OVP: The Pied Piper (1942)

Film: The Pied Piper (1942)

Stars: Monty Woolley, Roddy McDowall, Anne Baxter, Otto Preminger, J. Carrol Naish, Peggy Ann Garner

Director: Irving Pichel

Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Picture, Actor-Monty Woolley, Cinematography)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Anne Baxter-click here to learn more about Ms. Baxter (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Anne Baxter got into movies pretty quickly and with quite a bit of success early on.  She was only a teenager when she started to get star billing at Fox, first with the 1941 film noir Swamp Water.  A year later, she would appear in two Best Picture nominees, one of which would later be considered one of the great films of the era, The Magnificent Ambersons (which she made on loan to RKO), but that is a film I have seen (and loved) of Baxter's several times, and the goal with this series is always for me to watch (hopefully signature) films I hadn't seen of a performer for the first time.  As a result, we're going to focus today on the other Best Picture contender that Anne Baxter was in from 1942, a hit film that helped add luster to her growing leading lady status, but for which she is definitely playing second billing to another breakout star of 1942, Monty Woolley.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is focused on Howard (Woolley), a curmudgeonly old British man who detests being corrected & being around children.  When war breaks out, and Howard decides it is important for him to return to Britain in solidarity, he is asked to bring two children (McDowall & Garner) with him, as their parents are joining the war effort.  They venture forward, and soon we find that Howard is a bit of a pied piper (hence the title) leading a half dozen children out of war-torn Europe toward America.  Along the way he meets Nicole (Baxter), a French woman who romanced Howard's now-dead son, and they form an alliance that is nearly disrupted when Major Diessen (Preminger, in a rare acting role), a Nazi commander, imprisons them, but after finally believing that Howard truly is trying to save the children, he adds one of his own (a young girl who is half-German and half-Jewish), knowing what awaits her in Hitler's Germany.  The film ends with Howard finally embracing his grandfatherly position, excited to help these children get to safety.

The film is meant to be a happy wartime effort, and it is.  I always find movies about World War II made during World War II (the most famous being Casablanca) to be fascinating, mostly because it's essentially Hollywood making well-constructed propaganda, not ultimately knowing what will happen.  We take for granted years later that a film like The Pied Piper has a happy ending, but this wasn't something that was known in 1942-the ending has a degree of uncertainty even if it's hopeful.  This contradiction (where Hollywood doesn't know how to end the movie fully) is one of the more interesting things about The Pied Piper.

This is because the film itself is quite dull.  Woolley is terrific in his other star-making role of 1942 in the Christmas classic The Man Who Came to Dinner, but while he's wearing a similar routine here, it's a bit tired & doesn't really work.  Woolley is great at playing erudite snobs, but he's not as strong as playing obstinate men who fight the war effort, and while it's fun to think of him being this man who will stand up to the entire Third Reich, the film's relationship between he & Preminger's Nazi suspends belief so high you're going to need to a telescope.  Combined with him not really being able to pull off the film's schlockier moments, the movie falls apart, and Woolley, though a treat in his best scenes, is totally unprepared for this character, which probably needed someone better at straight drama.

Baxter's role is secondary-this is most definitely a supporting part, and not a well-drawn one at that.  The Indiana-born actress does a decent French accent (kudos for trying-most stars of that era wouldn't have), but that's about all she is asked to do.  Baxter's strength is melodrama, but the tonal shifts in this film (and Woolley's inability to roll with them) doesn't allow her to really capitalize on the film's weightiest moments.

OVP: The Longest Day (1962)

Film: The Longest Day (1962)
Stars: John Wayne, Richard Todd, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Red Buttons, Peter Lawford, Eddie Albert, Jeffrey Hunter, Stuart Whitman, Rod Steiger, Leo Genn, George Segal, Paul Anka, Fabian, Roddy McDowall, Tommy Sands, Curd Jurgens, Frank Finlay, Sal Mineo, Richard Beymer, Robert Wagner, Alexander Knox, Edmond O'Brien, Mel Ferrer, Arletty
Director: Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, & Bernhard Wicki
Oscar History: 5 nominations/2 wins (Best Picture, Art Direction, Editing, Cinematography*, Special Effects*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Does size matter?  That's the question looming over much of The Longest Day, our last film in a week dedicated to Best Editing nominees.  The Longest Day might well have deserved a nomination for least edited film, considering it clocks in at three hours long, and it's honestly very difficult to review, as we'll find below.  The film was gargantuan at the time, one as you see above that's filled with star cameos (we'll get into this in the review), and one that cost upwards of $8 million at the time, but earned that back 4x over to a sum of $30 million (the modern day equivalent of about $250 million, a blockbuster by any standard).  The movie is certainly big, and something to behold-the war film is realistic, frequently showing unfathomable aerial and maritime shots, and it's an achievement, without a doubt.  The question I kept coming back to as I watched the (VERY) long war movie is...is it any good?

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is told in a somewhat documentary style (at least by 1960's standards), with characters identified with name plates rather than more expositional dialogue, and focuses on the lead-up to D-Day.  The planning & battle are really the central characters in the movie; no character takes on the role of "lead" in the film, though certain actors like John Wayne & Robert Mitchum are in more of the movie than most of the cast-of-characters (today everyone would be marketed as a supporting actor here, but I suspect these two would've been lead if the film had scored acting nominations).  Again, especially in a pre-The Wild Bunch era, the film is merciless in its body count, even if the effect of the violence isn't what it would be in later war classics simply due to keeping the obvious bloodshed off screen.

For a three-hour movie, you'd expect a longer summary paragraph, but The Longest Day is unusual because it doesn't really have a proper narrative story.  The film's script is its weakest asset not just because there's no character development, but also because other than D-Day, there's no real story.  To a modern audience member, The Longest Day is weird because I don't have the "I lived through it" mentality that most people in 1962 would have of the sheer size & scope of D-Day (even if you weren't at Normandy at the time, most would've lived through the war, read about this in the newspaper, and heard from people they knew who were at Normandy).  As a result, you have to be a student-of-history to know a lot of the names flashing up onscreen, and while I knew some of them, I didn't know all, and with no character development or better grounding of the D-Day invasion's place in the war, the movie lacks a bit of context, and occasionally even purpose.

The star cameos by this point in the 1960's had become a recurring theme in epic films (look at Around the World in 80 Days or Pepe for other examples), and this would prove to be the biggest for this trend.  There are so many it becomes kind of like a game of "Where's Waldo" with certain faces.  You're like "oh, there's Mel Ferrer" or "I think that's Red Buttons," but the shocking thing about it is how many of these cameos are onscreen for mere seconds.  I had to rewind to confirm the Sean Connery scene, and Roddy McDowall's face is onscreen for roughly a minute.  This makes the movie one I'd theoretically re-watch just to confirm I caught all of the cameos, but it also means you aren't really emotionally-invested in the characters onscreen, just in awe of the cast.  It's too much-the film feels bloated and sort of a "so what" by the end of the picture.

And so I'm going with 2-stars here, which I honestly didn't think I would pick.  The Longest Day is very watchable, and the technical achievements are impressive.  The visual effects are glorious, extensive, and surely cost a fortune, particularly the aerial & maritime shoots.  Ditto the cinematography, which shot from the air, land, or sea is fascinating & beautiful-this is one of the last black-and-white films of the era to really capture a sense of majesty in the camerawork (it seems like most of the best cinematographers had moved to color photography by this era).  The editing is easy to mock because of the film's length, but it has extended longshots (also a nod to the cinematographer) on the beach that gave the film a smoother focus, and while you don't care about the characters, you're never bored-there's always "more, more, more" coming at you visually.  Best of the bunch is the art direction, meticulously recreating multiple battle scenes, war rooms, and seemingly a whole, destructed town.

But technical achievements, while novel at the time, don't make a strong movie, and in many ways this feels like Transformers or Armageddon with a better cast-it's large, advanced, and surely meant a lot at the time, but in retrospect it feels bloated, without any sense of passion, and is using the memory of one of the 20th Century's most important days to coast on not having anything to say.

Child Actors and Best Picture

On Thursday of this week we'll see a host of some of the luckiest and happiest people in Hollywood (and an equally large number of people who will be grumbling and firing their agents) as the Oscar nominations will be announced.  In honor of this, we'll be looking at three articles of Oscar trivia heading up to this most blessed of days, starting with our first one today, regarding (as the title would suggest) child actors and Best Picture.

Everyone is aware that it's quite unusual to be nominated before the age of 18 if you're an actor.  In fact, throughout the Academy's entire history only 18 people have done it.  However, it's also quite difficult to land a role in two different Best Picture nominations before you hit 18.  While many well-known actors eventually gain roles in a Best Picture nominee or two, doing so before you've reached adulthood is extremely difficult.  This year, Daniel Huttlestone may well join in on such a list.  Huttlestone, for those who are not having any lights go off when I type that name, played Gavroche in Les Miserables two years ago and is now Jack in Into the Woods, which is right at the edge of many people's Best Picture predictions.  Were he to do this, he would join a very select group of people who have accomplished such a feat.

I will note that the list below of ten actors that have done this is probably not conclusive, but it's the best I could do after a massive search through the chasms of Wikipedia.  If you know any other actors, please share them in the comments and you will have both my gratitude and cited credit after I edit the post to include your factoid.  Until then, however, here are ten actors that have all had two Best Picture nominees released before they turned eighteen (in alphabetical order).

Freddie Bartholomew (1924-1992)

First Best Picture: David Copperfield (1935), where he played the title character
Second Best Picture: Captains Courageous (1937), where he played Harvey Cheyne and somehow got top-billing over Spencer Tracy
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 4812 days (13 years, 2 months, 3 days)
Oscar-Nominated?: No, despite the Juvenile Oscar being an option at the time and him being arguably one of the biggest Box Office draws of the 1930's, he never won an Oscar.
Other Best Picture Nominees: None-Bartholomew's career would go heavily down-the-tubes when he hit adulthood, and he would have a series of financial and personal problems for the rest of his life.

Jackie Cooper (1922-2011)

First Best Picture: Skippy (1931), where he played the title character
Second Best Picture: The Champ (1931), where he played Dink and got second billing to Wallace Beery, who won the Oscar.
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 3342 days (9 years, 1 month, 25 days), which is the youngest any actor has ever achieved such a feat to date.
Oscar-Nominated?: Yes-Cooper became the youngest person in Oscar history to be nominated for Best Actor, though he lost to Lionel Barrymore who was 44 years his senior.
Other Best Picture Nominees: None, though he would go on to have a significant role in the Superman movies as Perry White.

Deanna Durbin (1921-2013)

First Best Picture: Three Smart Girls (1936), where she played Penny Craig
Second Best Picture: One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937), where she plays Patsy Cardwell
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 5754 days (15 years, 9 months, 1 day)
Oscar-Nominated?: Deanna Durbin, the girl who saved Universal Studios from declaring bankruptcy, won a Juvenile Oscar in 1938 after being one of the country's biggest box office draws for several years.
Other Best Picture Nominees: Nope-Durbin enjoyed strong success in her late teens and early twenties (she was the second highest-salaried woman in the United States in 1946, second only to Bette Davis), but eventually audiences waned and she become something of a recluse despite truly magnificent roles being offered to her like the leads in Kiss Me Kate and My Fair Lady on Broadway.

Elle Fanning (1998-Present)

First Best Picture: Babel (2006), where she played the daughter of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett
Second Best Picture: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), where she once again starred opposite Pitt and Blanchett, playing a younger version of the latter.
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 3913 days (10 years, 8 months, 16 days)
Oscar-Nominated?: Not yet-neither she nor her sister have been nominated, though it sort of feels like one of them might strike eventually.
Other Best Picture Nominees: None to speak of, though she has a lead role in Maleficent this past year which could score a few nominations on Thursday.

Bonita Granville (1923-1988)

First Best Picture: Cavalcade (1933), where she played Young Fanny (Cavalcade is one of the few films profiled here that actually won the Best Picture trophy)
Second Best Picture: Little Women (1933), where Granville gets an uncredited role as a classmate of Amy's.
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 3940 days (10 years, 9 months, 14 days)
Oscar-Nominated?: Yes, Granville would go on to be one of the youngest Oscar nominees ever in 1936 when she was cited for These Three in the first year that Best Supporting Actress was a category (though she lost to Gale Sondergaard in Anthony Adverse).
Other Best Picture Nominees: None, though she had to have gotten close with Now, Voyager in 1942.

Roddy McDowall (1928-1998)

First Best Picture: How Green Was My Valley (1941), where he plays Huw, Maureen O'Hara's younger brother in the film that famously beat Citizen Kane for the Best Picture trophy.
Second Best Picture: The Pied Piper (1942), a largely forgotten film from 20th Century FOX where McDowall plays a character named Ronnie
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 5086 days (13 years, 11 months, 4 days)
Oscar-Nominated?: No, though he came extraordinarily close in 1963.  A mix-up when FOX was submitting for lead vs. supporting for Cleopatra caused McDowall, who was personally popular and just had received a Golden Globe nomination, to be submitted as lead when he was clearly supporting.  Had that not happened, he probably would have gotten his sole Oscar nod, and perhaps even beaten Melvyn Douglas in Hud.
Other Best Picture Nominees: For the first time, yes!  McDowall stayed active for most of his life, and went on to star in two Best Picture nominees: The Longest Day (1962) and Cleopatra (1963).

Haley Joel Osment (1988-Present)

First Best Picture: Forrest Gump (1994), where Osment played the title character's son (the film went on to win Best Picture)
Second Best Picture: The Sixth Sense (1999), where Osment became a star by seeing dead people.
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 4131 days (11 years, 3 months, 23 days)
Oscar-Nominated?: Yes, Osment became one of the youngest nominees ever when he landed a nomination for playing Cole in The Sixth Sense, though he lost the award to Michael Caine in The Cider House Rules.
Other Best Picture Nominees: None to speak of, though I've always thought he gave an Oscar-worthy piece of work in AI and he's apparently quite funny in The Spoils of Babylon.

Mickey Rooney (1920-2014)

First Best Picture: A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), where Rooney played Puck opposite the likes of Dick Powell, Olivia de Havilland, and Anita Louise
Second Best Picture: Boys Town (1938), though unlike with Captains Courageous Spencer Tracy got top-billing here.
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 6560 days (17 years, 11 months, 17 days)-Mickey makes this list by just under two weeks.
Oscar-Nominated?: Rooney is by far the biggest star on this list, and went on to win a Juvenile Award in 1938 (alongside Deanna Durbin), as well as four Oscar nominations.  Two were as a lead: Babes in Arms in 1939 (losing to Robert Donat) and The Human Comedy in 1943 (losing to Paul Lukas) and two in supporting: The Bold and the Brave in 1956 (losing to Anthony Quinn) and The Black Stallion in 1979 (losing to Melvyn Douglas).  Rooney won an Honorary Oscar at the 1982 Oscars as well.
Other Best Picture Nominees: Rooney made so many movies I may have missed one, but by my count the only other Best Picture nominee he was in was The Human Comedy in 1943.

Quvenzhane Wallis (2003-Present)

First Best Picture: Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), where she played the main character of Hushpuppy
Second Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave (2013), where she had a blink-and-you'll-miss-it role as Solomon Northup's daughter (the film of course won Best Picture)
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 3655 days (10 years, 2 days)
Oscar-Nominated?: Wallis received an Oscar nomination and became the youngest person ever nominated for Best Actress with Beasts of the Southern Wild but lost to Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook.
Other Best Picture Nominees: None so far, but she may well win a Golden Globe tonight, as she's nominated for Annie.

Virginia Weidler (1927-1968)

First Best Picture: All This and Heaven Too (1940), where she plays one of Charles Boyer's daughters
Second Best Picture: The Philadelphia Story (1940), where she plays the younger sister of Kate Hepburn and has a very memorable turn on the piano.
Age at Release of Second Best Picture: 5029 days (13 years, 9 months, 5 days)
Oscar-Nominated?: Nope, and she also missed out on the Juvenile Award despite no one winning it in 1940 and she being a prime contender considering she had two roles in Best Picture nominees.
Other Best Picture Nominees: None-Weidler largely retired and became extremely private (in a similar fashion to Deanna Durbin), never doing interviews after her retirement at the age of sixteen.

And there you have it folks-feeling a bit unaccomplished?  Do you think that Daniel Huttlestone will be able to join this list on Thursday, or will Into the Woods remain at-large?  Which of these actors was the most surprising?  And if you have any others, please let me know and I will credit you in the article!

OVP: The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

Film: The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
Stars: Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Carol Lynley, Roddy McDowell, Shelley Winters, Jack Albertson, Arthur O'Connell, Leslie Nielsen
Director: Irwin Allen and Ronald Neame
Oscar History: A stunning 8 nominations and 2 wins, one of them a special award for Visual Effects (Best Supporting Actress-Shelley Winters, Best Original Song-"The Morning After"*, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score-John Williams, Best Sound, Best Costume, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and a special Oscar for Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I have to admit, right off the bat, that I was skeptical going into this movie.  If you search back far enough in this blog, you'll find that I loathe the movie Airport, and that has thus far been my only major disaster film of the 1970's, though the OVP offers up a bevy of additional disaster films that I will be partaking in.  Aside from Maureen Stapleton's underrated performance, there was little to lend Airport to me as a viewer, and while I enjoy a blockbuster as much as the next person, and I love a star-filled cast more than the next person, I was not particularly pleased when The Poseidon Adventure popped out of my Netflix sleeve.

Imagine my surprise, then, that I was absolutely riveted throughout the film .  The film opens with a stock cast of characters, and for all intents and purposes, they really could just be Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Gene Hackman, etc., for it's nearly impossible to remember any actors' name, outside of Shelley Winters' Mrs. Rosen (more on that below).  But this works in blockbusters-you need charisma to sell a large-scale action adventure (casting directors who keep hiring Victoria's Secret models and Shia LaBeouf, take note), and you don't get more charismatic than this cast.  Yes, it would be nice to see an acting roster that includes five Oscar winners do a little more heavy-lifting, but everyone needs a relaxing day in the water and a giant paycheck to go with it.

(SPOILER ALERT THROUGHOUT) The capsizing of the ship is almost certainly the best sequence in the movie, and is actually a nail-biter.  This is the 70's, and so you know you're going to be losing some big name actors right away as opposed to saving them to the bitter end (hardly knew you, Leslie Nielsen and Arthur O'Connell!), so there's genuine suspense to see if everyone's going to make it.  The hanging from the ceiling, and the film's continuing body count, make the film a bit darker than it would be today, and it's unnerving to know this is likely how things would play out-most people waiting for help, most people not making it out alive-it is a capsized ocean liner in the middle of the Atlantic we're talking about here.

One by one, the characters all start to perish, and we get to see some truly spellbinding stunts, with all of the actors roaming through crevices and tunnels around the ship.  Not to harp on modern cinema too much, but the reality is that we know when it's really just an actor or stunt double in front of a green-screen these days.  I know it isn't as cost effective, but occasionally it'd be nice to see special effects the Irwin Allen way-with giant sets, shooting fire and water, and genuine claustrophobia on-screen.  Today, we'd likely be taken out of the ship on a regular basis to see the rescue mission.  By keeping us trapped in the ship the entire film, instead of pulling us out, we get the same sort of desperate relief when the cast sees light pouring out of the ship for the first time.

There's a lot of Oscar nominations to discuss here, so I'll say first that the editing, score, and art direction are all top notch, but in the cases of the Editing and Art Direction (as well as almost every other category), they're competing against The Godfather and Cabaret, so it's tough to see it having a shot at my vote.  Ditto the Costumes and Cinematography, which are just fine, but nothing to write home about, and the Sound is loud, but doesn't strike a strong balance with the surroundings often enough, relying too heavily on the iconic score (written by my favorite John Williams, and probably the best shot it has at an Oscar win from my ballot, since Nino Rota's score is ineligible, though if I'm being honest, I probably prefer John Addison's work in Sleuth).  And though it wasn't a competitive category at the time, it's hard to see any film beating it for Visual Effects.

But you want to hear about the two highest profile of the nominations of the film, Best Original Song, it's only competitive win, and Shelley Winters final Oscar nomination in the category that adored her, Best Supporting Actress.  Maureen McGovern's lilting ballad certainly works in the film, though it's odd that after being performed by Carol Lynley, it isn't really referred back to throughout the score.  While most people of my generation are probably best familiar with the song from South Park, it works in the context of the film, and in a very weak year (in which I haven't seen a single one of the other nominees, but judging on reputation it's going to be an unfortunate weekend), it's got a head start as the "right" choice.

Shelley Winters is, I will say, the best of the cast.  Borgnine and Hackman, while both strong leading men, seem to have too much ego with not enough backstory to show why, and Red Buttons seems wildly out-of-place and way too old to be dating Carol Lynley.  I would have liked to have seen Roddy McDowell more, but mostly because I find McDowell wildly underused as an actor and I revel every time I see his handsome face.  Winters alternates from some lovely work-a very realistic, if overbearing, scene in the dining car highlights that sort of abrasive sweetness that is Winters' wheelhouse (see also A Place in the Sun), but she also flails badly when she decides that she needs to start ACTING, particularly when she has resigned herself to death 2-3 times in the movie.  This is oddly my first Best Supporting Actress performance of 1972, so we shall see where this takes us, but I've got to admit that I like Susan Tyrell's and Eileen Heckart's odds a bit more after seeing this movie.

What about you?  Do you have a favorite 1970's disaster film (after this I can't wait to investigate The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, and The Swarm!)?  Who was best in show?  How many of The Poseidon Adventure's nominations should have resulted in wins?  And was Shelley Winters robbed by Eileen Heckart in her quest for a third Oscar?

OVP: Lassie Come Home (1943)

Film: Lassie Come Home (1943)
Stars: Roddy McDowell, Donald Crisp, May Whitty, Edmund Gwenn, Elsa Lanchester, Nigel Bruce, Elizabeth Taylor
Director: Fred M. Wilcox
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Cinematography-Color)
Snap Judgment Rating: 4/5 stars

"A classic is something everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read," said Mark Twain, and occasionally, it feels that way with the cinema.  Granted, movies like Casablanca and The Godfather are well worth everyone's time and some of my favorites, but I kind of see his point.  I've invested the time in a movie like The Jazz Singer-I was better off with the random AFI clips than actually seeing the film.  The Birth of a Nation has moved to the bottom of my Netflix list more times than I can count.  So I went into this movie, the cinema's first introduction to the most beloved dog committed to celluloid (sorry Rin Tin Tin) with a bit of hesitation.  It hasn't survived in the sense that The Wizard of Oz or The Miracle on 34th Street have-I was guessing that I'd run into a saccharine, bloated nightmare of a film that would be two parts treacle and one part "aged poorly."  Thankfully, this was (mostly) not the case.

The movie is about a young boy whose parents (Donald Crisp and Elsa Lanchester, who really does look like Shirley Jones in this film, doesn't she?) have sold his dog to a rich Duke and his granddaughter, but the dog keeps running back to his master, played by an adorable Roddy McDowell.  The Duke, however, is bound for Scotland, and thinks this is the end of the running away since the boy and his family live in Yorkshire, England.  Of course, the dog has other plans and starts a wild adventure home that has been told countless times with both dogs and war horses alike.

The movie has just enough sense not to focus too much on any one particular set of British character actors for very long.  Nigel Bruce is his boisterous self as the Duke, and in one of her earliest roles, a young Elizabeth Taylor plays his granddaughter.  Liz is almost certainly the most identified character in the promotions for the film these days (outside of the collie), but she has a bit role and the dog quickly moves on to a host of characters, most notably Dame May Whitty, who plays a lonely old woman who takes in the dog after he swims into England, and Edmund Gwenn, free of his Santa Claus beard and armed with the most adorable of little dogs named Toots (which in my opinion steals the film's second act away from Lassie herself).  The ending of the film, as expected, brings tears to your eyes right around the time the entire town recognizes this brave dog, limping her way back to her owner.  Only a heart of stone could stay intact while watching dog and owner reunited, even if you've seen it copied in a hundred other movies and know that there's quite a bit of sap to mingle with those tears of joy.

The Cinematography, the only aspect of the film to be nominated, is handsome and shiny technicolor, but like most technicolor, it becomes a bit much at times and somewhat distracting and saturated.  Overall, though, Leonard Smith, who three years later would win a shiny golden man for the equally revered The Yearling, finds a strong light throughout the movie.

What about you?  What are your fondest memories of Hollywood's Best in Show?  Do you also think that Elsa Lanchester bares a resemblance to Mrs. Partridge?  And what child stars do you wish had followed Roddy McDowell and Elizabeth Taylor's leads and become stars as adults?