And the nominees were ...
- Reginald Mills, The Red Shoes
- Christian Nyby, Red River
- Frank Sullivan, Joan of Arc
- Paul Weatherwax, The Naked City
- David Weisbart, Johnny Belinda
- Reginald Mills, The Red Shoes
- Christian Nyby, Red River
- Frank Sullivan, Joan of Arc
- Paul Weatherwax, The Naked City
- David Weisbart, Johnny Belinda
- William H. Ziegler, Rope
And the Oscar went to ...
Police lieutenant Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) heads the investigation of the murder of a young woman (whose corpse is alleged to have been played by Shelley Winters). This enormously influential departure from the confines of studio filming forced Weatherwax to integrate footage shot on the streets of New York City, often by hidden cameras, with more conventional staged scenes. It resulted in the first of his two Oscars in a career that began in 1928.
... when it should have gone to ...
 |
| The cattle drive in Red River |
 |
| Nyby also edited the film's climactic fight between John Wayne and Montgomery Clift |
 |
| Christian Nyby |
Nyby had edited director Howard Hawks's To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, and the cattle drive of Red River gave him a chance to work with some demanding action footage, including a stampede. He had begun his career as an editor in 1943, but the association with Hawks spurred Nyby into a move into directing in 1951 on The Thing From Another World, which was produced by Hawks. The Hawksian touches in The Thing have led many to assume that Nyby was only nominally its director, but the truth is that Nyby was probably a very apt pupil. He went on to a long career as a television director, and his son, Christian I. Nyby II, followed in his footsteps, sometimes on the same series on which the elder Nyby worked.
