Ending the confusion of having two categories for screenplays, "Original Screenplay" and "Screenplay," must have seemed simple: Just reduce them to one, and retain the "Motion Picture Story" category. But it didn't satisfy the writers, who lost one of their opportunities for an Oscar. And it didn't really clarify matters for the voters, who were forced to decide whether a film succeeded because of its story or its screenplay, especially when, as in the case of The Search this year, it was nominated in both categories. So the fiddling with the writing categories would continue.
And the nominees were ...
(Motion Picture Story)
- Borden Chase, Red River
- Francis Flaherty, Robert Flaherty, Louisiana Story
- Emeric Pressburger, The Red Shoes
- Richard Schweizer, David Wechsler, The Search
- Malvin Wald, The Naked City
- Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Richard L. Breen, A Foreign Affair
- John Huston, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
- Frank Partos, Millen Brand, The Snake Pit
- Richard Schweizer, David Wechsler, The Search
- Irmgard Von Cube, Allen Vincent, Johnny Belinda
... when they should have been ...
(Motion Picture Story)
(Screenplay)
- Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Richard L. Breen, A Foreign Affair
- Richard Brooks, John Huston, Key Largo
- Jean Cocteau, Beauty and the Beast
- John Huston, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
- Frank S. Nugent, Fort Apache
And the Oscar went to ...
(Motion Picture Story)
The Search is a well-made movie directed by Fred Zinnemann and filmed in the ruins of Nuremberg and other Bavarian cities. Montgomery Clift plays an Army private, stationed in postwar Germany, who helps a boy (Ivan Jandl) reunite with his mother (the great operatic soprano Jarmila Novotna in a non-singing role). Clift was nominated for an Oscar in this, his second film. (Red River, which was his first, was actually released after The Search.) He is said to have been unhappy with the original screenplay for The Search and to have rewritten much of it collaboration with Paul Jarrico, Betty Smith, and Peter Viertel, but the Academy stuck with the credited writers. This was the second Oscar for Schweizer, whose first was for the "Original Screenplay" of the little-seen Marie-Louise. In fact, the obscurity of Marie-Louise, a winner chosen from nominees only slightly less obscure, may have been one reason why the Academy decided to stop dividing the screenplay category in two: better to have one screenplay winner for a picture that people had actually seen. Most of Schweizer's work was done in his native Switzerland. David Wechsler was a Swiss screenwriter who collaborated with Schweizer on several films, including The Last Chance and Heidi and Peter. He is sometimes confused with the contemporary assistant director David "Wex" Wechsler, and Wikipedia erroneously links his name on the entry for The Search with the American psychologist of the same name.
(Screenplay)
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| B. Traven? Ret Marut? Otto Feige? An arrest photo of Marut taken in London in 1923. |
Huston's screenplay is based on a novel by the mysterious writer known as B. Traven, whom Huston tried to meet before he began filming in Mexico. Instead, a man called Hal Croves showed up and showed Huston a document that was alleged to be a power of attorney, giving Croves the authority to make any decisions regarding the film. Crew members jumped to the conclusion that Croves was B. Traven himself, but Huston remained dubious. The encounter only added to the enigma of B. Traven, who seems have been a German actor named Ret Marut, which may itself have been a pseudonym for a man named Otto Feige. Or he might have been an American engineer called Berick Traven Torsvan. And let's not get into the theories that he was actually Ambrose Bierce, who disappeared in Mexico in 1913, or even Jack London, who faked his death in 1916 and moved to Mexico, where he continued writing. In any case, Huston's screenplay stands proudly on its own as one of those movies that are probably better than the books on which they're based. It was Huston who gave us: "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges."
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| The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: Gold Hat refuses a request to show badges |
... when it should have gone to ...
(Motion Picture Story)
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| Rex Harrison in Unfaithfully Yours |
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| Preston Sturges |
A celebrated symphony conductor (Rex Harrison), believing his wife (Linda Darnell) to be unfaithful, fantasizes about how he should handle the matter while conducting a concert. To the accompaniment of Rossini's Semiramide overture, he imagines murdering her; to the prelude to Wagner's Tannhäuser, he imagines an act of noble forgiveness; and to Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini tone poem he envisions a game of Russian roulette with the man (Kurt Krueger) he thinks has cuckolded him. But when he decides to go through with the murder plot he botches it in a scene of hilarious slapstick. This classic black comedy was conceived by Sturges as early as 1932, but he was unable to sell it to a studio. After his successes as a writer-director in the earlier 1940s, he decided to produce it himself. But it was a huge flop: Audiences were no more ready for Sturges's version of black comedy than they were for Charles Chaplin's attempt a year earlier with Monsieur Verdoux. Sturges, who was recovering from the failure of The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, had one more Hollywood flop, Betty Grable's The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend, and decided to move to France, where he made his last film, The French, They Are a Funny Race, in 1955. Today, however, Unfaithfully Yours is considered one of Sturges's best movies, and the necessity of having the Sturges touch as director as well as writer is amply demonstrated by the inferior 1984 remake with Dudley Moore.
