1948 Oscar Viewing Project

I put this on Twitter, but one of my goals going forward is to have at least one Oscar Viewing Project ballot or one Oscar My Ballot each month until I have finished the project.  Because I just finished being on vacation (I was in Florida, having a blast in DisneyWorld), we're going to actually get a couple of these this month, both from 2024 in a few weeks AND from 1948 today.  Yes, I have officially seen all of the nominated films of 1948, and thus we are going to discuss the movies of this year.  We generally start with a look at the box office from a given year, but I will note that pre-1980 box office numbers are hard to find accurately, as it wasn't as consistently reported in trade papers before then.  Additionally, certain types of films (like, say, Disney films) tend to have been re-released in theaters more frequently than others (hence how movies that were considered flops initially like Bambi would eventually end up in the black).  That said, this is what Wikipedia has for the top domestic grossers of 1948, so we'll use it as a jumping off point (with a grain of salt):

1. The Red Shoes

2. Red River

3. The Paleface

4. Johnny Belinda

5. Easter Parade

6. The Three Musketeers

7. The Snake Pit

8. The Emperor Waltz

9. Homecoming

10. Sitting Pretty

As you'll see below, Oscar didn't start taking a really big detour from what was popular with audiences until the 1990's, as 9/10 of these movies are ones I not only saw, but would've seen in connection with the OVP, the sole exception being Homecoming with Lana Turner & Clark Gable (which I'll see for the My Ballot that year).  Other top grossers that year that sometimes are listed on the Top 10 include Sorry, Wrong Number with Barbara Stanwyck, Yellow Sky (which I have seen despite no nominations because I love westerns) with Gregory Peck, and A Date with Judy starring a young Elizabeth Taylor.  As you can see, Oscar wanted to embrace what was popular, particularly in a year of upheaval for Hollywood, as the theatrical monopolies had ended, and 1948 was a weak year at the box office.  With that context, I want you to go back to a different time, to a time of Truman defeating Dewey, of the creation of both Israel and the frisbee.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Note from John: When I did this series during the time when I wrote individual articles, and had this blog be a daily part of my life, I made a point of highlighting each nominee in my many write-ups.  While I will be writing these every time I complete a year (like I said above, hopefully monthly going forward), I can't make that time commitment, either in terms of number of articles or in terms of giving each nominee their due with a mention, anymore.  I promise, though, that I have given each nominee their due under the confines of the specific category while making my rankings (and of course I've seen every single nominated picture discussed below), including giving higher rankings to movies I didn't like if the craft was better than ones I did like (Oscar should consider that).  Hopefully you enjoy the trimmed-down, but still devoted to the original concept version of the OVP we'll have going forward!

Picture

1. The Red Shoes

2. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

3. Hamlet

4. The Snake Pit

5. Johnny Belinda

The Lowdown: I actually did a podcast devoted to this specific topic (if you go to the Gilded Films podcast site, you can find both of their episodes on 1948, as I'm the guest on both of them) so feel free to listen if you want a voice reveal (and some great convo on this contest).  For me, it's not a difficult decision on the winner here.  The Red Shoes is just on another level.  There are really good movies here (honestly-there is no bad movie in this quintet, though I do frequently have to re-remind myself that I like Johnny Belinda as Oscar liked it way more than me), but the sheer modern scale of The Red Shoes here is unbeatable, besting worthy defenders like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Hamlet.

Director

1. John Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre)

2. Laurence Olivier (Hamlet)

3. Anatole Litvak (The Snake Pit)

4. Jean Negulesco (Johnny Belinda)

5. Fred Zinnemann (The Search)

The Lowdown: With The Red Shoes out of the race, I've got a much closer contest, pitting John Huston & Laurence Olivier for the top spot against each other, much like in real life (weirdly, both were directing themselves, as both of their pictures in the collage are from them acting in their movies, though Olivier was the lead while Huston had a bit cameo).  I actually like Olivier's Hamlet more than most modern critics, as I think it's moody and just a little bit creepy (it's easy to see how the Coen Brothers were inspired by this when they did their telling of Macbeth), but Treasure of the Sierra Madre is one of those movies it's impossible to deny Huston's impact, giving us a perfect decrescendo into hell with Humphrey Bogart.  Kudos also to Antaole Litvak who also had a lot of modern touches (rare for a social issues picture) in The Snake Pit.

Actor

1. Laurence Olivier (Hamlet)

2. Montgomery Clift (The Search)

3. Clifton Webb (Sitting Pretty)

4. Lew Ayres (Johnny Belinda)

5. Dan Dailey (When My Baby Smiles at Me)

The Lowdown: Bogart's snub in 1948 was a big deal, some calling it the biggest of its kind since Bette Davis was looked over for Of Human Bondage in 1934.  It's insane, given how good he is (he'll be on my My Ballot for this year) that he was missed, but looking at just Oscar's choices, I'm going with the same selection as the Academy, giving Laurence Olivier (an actor I am very hit-or-miss with) a pretty easy victory.  Olivier might be too old for this part, but he leans in really well with the uncomfortable Oedipal overtones that Shakespeare provides his prince for his mother Gertrude, and while Clifton Webb is delicious & Monty Clift has a terrific star-is-born turn, this is a case of an actor's "time" also being for some of his best work.  I will also say that Dan Dailey getting Humphrey Bogart's nomination here is both perplexing (like...why?) and bordering on a war crime he's so bad.

Actress

1. Olivia de Havilland (The Snake Pit)

2. Barbara Stanwyck (Sorry, Wrong Number)

3. Jane Wyman (Johnny Belinda)

4. Irene Dunne (I Remember Mama)

5. Ingrid Bergman (Joan of Arc)

The Lowdown: No one is as bad as Dan Dailey of the 20 nominations (an embarrassingly terrible performance), but Best Actress is not a great lineup compared to the guys despite having generally better actors.  Irene Dunne is playing I Remember Mama like she's channeling Loretta Young (not a compliment), and Ingrid Bergman once again proves that for one of the best actresses of her generation, Oscar nominated her for the wrong roles.  The win is between de Havilland, whose really raw performance adds to The Snake Pit's accuracy-to-life, and Barbara Stanwyck as a truly vicious femme fatale who totally nails the film's rough ending.  Stanwyck is the opposite of Bergman (she tended to get nominated for her best work, this being the least of her four nominated turns but still solid), but I'm going with de Havilland given she provides more accuracy.  Jane Wyman, the actual winner, uses physicality well in her role but doesn't add enough beyond being great casting given her giant saucer eyes are so crucial to filling in gaps in the underwritten plot.

Supporting Actor

1. Walter Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre)

2. Charles Bickford (Johnny Belinda)

3. Cecil Kellaway (The Luck of the Irish)

4. Jose Ferrer (Joan of Arc)

5. Oscar Homolka (I Remember Mama)

The Lowdown: Both of the supporting turns I'm going with the actual Oscar winner, and while I'm usually cognizant that I have a bias toward the actual victors (because, unlike the 2000's & 2010's, the winners here have been the "winners" my whole life), unlike Olivier (where Clift or Webb would make acceptable victors), the supporting winners are heads-and-shoulders above the rest (again, both will make my My Ballot list).  Huston's turn as a weathered gold miner is so calculating, and filled with such meaningful backstory in the way he portrays it, I wish that he'd worked with his son on ten more pictures.  The only thing that comes close to it is Charles Bickford's concerned father in Johnny Belinda, but even there it's not close to what Huston is bringing to a better movie.

Supporting Actress

1. Claire Trevor (Key Largo)

2. Agnes Moorehead (Johnny Belinda)

3. Barbara bel Geddes (I Remember Mama)

4. Ellen Corby (I Remember Mama)

5. Jean Simmons (Hamlet)

The Lowdown: Finishing out the acting races is Claire Trevor.  Trevor is one of those actresses who rarely played leading roles despite leading lady beauty, but she was also better suited for character work, as she understood the assignment in westerns & noir.  In Key Largo, she gets one really critical scene where she belts out a torch song to her own humiliation (it's a hard scene to watch, but it makes the movie), but she's good throughout.  No one else is in the same hemisphere as her.  Even second place Agnes Moorhead (not as good as Bickford, despite being a more reliable actor otherwise) is only in second because I didn't have anywhere else to turn and I like her as a rule.  This is all Trevor.

Motion Picture Story

1. The Red Shoes

2. Red River

3. The Naked City

4. The Search

5. Louisiana Story

The Lowdown: A quick reminder that Motion Picture Story is technically about the concept of the movie, which is a writing gift, but it's not (for example) about the specific dialogue in the picture.  This helps a movie like The Naked City, which is really better as an idea than a picture itself (though I liked it), but I have to dock points for something like Louisiana Story, whose almost documentary-like naturalism gets in the way of the actual tale it's attempting (or is it...this is a weird movie, speak up if you've seen it in the comments).  My top prize goes to The Red Shoes, which is really gifted in the way it uses its romances almost as a red herring, over Red River (which, conversely, uses its ambition as a red herring to cover some of its romances).

Screenplay

1. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

2. The Snake Pit

3. The Search

4. A Foreign Affair

5. Johnny Belinda

The Lowdown: 1948 is the most recent year where the Screenplay categories were not split out between adapted & original screenplay, and so we have four adapted films against the original The Search.  I actually wish I could give this to The Snake Pit, because it's the sort of picture that Oscar generally loves and I generally don't (social issue pictures are not my jam), but it's done so well I could actually find some common ground between us...but in this case both Oscar & I are siding with the work of John Huston in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, one of the truly great studio film screenplays of the era (no notes-even the Hays Code couldn't ruin this one).

Score

1. The Red Shoes

2. Hamlet

3. Johnny Belinda

4. The Snake Pit

5. Joan of Arc

The Lowdown: Movies are rarely gusty enough to do what The Red Shoes does with its score.  Look at a film like Tar, for example, which is about classical music and thus uses actual classical music throughout the picture to instruct that.  But The Red Shoes literally spends so much time talking about how it is written for a classic ballet, but instead of Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev, it's literally original music.  The chutzpah...and that they land it, making it sound like a genuine classic...it's impossible to deny, though the moodiness of Hamlet or the windswept grandeur of Johnny Belinda both would've made fine wins (this is the best of the many Johnny Belinda nominations, and the one that I'll come closest to duplicating with my My Ballot even though I won't actually).

Scoring

1. Easter Parade

2. Romance on the High Seas

3. The Pirate

4. The Emperor Waltz

5. When My Baby Smiles at Me

The Lowdown: Similar to Motion Picture Story, I'm not entirely sure how to grade this, and it's more difficult as we'll actually have this for the My Ballot for 1948 (we will not do the same for Motion Picture Story).  But I'm going to look at this as the best overall musical in terms of the way it's staged, sung, & conducted in the picture itself (with perhaps a bonus point or two for truly original song scores).  With that in mind, you can't really beat Easter Parade, with Judy & Fred sounding lovely, particularly with him taking on "Steppin' Out With My Baby" and our first real Ann Miller MGM musical.  Romance on the High Seas benefits from a young Doris Day, and The Pirate has a beautiful choreography from Gene Kelly, but neither are as good as what Easter Parade is achieving.

Original Song

1. "It's Magic" (Romance on the High Seas)

2. "Buttons and Bows" (The Paleface)

3. "The Woody Woodpecker Song" (Wet Blanket Policy)

4. "For Every Man There's a Woman" (Casbah)

5. "This Moment is Magic" (That Lady in Ermine)

The Lowdown: Yes, for those who grew up watching his cartoons, the title song from Woody Woodpecker performed by the Kay Kyser Orchestra, was Oscar-nominated (the only time in the history of the Best Original Song category where a short film was nominated).  But while it's a cute little ditty, I have to go with "It's Magic" as it does a really incredible job of establishing Doris Day as a star in the picture.  "Buttons and Bows" is also a standard, but it has less to do with the success of the film (and let's be honest, is more of a standard than a classic, if that makes sense).

Sound

1. Moonrise

2. The Snake Pit

3. Johnny Belinda

The Lowdown: One of the big reasons that the Oscar Viewing Project will take me so long is that, just a few years earlier, the Sound categories were popping out a dozen or so nominees each year, and then by 1948 they randomly became only a three-wide affair.  The quality here is better, though, with only a trio of nominees, and gives us the single finest "hidden gem" nomination of this bunch: Moonrise.  Moonrise is a dynamite picture (if you've never seen it, please add it to your Letterboxd Watchlist as it's masterful), and it's also a cool nomination.  The film features one song moment (though it's not a musical one), that is executed perfectly, and it also works really well with the circus motif to create strong background noise to heighten tension.  Oscar gave the statue to the also solidly authentic work in The Snake Pit, but for me it's all about Moonrise.

Art Direction - Black & White

1. Hamlet

2. Johnny Belinda

The Lowdown: For the record, we will not be separating between Black & White and Color for my My Ballot's (though we will have five nominees, so for this at least we'll have more than Oscar).  The win here is easy for me-Olivier's Hamlet is a really cool combination of stage play and realism (again, much like the Coen Brothers' lauded turn with Macbeth), and totally upstages anything that is done in Johnny Belinda.  Honestly, the real credit from staging in Johnny Belinda is believably making California look like Prince Edward Island (if there was an Oscar for location scouting...this is the one it should've won).

Art Direction - Color

1. The Red Shoes

2. Joan of Arc

The Lowdown: Both very worthy nominees (say what you will about the end product of Joan of Arc, it surely looks terrific), but much like Moira Shearer, I cannot deny The Red Shoes.  Even the title cards for the movie are crafted to match the set, as if they are somehow part of the movie itself, everything so careful, beautiful, and deliberate.

Cinematography - Black & White

1. A Foreign Affair

2. Johnny Belinda

3. The Naked City

4. Portrait of Jennie

5. I Remember Mama

The Lowdown: Back to the arbitrarily chosen nominee count, Oscar went with the naturalism of The Naked City, which is understandable.  Shot entirely on location in New York, the movie uses real life so well it's hard not to fall for the gimmick (this is one of the hardest My Ballot quintets I'll have ever had to assemble, for the record, as I don't know that any of these will end up on it, and normally the Top 3 would be gimme choices).  I'm instead going to pick the naturalism on display in A Foreign Affair to reward, where Marlene Dietrich is shot in actual war-torn Berlin as if she was back with von Sternberg (compliment).  At some point someone needs to explain to me how I Remember Mama got a nomination in this category when much better options existed (hell, if you just stick to movies Oscar was already watching, you have Moonrise or The Snake Pit right there!).

Cinematography - Color

1. Joan of Arc

2. The Three Musketeers

3. Green Grass of Wyoming

4. The Loves of Carmen

The Lowdown: There's literally room for one more nomination, and in one of those situations where I have to assume there was a paperwork mistake (like Roddy McDowall accidentally going lead for Cleopatra), The Red Shoes was cut from this, which it definitely should've won.  With that out of the way, I have a moment to honor its competitor Joan of Arc, though honestly not by much-this is not just the best lineup of this list, it's also one of the best lineups I've seen Oscar assemble during the Classical Hollywood era...every single one of these I gave 4/5 stars in my personal rankings (which is hard to get as I grade on a curve).  Even The Loves of Carmen in last place has a wonderfully vibrant motif (and Rita Hayworth has rarely looked so lovely).

Costume - Black & White

1. Hamlet

2. B.F.'s Daughter

The Lowdown: Despite costumes being in movies since the dawn of time, it took until 1948 for the Academy to bother rewarding the men & women who made them (this is the first year of the category).  For Black & White, I will go with Hamlet, which gives us not just lovely frocks for Jean Simmons to prance about in, but we also get some attention-to-detail loveliness in the menswear (guys like wearing pretty things too).  BF's Daughter gets nominated almost entirely for a stunning white-and-gold dress that Barbara Stanwyck wears about halfway through (hopefully this link works, but you can see it here) which is breathtaking...but nothing else in the movie compares so it can't really be on the same level as Hamlet.

Costume - Color

1. Joan of Arc

2. The Emperor Waltz

The Lowdown: Similar to how we constantly talk about John Williams in Best Score and whether or not I'm giving him another Oscar (he was nominated so often), we'll be doing the same for Edith Head.  In our second profiled year of Head's 35 competitive nominations (we did 1957 here) Head won, but while I was intoxicated by Joan Fontaine's glorious green dress with matching hat in The Emperor Waltz, it was the only look that really stood out to me, and so I'm more inclined to the many armored outfits of Ingrid Bergman wore in Joan of Arc instead.

Film Editing

1. The Red Shoes

2. Red River

3. The Naked City

4. Johnny Belinda

5. Joan of Arc

The Lowdown: Fun fact-The Red Shoes will not be sweeping the My Ballot awards in the way you're thinking right now because, well, there are a lot of really good movies in 1948 that Oscar chose to ignore that I'll get into.  But I cannot deny with this specific lineup that the Powell & Pressburger film shouldn't take the cake.  The way that the ballets are structured and shot, jumping the line between reality and fiction, are made in the editors' room, even against solid naturalism in The Naked City and the gigantic cattle drives of Red River.

Special Effects

1. Portrait of Jennie

2. Deep Waters

The Lowdown: The early years of the special effects categories are odd because while effects have always been a part of the movies, that doesn't mean that they were as common as they are now (where even crowd work in a rom-com is likely done at a computer).  Portrait of Jennie takes out Deep Waters both because Deep Waters doesn't really have a lot of effects to champion (just a gigantic storm sequence late in the picture), and because of the way it uses the film's cinematography as a tool with the color lensing in the water effects at the end of the movie to give us an ethereal beauty.

OVP: Duel in the Sun (1946)

Film: Duel in the Sun (1946)

Stars: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, Lionel Barrymore, Herbert Marshall, Lillian Gish, Walter Huston, Charles Bickford, Harry Carey, Butterfly McQueen

Director: King Vidor

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Actress-Jennifer Jones, Supporting Actress-Lillian Gish)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Gregory Peck: click here to learn more about Mr. Peck (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As we discussed last week, Gregory Peck's initial career took off like a rocket, with huge hits such as The Yearling, Spellbound, and The Valley of Decision making him a household name pretty much overnight.  The late-1940's, though, were something of a disappointment.  He starred in another Hitchcock film, The Paradine Case, which was a big flop, as well as the western Yellow Sky and the romance The Great Sinner, neither of which set the box office on fire.  While Twelve O'Clock High and The Gunfighter would bring life back to his career, during this time frame he only had two really notable films.  The first was Gentleman's Agreement, which won the Best Picture Oscar (and got Peck his third nomination) and was a massive success, but one that I've seen before so it wasn't eligible for this series.  The second was one I had heard legend of after reading about movies for 25+ years, but somehow had avoided actually watching: David O. Selznick's infamous follow-up to Gone with the Wind, the soap opera western Duel in the Sun, our movie for today.

(Spoilers Ahead) Based on the novel by Niven Busch, Duel in the Sun is the story of a young biracial woman named Pearl Chavez (played by the very much not biracial Jennifer Jones), the daughter of a white father and a Mexican mother.  After her father (Marshall) kills her mother for having an affair, she's sent to live with his childhood sweetheart (and second cousin) Laura Belle (Gish) on a giant ranch she lives on with her husband Senator Jackson McCanless (Barrymore) and their two sons the proper Jesse (Cotten) and the lascivious Lewt (Peck).  This sets up an inevitable love triangle between the two men and Pearl, with her drawn to Jesse's decency, but clearly there is a hormonal attraction between she & Lewt that cannot be denied in the Texas heat.  Along the way, she tries to find ways of escaping Lewt, including marrying Sam Pierce (Bickford), but Lewt kills Sam, making him a fugitive from the law, but still Pearl can't stop her desire for him.  When it becomes clear that Jesse can save her, even after he's shot by Lewt trying, Pearl understands that the only way that she'll break free of Lewt is to kill him, which she does...but in the process, she also ends up in his arms, their desire in life to be together impossible to deny, even as they're literally murdering each other.

Duel in the Sun was not, it has to be said, Gone with the Wind.  Selznick's obsession with equalling his previous film's success, particularly with the woman he was obsessed with & having an affair with at the time, Jennifer Jones, is kind of the stuff of Hollywood legend.  This was a deeply troubled shoot, and cost nearly $8 million to make & promote, which was basically unheard of at the time, and so despite a solid box office, it barely broke even.  The problem, of course, was that it wasn't Gone with the Wind (nothing is, quite frankly, though Titanic probably comes close enough to earn comparison)-chasing that dragon is the stuff of heartache, even for the man who initially produced it.  The film is tackier, it's less enthralling, and no aspect of the production quite lives up to that film.

If you get past that comparison, though, it's not a bad movie even if it's clearly a "bad" movie.  The film rarely makes a lot of sense, but it goes off of impulse, all id and no ego.  But it's entertaining throughout.  The score is fun, the cinematography is really horny but it works (the cameramen are obsessed with the gorgeous Jones & Peck in all of their carnal lust).  The acting is bizarre, but not boring.  Jennifer Jones, whom I've seen enough of at this point to be able to say she wasn't a very good actress, makes so many choices, swinging for the fences in every scene, but it kind of works with the unbalanced nature of the script.  Save for Beat the Devil, this is undoubtedly Jones' most intriguing performance (at least of what I've seen), and while she's not Oscar-worthy, she certainly is something.  Lillian Gish is a bit bland in the only film that she'd be nominated for an Oscar for (it's a pity it wasn't for The Wind or The Night of the Hunter instead), likely getting it with one deathbed confessional, but overall playing a kindly matron in one of Oscar's worst Supporting Actress lineups.  Butterfly McQueen is playing basically the exact same character she got in Gone with the Wind, channeling Prissy as if that will get Selznick literally back to his original movie (she's the only principle actor to appear in both films).

And as for Gregory Peck?  His casting is...a choice.  I've talked about this a bit, but it's strange that Peck would become most associated with To Kill a Mockingbird, a film where he exudes absolute no sex appeal, because his exaggerated face (big eyes, pouty lips) and lanky frame were used to make audiences thirsty in the mid-1940's, and that's definitely the case here.  He looks hot in Duel in the Sun.  The only problem here is that Peck is not meant to be playing a "sexy math teacher" vibes like he'd play in most of his films of this era, but instead is supposed to be a dangerous "bad boy you make out with under the bleachers" sort of vibes, a forbidden sexiness that you know is wrong but you can't help it.  Peck, though, is not good at this-he's too inherently decent, and playing a villain here who also has to turn you on...it just doesn't work.

The Virginian (1929)

Film: The Virginian (1929)

Stars: Cary Cooper, Walter Huston, Richard Arlen, Mary Brian, Helen Ware

Director: Victor Fleming

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Gary Cooper: click here to learn more about Mr. Cooper (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Gary Cooper's early years in Hollywood in Silent Era pictures were actually more successful than you'd think given how quickly he took off in the Sound Era.  This is partially because he was savvier & knew his value right away.  It's rare when you read about a star of this era that ended up being a big deal turning down a contract (usually that's something you lived to regret), but he did, turning down Samuel Goldwyn and signing a long-term contract with Paramount for more money, which was smart.  Cooper would star in big hits of the Silent Era like Lilac Time and Wings, the latter the first film to win the Best Picture Oscar.  But really,  while he was developing a fan base (mostly of women starstruck by how gorgeous the young Cooper was), it wasn't until The Virginian, his first sound film, that Cooper's star persona as the noble lawman was established, and that he graduated to being one of the biggest names in pictures of the early Sound Era, specifically in Westerns.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie has two men, the Virginian (Cooper) and Steve (Arlen), who are long-time friends who help run a ranch and are soon rivals for the affections of a local school teacher named Molly Stark Wood (Brian).  They enjoy playing pranks together, including one where they swap the babies at a christening to confusing (and admittedly funny consequences).  But Steve is working a side hustle for Trampas (Huston), a local cattle hustler that eventually gets him into enough trouble that he's caught stealing cattle, which is a trick that Trampas plays on his nemesis the Virginian because he knows the punishment will be Steve being hanged by the Virginian (which he is).  Initially this causes issues in his relationship with Molly, but she forgives him, agreeing to marry him...though of course we have to have one last showdown between Trampas & the Virginian to end the picture (the good guy wins).

That might sound like a standard-issue western plot, and it is, but it's worth remembering that this film (and the book it's based on) kind of created this plot.  Owen Wister's The Virginian is considered by most literary historians to be the first fictional western novel ever written, and is foundational to the genre.  This was actually the third remake of the story (the first was from 1914 and directed by Cecil B. DeMille).  It works well, honestly.  The cinematography & editing are both solid, and you can see how westerns for the next decade would borrow from this (until Stagecoach would perfect the cliches this movie wrought).  I liked some of the supporting characters the best.  Huston is great as a nasty villain, and Helen Ware is strong in a small part as a knowing old woman, giving Molly a lecture about how provincial she's being about the ways of the West, many of which she's using as an excuse not to fall for the Virginian.

Cooper is good in the part, though I will say he doesn't add a lot to it.  We're going to struggle a little bit with Cooper this month because he's such an introspective actor that I sometimes find him to be lazy onscreen, as if he's letting his jarring handsomeness, dulcet baritone, and lanky frame carry most of the work.  Cooper looks great, his eyes caked in mascara that only makes him appear prettier, and I liked his line reading of the film's most famous quote ("if you're going to call me that...smile"), but I don't feel like he creates enough myth about a figure that's supposed to be unknown.  We have a lot more Cooper this month, but my hope is that at least one movie becomes "definitive" for me about him that isn't one I've already seen.

OVP: The Furies (1950)

Film: The Furies (1950)

Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Huston, Wendell Corey, Gilbert Roland, Judith Anderson

Director: Anthony Mann

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Cinematography)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Barbara Stanwyck: click here to learn more about Ms. Stanwyck (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Barbara Stanwyck turned forty right before filming her final Oscar-cited turn in Sorry, Wrong Number, and after that, while she appeared in a number of films, she was never nominated for an Academy Award again.  Unlike actresses like Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, & Joan Crawford, the early 1950's was not filled with one last iconic role to go out on (in Davis & Crawford's case, of course, they'd extend their iconography into the 1960's by taking on each other, but that's a story for a different day).  She instead found herself working in genres atypical for women, particularly westerns, and in genres that generally didn't get women Oscar nominations for westerns (is Julie Christie in McCabe & Mrs. Miller the only one?).  This is fascinating to me because Stanwyck's career is generally considered to have waned during the 1950's, and box office receipts bear that out.  However, several of her films have since been rescued by critics (and Criterion), one of which is today's film The Furies, an Anthony Mann picture (Mann would direct most of Jimmy Stewart's best westerns, as well as the biblical epic El Cid) which is noted as one of Stanwyck's roles today.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about TC Jeffords (Huston), a nasty cattle baron who delights in cutting down the people around him, including the Herrera Family who are squatting on his property.  The one person he seems to generally love is his daughter Vance (Stanwyck), perhaps because she's inherited his cruelty & love of material pleasures.  Vance, though, doesn't hate the Herrera's, and has a romantic flirtation with their son Juan (Roland).  She also is flirting with Rip Darrow (Corey), a more conventional choice for her, but one who doesn't want a woman as headstrong as Vance, whom he dismisses when her father buys him off.  However, when her father marries a gold-digger named Flo Burnett (Anderson) their relationship becomes forlorn because she thinks she'll lose the ranch (the titular Furies), and attacks Flo, who is permanently disfigured as a result.  This sets off a chain of events with TC murdering Juan in front of his mother, and Vance buying up TC's debts from across the land, knowing that she'll win back the ranch in the process.  She gets her revenge, followed by a reconciliation with both Rip & her father, but it's upended when her father is murdered by Juan's mother.  The movie ends with Rip & Vance, now betrothed, burying TC's body on the ranch.

The movie is really good other than the ending.  There's an electricity about it that I loved, with Stanwyck's Vance intended to basically be a femme fatale in the center of a western.  The film was nominated for Best Cinematography, which was a strong choice (those western vistas look great, and there's a lot of work to make what is clearly a sound stage look authentically grand within the house).  The score & editing would've been decent inclusions as well, both sharp work.  However, the ending doesn't function for me.  Huston's character is so cruel you know he has to die, but I don't really think he's earned the hero's ending he receives, and I do wonder if the book this is based on is a bit less generous with all involved (I've never read it, though the Criterion edition does come with a copy of it so maybe I'll get there someday).  It defangs Vance, whom you want to get back at Rip more than get with him, and it feels a bit like that weird comic interlude in The Searchers in the center of what is otherwise a very serious movie.  I could've used more of the sour that made it so intoxicating in the first half.

Stanwyck, Huston, & Anderson are all terrific in this.  Stanwyck, in her viper-blonde mode (I read a review on Letterboxd where they said "never trust Barbara Stanwyck as a blonde" and it's sound advice) is delicious, totally eating up this character, and while 1950 is one of the best lineups Oscar ever assembled (not just the five nominees, but also you've got Gloria Grahame in In a Lonely Place and Betty Hutton in Annie Get Your Gun), I still will be considering her for that quintet when we get around to the 1950 OVP.  Huston is nasty two years after his Oscar win, and plays TC without a bit of remorse, quickly disowning his daughter & discarding her feelings the second they counter her own.  Anderson is also good.  She holds her own against Stanwyck in their climactic fight, but perhaps even better she has a scene late in the movie where TC asks her for money to save the Furies, and she refuses, talking about how she no longer has her beauty & she knows he doesn't love her and will eventually abandon her.  The only thing that she has to help stave off of the loneliness is her money, and it's a shockingly poignant summation of a character that would've been easy to dismiss as just a gold-digger trying to take out Vance earlier in the movie.  I loved all three, and wish that the film had not been the financial failure it ended up being for Paramount.

OVP: Of Human Hearts (1938)

Picture: Of Human Hearts (1938)

Stars: Walter Huston, James Stewart, Beulah Bondi, Gene Reynolds, Charles Coburn, John Carradine

Director: Clarence Brown

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actress-Beulah Bondi)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

We are continuing our look at some of the films of 1938 today with Of Human Hearts, a Clarence Brown religious melodrama from the era.  This was still in the time period where Jimmy Stewart, who would become one of the most important figures in Hollywood for much of the next 25 years, was finding his footing, not getting top billing even in movies where arguably he was the most important figure, and where it's clear the studio didn't really understand what they had, giving him movies that, for my money, were totally below him.  Of Human Hearts is a movie that probably resonated at the time because it was serious & about serious, run-of-the-mill people, but in retrospect it totally reads differently, and is honestly a genuinely bad movie from my perspective because it has no concept of its characters.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Jason Wilkins (Reynolds as a boy, Stewart as an adult) who is raised by a stern preacher Rev. Ethan Wilkins (Huston), one who practices what we'd consider now to be child abuse but at the time was just considered "discipline."  Jason wants to be a medical doctor, one who isn't poor & suffering like his parents make him be, but when he becomes an adult he turns his backs on them, using them for money to some degree but never really caring what happens to them, which in the case of his mother is unfortunate as she has sacrificed repeatedly for him.  In the end, Jason does learn that his mother sacrificed for him, and after a weird turn during the Civil War (more on that in a second), Jason comes home to his mother, finally learning the cruelty of his ways and gets her forgiveness.

The film suffers almost throughout for being too melodramatic for its own good.  Stewart's Jason is a selfish asshole, and there's not really an indication as to why.  I get why they don't have him redeem his relationship with his father (who is also an asshole, and one whose redemption arch I didn't really need), but why does he treat his mother like dirt, particularly after the death of his father?  There's no logical explanation, and the film suffers as a result.  Bondi definitely plays the part we're meant for her (saintly martyr mother), but it's not an interesting role, and it's a sympathetic rather than a good performance.  Oscar had much better options in other roles where she played Stewart's mother (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life).

That being said, Of Human Hearts is noteworthy for one specific reason.  Character actor John Carradine shows up late in the film (no surprise there-he showed up in hundreds of movies), as Abraham Lincoln.  The Lincoln cameo initially feels like he's giving Jason an award for his stellar medical work on the field, but it turns out this is a guise, as Lincoln, in the middle of the freaking Civil War, is giving Jason a lecture about how "he needs to write to his mother."  It's bonkers-what the hell is this even about?!?  It's so weird I almost gave this two-stars for sheer wackiness, but honestly this bizarre left turn isn't enough for me to recommend it.

OVP: Always in My Heart (1942)

Film: Always in My Heart (1942)
Stars: Kay Francis, Walter Huston, Gloria Warren, Patti Hale, Frankie Thomas, Una O'Connor
Director: Jo Graham
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Song-"Always in My Heart")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

I am sure I've told this story before, but it probably bares repeating occasionally considering it's become the heart of this blog, that is the story of why I initially restarted Many Rantings of John nearly five years ago, specifically the Oscar Viewing Project.  Part of me at the time wanted to simply see if I could pull off writing 1500 words a day, seeing if I had the skills as a writer to push myself into sitting in front of a keyboard long enough to actually accomplish something.  The second thing, though was that I wanted to be able to have a record of movies that I had seen.  I was going through a list of Best Actress contenders, and I realized upon looking at one of the films that I had virtually no memory of seeing the film.  This was (and is) relatively uncommon as if I'm known for anything it is that I can recall most things, but even upon reading a synopsis of the movie I couldn't recall anything about it, other than that I had written "2 stars" next to the nominee in my tracking grid.  As a result of that, I decided then and there that I would be writing a review of every Oscar-nominated film I saw from then on-out, so that when the time came for me to honor the goal of the OVP (and pick a winner) I would be able to rank a 2-star winner next to another without too much difficulty.

(Spoilers Ahead) As you might be able to tell, this isn't a flattering way to introduce a review, but suffice it to say Always in My Heart is the sort of film that I was thinking of when I wanted a "backlog" of movies I could not remember seeing.  The film centers around a woman named Victoria (Francis) who is in love with two men: her husband Mac (Huston), who is in jail for a crime that he didn't commit and a wealthy paramour named Philip (Sidney Blackmer), who is trying to woo the woman he assumes to be a stately widow.  The film progresses with Mac, after telling his wife that she should marry him (everyone assumes that Mac is dead, including his children), getting a pardon and coming out of jail, but because he can provide nothing but love (and a song) while Philip can give his two grown children education and status, he stays "dead."  However, a chance encounter with his daughter (Warren), who doesn't recognize him, eventually leads to the ruse being discovered and the family being reunited.

The film is at best a curiosity.  It's strange to see Gloria Warren, an actress almost completely forgotten by Hollywood, headlining a picture like this, particularly in a role that you'd expect would be portrayed by Deanna Durbin.  One wonders if Warner Brothers was trying to duplicate Universal's success with Durbin by signing Warren, but this was just one of five films she ever made, and she largely disappeared from the silver screen afterwards so it was obviously not an investment they enjoyed.  I will admit I didn't like her performance-she was too earnest, her soprano too pronounced (it feels like you're getting whiplash from the sound man), and it's hard to tell at times whether she's supposed to be twenty or twelve.  Huston and Francis, are better, but never really rising above serviceable.  Both of them had long careers at this point (as opposed to Warren), and so they could find ways to at least make relatively bland dreck at least somewhat watchable.  But both have also been much, much better.

The film would be forgotten today were it not for its random Oscar nomination for Best Song.  The song itself is fine, if a bit standard and feels like the dusty sort of tune you can find in the back of a piano bench.  Even in the film it feels old, perhaps because it is most memorably sung by Huston (who always looked older than he was), and other than the title hook, you'd be hard-pressed to remember any of the lyrics ten minutes after you watch it.  All-in-all, the only credit I can really give it is that it is the centerpiece of the movie, causing most of the action.  But that nothing really happens around it is the film's biggest indictment.

Those are my thoughts-how about yours?  Anyone out there actually have seen Always in My Heart (like I said, it's obscure unless you're an ardent fan of Francis or Huston)?  If not, anyone want to weigh in on Gloria Warren, whom I had never heard of before this picture?  Share below!

OVP: The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933)

Film: The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933)
Stars: Myrna Loy, Max Baer, Walter Huston, Otto Kruger
Director: W.S. van Dyke
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Story)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Oscar has always loved a boxer.  Sports films at the Oscars come and go-really, considering how much athletics is perched into our national psyche, it's kind of staggering that Oscar doesn't focus more on the field, but boxing has always been the exception to that rule.  I could name you ten boxing films that have been nominated for Oscars before I could name you five in all the rest of the Olympic fields.  So it was of no surprise to me when I discovered that this love has extended almost since the beginning of the Oscars.  This past week I caught The Prizefighter and the Lady, languidly perched in my DVR, which featured several real-life boxers at the time alongside MGM leading lady Myrna Loy.

(Spoilers Ahead) Prizefighter is the story of Steve (Baer), a barroom bouncer who is discovered by the Professor (Huston, because of course Walter Huston plays a character named the Professor), a retired boxing manager who sees Steve's potential.  Soon Steve is working his way up the rings of the boxing world, as well as romantically as he falls for the girlfriend of a mobster, Belle (Loy).  However, Steve has a wandering eye, and that gets him into trouble as the film progresses, as he regularly cheats on Belle even as he's on the top of the world in boxing, getting a chance at the belt and starting to become a vaudeville headliner in the process.  The film, like most of this ilk, ends with a gigantic fight, though weirdly here we get a tie rather than the expected knockout for Steve, and with him realizing that Belle was the girl for him all-along, we also get the cliched MGM happy ending.

It's always weird to judge the screenplays of early cinema, because at this point it was still a relatively recent phenomenon to have sound in the pictures, and you can tell that here.  The film's dialogue is kind of clunky, except perhaps that delivered by Loy, though with her glittering laugh and delivery she can make bon mots out of anything.  As a result, I'm surprised it was sighted for screenplay, though really there weren't a lot of options at the time (that being said, this came out the same year as King Kong, so there were certainly better options).  The film feels relatively basic, and even if it was inventing a story that everyone from Rocky to Million Dollar Baby would fall into the shadow of, it's not that interesting of a story to begin with.

However, the point of boxing films isn't necessarily the writing, but instead what happens in the ring, and here we've got a slight improvement.  Seeing Baer fight against Carnera is fascinating, particularly considering this bout would be a precursor to when Baer would defeat Carnera the following year in real-life and actually take the title (rumor has it he used what he picked up about their fight in Prizefighter to defeat Carnera in real-life).  Additionally, you have Jack Dempsey, another champion, in the same ring as the referee.  If for no other reason that the sheer curiosity factor of seeing actual, real-life boxers act and play a part in a movie, this is probably worth seeing even if the story surrounding it isn't very good.  Additionally, Myrna Loy, one of my favorites (it's still smarting that I couldn't include her in this rundown) is wonderful and the best part about the actual cinematic aspects of the film, even if this isn't one of her "great" roles like Nora Charles.

There you have it-it's 2/5 because I can't properly recommend the film as it's pretty bland, but there are enough curiosities of history and for Loy fans to make it worthwhile to a point.  Don't seek it out, but if it's on TCM you don't need to change the channel.  At least those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Share what you think of boxing movies, Myrna Loy, and Oscar's weird fascination with one (but unfortunately not the other) in the comments.