1948-1957: Oscar’s Third Decade – A Look Back

On The Waterfront was my favorite movie from this decade – and definitely the best poster yet

The 1950s’s Oscars – and 1950s pop culture in general – gets a pretty bad rap as white-washed, conformist and undaring. A lot of Oscar history books tend to throw out phrases like “Worst Collection of Best Picture nominees ever” (for 1956 from The Academy Awards Handbook) or “Least Deserving Best Picture Winner of All Time (For The Greatest Show on Earth from multiple sources including Alternate Oscars and The Official Razzie Movie Guide). However, I enjoyed this 10-pack of films much more than the previous decade of Oscar winners (even if none could match Casablanca). I felt that the movies began to “speed up,” by which I mean directors added more cuts and edits to make the movie feel faster as opposed to the relatively static filming styles of earlier times). Movies started to have a more modern look and feel as the science behind movie making advanced in this time period.

The third decade of Oscars also had a much more eclectic “something for everyone” nature to their themes and styles than what came in the previous decade. Most Best pictures from 1938-1947 were divided into the dual themes of either World War II or social ills and most (except for the extravagant Gone With the Wind) were middle-to-low-budget affairs, due to World War II cutbacks and the nature of the stories (a movie about alcoholism, for example, doesn’t need elaborate sets of shots of epic grandeur). From 1948-1957, the themes, styles and budgets of the Best Picture winners are all over the place. We start with a sparse recreation of a classic stage play, then move back to social ills with All the King’s Men, but on a larger scope than your Lost Weekends and Gentleman’s Agreements. Then we hit some lavish, big-budget, all color extravaganzas before heading to the smaller personal stories of On the Waterfront and Marty before going bigger than ever before in shooting style and budget with Around the World in 80 Days and the Bridge on the River Kwai.

 

	Corrupt Authority /Society	Small Scale	Epic/Big Budg	World War II	Social Ills	Sex	Modern Times	Gross
1948: Hamlet	X	X				X		$3.25M (17)
1949: All the Kings Men	X				X	X	X	$3.5M (10)
1950: All About Eve						X	X	$3.6M (7)
1951: An American in Paris			X				X	$4.5M (6)
1952: The Greatest Show on Earth			X				X	$14M (1)
1953: From Here to Eternity	X		X	X	X	X	X	$12.5M (2)
1954: On the Waterfront	X	X			X		X	$4.5M (14)
1955: Marty		X					X	$2M
1956: Around the World in 80 Days			X					$23M (2)
1957: The Bridge on the River Kwai	X		X	X			X	$17.1M (1)

 

A few interesting common themes do emerge. In almost every one of these movies – even the seemingly incongruous Hamlet – there is a corrupt society or authority figure. Whereas the World War II era of movies showed a decided trust in leadership, the McCarthy Red Scare and perhaps other factors clearly altered the public’s faith in those who were supposed to guide them.

Did the public’s fear of Communism lead to so many Best Pictures about corrupt or broken authority and leadership?

Movies also began to look back on World War II with a more introspective, less rah-rah perspective then presented during the actual time of the War. Both Best Pictures dealing with World War II in this decade have bullying, corrupt and foolish leadership (Interestingly, From Here to Eternity was released at the tail end of the Korean War, a war considerably less popular and triumphant than World War II). Did the passage of time allow those who lived through the war to reconsider it, as appeared to happen in the 1920s and30s with movies dealing with World War I? Did the greater ambiguities and indecisive outcome of the Korean War change the public’s overall perception of war?

Alec Guinness deluded Colonel Nicholson is a huge departure from the dignified leaders of the 40s

Another interesting note is the overall alignment between commercial and Oscar success. Between 1948 and 1957, 7 out of the 10 winners were in the top ten for their respective year’s box office and two were the number one movie for the year. Compare that to the past decade’s winners, when no Best Picture winners made their year’s top ten .There is a not altogether unfair assumption that today’s Oscar’s are out of touch with popular appeal, but that certainly did not appear to be the case in the late 40’s and 50s.

Here’s how the collective themes of the third decade stack up to the last ten Best Picture winners.

	Corrupt Authority /Society	Small Scale	Epic/ Big Budg	World War II	Social Ills	Sex	Modern Times	Gross
2004: Million Dollar Baby		X					X	$216M
2005: Crash	X				X	X	X	$98M
2006: The Departed	X?						X	$90M
2007: No Country for Old Men							X	$171M
2008: Slumdog Millionaire	X?						X	$378M
2009: The Hurt Locker		X					X	$49M
2010: The King’s Speech								$414M
2011: The Artist		X						$133M
2012: Argo								$232M
2013: 12 Years a Slave	X							$187M

 

Period pieces are generally considered good Oscar bait and while this is true for technical categories like Art Direction (aka sets) and Costumes, this assumption clearly holds no water the 1940s-50 Best Picture winners or in today’s winners. In fact, even though the last four Best Picture winners could be considered period pieces under a rather broad definition (a movie set 30 or more years in the past where the look, dress and actions of the characters purposefully reflect the given time period), none of those movies really represent the haughty Merchant Ivory type fair that people really think of when describing a period piece (Calling Argo a period piece for example seems strange but it technically fits the definition).

Those sideburns are definitely period piece

Strangely, despite our increased distrust of big government, few Best Pictures of the last yen years represent a broken society or authority. (12 Years a Slave and Crash being the obvious exceptions. Slumdog Millionaire is a strange case in that the broken society is what ultimately provides the hero the keys to success. ) In fact, Kings Speech and Argo present government leaders and agencies working hard for the common good.

SEX! SEX! SEX! It’s on everybody’s minds in the 50s

Another interesting note: While we typically think of the 60s as the advent of the sexual revolution and increasing depictions of sexuality on the screen, a surprising number of the 1950s Best Pictures deal with sexuality in some form, usually with at least a hint of scandal to them (dating back to Hamlet, where Olivier intentionally gave emphasis to Hamlet’s obsession with his mother’s sex life). Several of the Best Picture winners had affairs between unmarried people or extramarital affairs. Meanwhile, one could argue the last decade’s collection of Best Picture winners are among the least sexy – and sexless – collection of movies ever assembled.

…well, maybe not hers

1949: All the King’s Men

Now that’s a tag line!

“I don’t need money. People gives me things because they believe in me.” – WIllie Stark (Broderick Crawford) on the merits of the political system, All the King’s Men.

The Academy Awards closed out the 1940s by celebrating a scathing indictment of America’s political system run amuck.

All the King’s Men, 1949’s Best Picture is a terrific movie featuring some really great performances, especially Broderick Crawford as a scheming politician who morphs from well-meaning do-gooder to all-powerful dictator, Breaking Bad style, over the course of two hours. Unlike a lot of the social ill movies that had previously won Best Picture, All the King’s Men doesn’t offer any sort of answer to fix the problem. In fact, the villain, the corrupt politician, is the main character of the movie, an early anti-hero who is captivating in just how easily he wins over the people despite his wicked ways.

Best Actor Winner Broderick Crawford as hick politician-turned-near-dictator Willie Stark

All the King’s Men is loosely based on the life of noted Louisiana politician Huey Long (or as a snooty English major would say, All the King’s Men is a roman à clef). Crawford pays Willie Stark, a self-described hick, who we’re lead to believe is an “honest man” because about 30 different people describe him that way in the first 15 minutes of the film. Stark is being pushed around in his campaign to become county treasure of a small rural town controlled by a yokel machine (Having worked around rural politics for a number of years, I found these early scenes to be eerily truthful). Stark is championed by Jack Bender, a newspaper reporter suffering from liberal guilt due to his own financially successful family. Stark loses his election, but when his cause cèlèbre – the faulty construction of a local schoolhouse – proves prescient, he is catapulted into state politics.

At first Stark is used as a pawn in the electoral machine, a way to split the vote between the rural sect to get an urban punk elected. But when Stark starts using inflammatory speeches and playing to his constituents’ emotions, he wins over the crowds. Once he’s elected governor, anything goes. Stark hires Bender as a hatchet man to keep dirt on both friends and enemies he needs to control. Increasingly power hungry, arrogant and womanizing, Stark seems unstoppable in his quest for power.

Stark at the height of power

All the King’s Men offers a lot of interesting insight into the American political landscape, not just of the 1940s but even as it carries over into today’s world. Foremost is its examination of the cult of personality that plays into any popular election. Stark doesn’t win the election because he’s the best educated – he actually picks up steam when he stops spouting “facts and figures” and just uses emotional rhetoric. His natural charisma is what wins him over with voters and keeps him popular even as his various corrupt deeds are revealed. The system Willie has to work with is also shown to be broken. Yes, Willie has to bribe and blackmail, but the movie also suggests that’s the only way to get anything done (not unlike the moral quandaries that faced Jeremy Renner’s sympathetic mayor in last year’s American Hustle).

I liked this movie because it didn’t force feed its message in ways other “social ill” movies like The Lost Weekend did and there’s no easy answer to the problem like The Lost Weekend provides. The system as a whole is filled with flaws and taken advantage of by corrupt men. Willie is a great complex character too. He isn’t just an innocent babe in the woods whose naivety leads to his folly. He’s always shown to have a streak of ambition in him, but he loses all control once he gains power. He also does do a lot of good while in office – building highways and hospitals – even if his motives aren’t necessary pure and the deals he cuts to get the jobs done are far from ethical.

My only complaint about All the King’s Men was its ending. Without giving it away, I will say it was rather abrupt and I really felt like it needed an extra five minutes to give some closure to the characters who weren’t Willie. But overall, All the King’s Men remains an exciting political thriller and fascinating character study of modern politics.

Other Oscars Won: Broderick Crawford (Best Actor), Mercedes McCambridge (Best Supporting Actress)

Other Notable Movies of 1949: Battleground*, The Heiress*, A Letter to Three Wives*,Twelve O’Clock High*, Samson and Delilah#, Sands of Iwo Jima, The Bicycle Thief, White Heat, Under Capricorn, Adam’s Rib

*Best Picture Nominee

#Top Grossing Movie of the Year

1948 Hamlet

“This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind.” – Narrator, dumbing down the plot of Hamlet

Hamlet, 1948’s Best Picture, is an unusual case among Oscar winners. Although many Best Pictures are adaptions of plays or books, Hamlet is the only one that is an adaptation of a classic renowned piece of literature you are most likely required to read in high school (there’s never been a Dickens adaption that won Best Picture, for example) (I suppose All Quiet on the Western Front now falls into the required high school reading list, but it was a relatively new book when it was made into a movie). Also because it’s Shakespeare, Hamlet is one of the most “play-ish” movies to ever win Best Picture although director Laurence Olivier employs many of the popular noir film techniques of the day to spruce things up.

Since I assume everyone’s read Hamlet, I will give only a brief synopsis of the plot. Hamlet (Olivier), the prince of Denmark is depressed following his father’s death and the subsequent remarriage of his mother, Gertrude (Eileen Herlie) to his father’s brother, Claudius (Basil Sydney). Hamlet’s father’s ghost reveals to his son that Claudius, in fact, murdered the king and charges Hamlet with getting revenge. Hamlet, in a quandary about the situation, opts to feign madness in order to ferret out the truth, leaving a trail of havoc and death in his wake, mostly focused on his on-and-off again girlfriend Ophelia (Jean Simmons) and her father, Polonius (Felix Aylmer), the king’s pompous advisor.

I’m 82% sure Olivier dyed his hair for the role, and if so, it looks TERRIBLE

So anyway, if you can remember Hamlet from high school or college English, you probably know what you are getting into here. Of note to English majors, is Olivier’s decision to cut three major characters – Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Fortenbras – from the story as part of an overall slimming down of the story. The actual play runs four hours (!) (Kenneth Branaugh made a full version of it in the 1990s) and this movie clocks in at a trim(ish) 2.5. As noted, Olivier is also greatly influenced by the popular noir style of the time, with lots of shadows and low angles.

Olivier transforms many of the soliloquies from spoken words into overdubbed thoughts, with mixed results. Sometimes this effect is unintentionally laughable, especially when the actor is trying too hard to react to what they are thinking.

Olivier also focuses a lot on the relationship between Gertrude and Hamlet. While the exact nature of their relationship is one that has captivated lit majors for centuries, Olivier definitely has an opinion on it, including highlighting sequences where Hamlet is obsessed with Gertrude and Claudius getting it on and even having the mother and son give VERY tender kisses at a couple different times in the movie.

A cool shot with Claudius in the foreground and Hamlet in the back, as if haunting the King’s thoughts

Olivier’s Hamlet is considered a pinnacle of acting achievement, but the truth is it has not aged well. I found much of Olivier’s performance to be pretty hammy and very emotive. Today’s audiences are more attuned to a natural performer like Daniel Day Lewis, I think. I actually thought Simmon’s Ophelia gave a better performance as the batty Ophelia. Also, for whatever, reason, Olivier delivers the very famous “To Be or Not To Be” speech in a half repose, so that he looks utterly bored while reciting the single most famous speech in the history of English literature.

This is a fine production of Hamlet, but it’s not exceptionally notable or blows away other Hamlets. As noted, I liked the direction and sets a lot – the big empty castles are marvelous, the tracking shots that follow the characters up different flights of stairs or show different characters doing different things simultaneously are cool. But I think the reason there’s never been another Shakespeare movie to win Best Picture or very few adaptions of English Lit’s classical cannon have won is that these classical stories are so ingrained in our conscious they don’t have any surprises to offer us. They give us what we expect. Hamlet is a good production of Hamlet but it’s not going to blow you away.

Trivia: Laurence Olivier is one of only two directors to direct himself to the Best Actor award (the other was Roberto Benigni for Life is Beautiful in 1998).

 

Other notable movies in 1948: Johnny Belinda*, The Red Shoes*#, The Snake Pit*, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre*, Red River, Easter Parade, Key Largo

* Best Picture Nominee

#Top Grossing movie of the year

1938-1947: Oscar’s Second Decade – A Look Back

World War 2 was a major driver of Oscar Best Pictures in the 1940s and continues to be so

Following the lead I started WAAAAAY back after completing the first ten Best Pictures, I thought it would be interesting to look at the second decade of Oscar Best Pictures and see what made them “Best”. First here’s a chart to remind us about each movie and look for some commonalities.

	World War II	Social Problems	Epic	Modernity	Evil Bankers	Total Nominations
1938 -You Can’t Take it With You					X	7
1939 – Gone With the Wind			X		X	13
1940 – Rebecca			X			11
1941 – How Green Was My Valley		X		X	X	10
1942 – Mrs. Miniver	X					12
1943 – Casablanca	X		X			8
1944 – Going My Way	X	X-ish			X	7
1945 – The Lost Weekend		X				7
1946 – The Best Years of Our Lives	X	X				8
1947 – Gentleman’s Agreement		X				8

 

Two themes dominated the second decade of the Academy Awards – World War II and addressing social issues. Every movie from 1941 onward (probably not coincidentally the point where the U.S. entered World War II) can easily be categorized under one or both of these subject matters.

While it is certainly easy to dismiss the trend of World War II movies as merely an update/reboot of the popular World War I movie trend that dominated the Oscars’ first decade, it must be noted that the World War I movies popular from 1927-1938 were being made more than a decade after WWI’s end. The World War II movies were being made while the War was going on. Thus these movies aren’t the somber reflections of war’s horror seen in All Quiet on the Western Front or Wings, but more invested in creating a rousing can-do, let’s-win-this-thing sort of spirit.

My favorite of the batch – and one of my favorite movies EVER

World War II clearly holds a special place in the nation’s conscious, even 80 years later. No subsequent war movie would win a Best Picture Oscar while being about a war that’s still ongoing until the Hurt Lock in 2009! Most winning war movies – The Deer Hunter, Platoon – are about wars that have been finished for several years, if not more. In fact, the majority of “current” war movies have been box office duds. But the World War II movies of the 40s were huge hits and World War II movies examining every aspect of the war continue to be churned out – and win Best Picture Oscars – to this day! Clearly the black-and-white nature of World War II – the last true “Good vs. Evil” battle PLUS the nationalistic ideal of America as the heroes – holds a special appeal that will likely never be broken.

The socially conscious trend in the last half of the decade is harder to pin down. During the 1930s, when the country had arguably significantly worse problems of greater scale with the Great Depression, no movie explicitly about the Great Depression won an Oscar and only one – The Great Ziegfeld – even directly acknowledged the Great Depression. Movies were seen as a key to escapism from hardships during the 30s. During the post-war 40s, America prospered like never before. Whether that prosperity unleashed a liberal guilt in filmmakers or just freed them to make statements about issues they’d always been concerned about but seemed insignificant in light of the Depression’s overwhelming despair is hard to say. The Great Depression’s effects were felt indirectly in a number of films that cast bankers and taxmen as villains, although evil taxmen weren’t exactly a new phenomenon in the 1930s.

Epics, while toned down compared to the all-out spectacles of the 30s, still held a powerful sway on Academy voters. Of course, the grandest epic of them all, Gone With The Wind, won huge and several other movies with an epic feel (and/or epic lengths) like Casablanca and Rebecca also took home the gold. But as noted in the Academy Award Handbook, the emergence of the social problem movie also brought about the first real opportunity for smaller films to get in on the action. The Best Years of Our Lives combined the best of both worlds with an all start cast and an epic story focusing on domestic problems of returning soldiers.

You Can’t Take It With You winning is as perplexing as this scene from the movie

You Can’t Take It With You remains a great outlier not just of this period but of the Oscars in general. A smallish, low-stakes moral comedy with a basic message of “Just relax” doesn’t seem like Oscar bait in any time period and is hardly one of the best remembered films of its director or star.

1947: Gentleman’s Agreement

“It would be nice sometime not to have to explain [anti-Semitism] to someone like Tommy. Kids are so decent to start with,” – Mrs. Green (Anne Revere), Gentleman’s Agreement

“You only assured him he was that most wonderful of creatures, a white Christian American. You instantly gave him that lovely taste of superiority, the poison that millions of parents drop into the minds of millions of children,” – Phil Green (Gregory Peck), Gentleman’s Agreement

I think Gregory Peck looks more like an alcoholic than a victim of oppression, but the Oscars had already covered that topic

Gentleman’s Agreement, the 1947 winner for Best Picture, continued the Academy’s late 40’s obsession with Important Social Issues, this time dealing with anti-Semitism. I didn’t expect much coming into this film except some ham-handed speeches and gnashing of teeth over the injustices of the world. And while those aspects are certainly present in Gentleman’s Agreement, the film is a lot more thoughtful and dives deeper into prejudice than a typical after-school special.

Phil Green is a grumpy, widowed journalist with a 10-year-old son and an aging mother. When he moves to New York to work for a prestigious liberal magazine, his first assignment is to uncover the boiling cauldron of anti-Semitism that lies in New York City. At first off-put by the idea, Green eventually decides to pose as a Jewish man himself to get in the meat of the story (despite being a well-respected journalist, apparently he was unaware of “undercover” reporting). Almost immediately, he is taken aback by the social slights he receives (no one mentions that the title of his expose “I Was a Jew For Eight Weeks” is incredibly pandering and derogatory).

Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire

The plot thickens with the moral queasiness of his girlfriend. Despite being a tremendous grump, Green instantly lands his editor’s pretty, forthright niece, Kathy Lacey (Dorothy McGuire). Kathy is sort of a closet racist, in that she stands for good values but says things like “You’re not actually one, are you Phil?” when Phil goes explains to her his plan to go undercover. Kathy is actually the meat of the story because it’s her unwillingness to act against prejudices that is the most interesting part of the movie and the most thoughtful approach to what prejudice in today’s society constitutes.

Gentleman’s Agreement is weighed down by a lot of preachy speeches towards the movie’s end, as well as the punches it pulls in terms of actually addressing anti-Semitism (the worst things that really ever happen to Phil are his kid gets teased and he’s denied entrance to a hotel). Phil’s ham-handed approach to dropping his religion into conversations to reveal himself (literally at one point he just blurts out “I’m Jewish) is also pretty laughable. The movie also takes way too long to set up Phil’s whole undercover scheme – nearly a third of the movie passes before he finally hatches his plot.

Phil and son Tommy (Dean Stockwell)

However, I thought that in certain places, the movie was also very thoughtful about prejudice. Kathy is not outwardly or intentionally racist, but her desire to fit in and not ruffle feathers by speaking out against prejudice or even pretending her fiancé is Jewish was very interesting and thought-provoking about our own prejudices, even today. Phil’s secretary, who is Jewish but pretends not to be, also provides an interesting character who proves prejudiced against her own culture. John Garfield, who has a small role as Phil’s Jewish veteran friend, was my favorite actor in the movie. He’s a friendly guy who doesn’t hide his culture but has also learned to tamp down his anger over slights, until it finally boils over in one memorable scene with a drunken bigot.

The thing I liked most about Gentleman’s Agreement was that I felt it really tried hard to explore all sides of prejudice and delve “into the underbelly of the thing” as Phil’s editor says. There are good and bad people and morals, but mostly shades of gray layered throughout the movie that I really appreciated. The movie is kind of slow and preachy at times, and held up against films like Schindler’s List and 12 Years a Slave, doesn’t even scratch the surface in dealing with racism and prejudicial behavior. But for its time, it was confrontational and thought provoking for a society glad-handing itself for preserving the world for freedom and democracy.

Trivia That’s Only Interesting to Me: Phil’s son, Tommy, was played by future Quantum Leap star Dean Stockwell.
Ironic Trivia: Even though the majority of the major Hollywood Studio heads were Jewish, Darryl Zanuck, a Christian, made Gentleman’s Agreement, even though several of the other heads asked him not to for fear it would “stir up trouble”, a scene mirrored in the movie when Phil describes his planned article.

Other Movies Released in 1947: The Bishop’s Wife*, Crossfire*, Miracle on 34th Street*, Great Expectations*, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer, Unconquered#
* Nominated for Best Picture
#Top Grossing Movie of the Year