician family that traced its roots in America back to the seventeenth century and Wilder had arrived in the United States in 1933, fleeing the Nazi threat to his native Austria. Their collaboration was sometimes strained, and it ended in 1950 after their success with Sunset Blvd.  Brackett then turned his attention primarily to producing, though he reunited with Reisch on several screenplays, including The Mating Season, The Model and the Marriage Broker, and Niagara. Reisch had met his fellow Austrian Jew, Wilder, in Germany, where they both worked for the leading film company, UFA (Universum Film AG). He left Germany for Austria, but the Anschluss forced him to move to London, where he worked for a while with Alexander Korda before being hired by MGM. Much admired for his ability to solve problems of plotting and characterization, he remained at MGM until 1948, then reunited with Brackett at 20th Century-Fox. In addition to his work with Brackett and Wilder, he was also nominated for the screenplays for Comrade X and Gaslight.

Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas in Ninotchka