Showing posts with label The Grapes of Wrath. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Grapes of Wrath. Show all posts

Best Director, 1940

Awards presented February 27, 1941

The nominees were ... 
... when they should have been ... 

While today's critics find Ford's Oscar-winning work on big studio projects like Grapes of Wrath and How Green Was My Valley less interesting than on the films, particularly the Westerns, on which he exercised more individual control, this one is interesting because of the way Ford's humanistic vision transforms Steinbeck's novel, in which the characters are symbolic vehicles for his ideas about social justice. Ford gives them greater depth, and while this may rob the film of its political edge, it also takes the story out of the context of the Great Depression and gives it universality.

... when it should have gone to ... 

Howard Hawks, Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell
 on the set of His Girl Friday 
So much has been written about the long neglect of Hawks that there's not much point going into it again here. There are those who think that His Girl Friday is his greatest film, but they are the kind of people who spend their time making lists when they should be watching movies. One reason may be that it became Hawks's most widely seen film because Columbia failed to renew its copyright in 1968, which put it in the public domain, available for multiple transfers to video once the VCR became commercially available. It was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1993. It is, for sure, the greatest version of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's Broadway hit The Front Page, which was first filmed in 1931, and was remade by Billy Wilder in 1974 with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. But the Hawks version, which turned Hildy Johnson into a woman, shows signs of transcending the original. It was adapted, though not very successfully, into Switching Channels in 1988, with Burt Reynolds and Kathleen Turner in the Grant and Russell roles, with changed names and the action moved to a television studio. Then in 2003 playwright John Guare adapted both The Front Page and His Girl Friday into a stage version, keeping elements of both (including the sex change). It premiered in London and has subsequently crossed the Atlantic for several American productions.  
Rosalind Russell and the gentlemen of the press in His Girl Friday



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Best Supporting Actress, 1940

Awards presented February 27, 1941

The nominees were ... 
... when they should have been ... 

Ma Joad was a plum role, and every character actress of a certain age, such as Beulah Bondi, campaigned for it. Darwell was a veteran who had made her first movies in 1913 and made her last screen appearance as the "Feed the Birds" woman in Mary Poppins -- a career that spanned fifty years. Walt Disney himself asked her to come out of retirement for her final role. 

... when it should have gone to ... 

Liz Embrie is one of those "gal pal" roles that cry out for the likes of Eve Arden or Celeste Holm -- who actually played the role in High Society, the musical remake of The Philadelphia Story. (Today the part would be written for a "gay best friend" and be played by Sean Hayes or Andrew Rannels.) But Hussey plays it to perfection, not only the wisecracks but also the wistful realization that James Stewart is smitten with Katharine Hepburn and not with her. It is, sadly, the only major movie role that Hussey ever landed after her film debut in 1937, when MGM, having spotted her in a touring company of Dead End, signed her to a contract. With a few exceptions -- she played Jordan Baker in the 1949 film version of The Great Gatsby and Bob Hope's wife in The Facts of Life -- she spent most of her movie career in B pictures, then did stage and television work before retiring in 1973. 

Ruth Hussey and James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story 

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