Best Special Effects, 1947

Awards presented March 20, 1948

The nominees were ... 

• Green Dolphin Street.  Visual effects by A. Arnold Gillespie, Warren Newcombe; audible effects by Douglas Shearer, Michael Steinore 
• Unconquered. Visual effects by Farciot Edouart, Devereux Jennings, Gordon Jennings, Wallace Kelley, Paul Lerpae; audible effects by George Dutton 

And the Oscar went to ... 

Green Dolphin Street.  Visual effects by A. Arnold Gillespie, Warren Newcombe; audible effects by Douglas Shearer, Michael Steinore.

Gigi Perreau, Richard Hart, and Lana Turner in Green Dolphin Street

Not a big year for special effects. The winner featured an earthquake and a flood, both of which had been done with more spectacle in San Francisco and The Rains Came. Sisters Marianne (Lana Turner) and Marguerite (Donna Reed) both fall in love with the same man (Richard Hart), and through a series of mishaps all of them wind up in New Zealand with Van Heflin, where an earthquake, a tsunami, and a Maori uprising complicate things. This galumphing, improbable saga, based on a plot-heavy novel by Elizabeth Goudge, was hugely hyped by MGM, who were trying to make a star of the rather wimpy Hart. (They failed.) All of the effects people were multiple Oscar winners except for Steinore; this was his only win.    

Best Special Effects, 1944

Awards presented March 15, 1945
The nominees were ...

• The Adventures of Mark Twain. Photographic effects by Paul Detlefsen, John Crouse; sound effects by Nathan Levinson   
• Days of Glory. Photographic effects by Vernon L. Walker; sound effects by James G. Stewart, Roy Granville 
• Secret Command. Photographic effects by David Allen, Ray Cory, Robert Wright; sound effects by Russell Malmgren, Harry Kusnick  
• Since You Went Away. Photographic effects by John R. Cosgrove; sound effects by Arthur Johns 
• The Story of Dr. Wassell. Photographic effects by Gordon Jennings, Farciot Edouart; sound effects by George Dutton  
• Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. Photographic effects by A. Arnold Gillespie, Donald Jahraus, Warren Newcombe; sound effects by Douglas Shearer 
• Wilson. Photographic effects by Fred Sersen; sound effects by Roger Heman 

And the Oscar went to ... 

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. Photographic effects by A. Arnold Gillespie, Donald Jahraus, Warren Newcombe; sound effects by Douglas Shearer.

Gillespie won three Oscars in his almost thirty years as head of MGM's special effects department. I don't know where the fourth one displayed here came from.

A dated but watchable account of the first American bombing raids on Japan in World War II, with Spencer Tracy as Lt. Col. James Doolittle. Lots of the usual family tensions, pre-flight jitters, and do-or-die speechifying. The special effects rely heavily on miniatures, which were Jahraus's specialty. Gillespie joined MGM in 1925 and became head of the special effects department in 1936. He worked on both the 1925 Ben-Hur and its 1962 remake. This was the first of three Oscars for Gillespie and two for Newcombe, but the only one for Jahraus. Shearer accumulated nine awards, including technical citations, over his career as head of MGM's sound department.