I was thinking a little bit more about Going My Way vs. Double Indemnity so I decided to watch the latter last night. I speculated that perhaps it the acting in Going My Way was superior to the acting in Double Indemnity, and that could have been the reason that Going My Way took home the Oscar for Best Motion Picture. But after re-watching Double Indemnity, I have changed my opinion about that because the acting in Going My Way is not superior to the acting in Double Indemnity. Yes, Bing Crosby did a better job as Father O’Malley than Fred MacMurray did as Walter Neff. But Barbara Stanwyck was nominated for Best Actress and she deserved that nomination. As Phyllis Dietrichson, she is the prototypical femme fatale in this film and played the role with a sinister edge that belied her beauty. Then there was Edward G. Robinson as the claims manager Barton Keyes who slowly but surely figures out that Mr. Dietrichson’s death was not so accidental. The scene in which Keyes eviscerates Norton, the president of the insurance company, is a textbook acting scene that any actor should study. He shows a rapier wit and cynicism, yet delivers his lines in such a humorous way that you can’t help but to like and respect that character.

No, I think what won the award for Going My Way was sentimentality. The better part of the past 15 years leading up to that point had been spent dealing with either World War II or the Great Depression. People needed movies that were not only escapism, but that made them feel better about life as well. They certainly did not want or need negativity.

Double Indemnity has a downer of an ending. In fact, Walter Neff reveals the ending within the first five minutes of the film if you’re paying attention. It ends the only way it could end, and it’s a satisfying ending at that. But, it is a downer. Going My Way, on the other hand, has a very happy ending, although it’s somewhat bitter sweet. Everything gets wrapped up in a nice little bow at the end of Going My Way, which, by the way, is the way it should have ended. But audiences must have left the theaters feeling much better about the world and life in general after Going My Way. Double Indemnity is the prototypical film noir. It’s dark, about shady people doing shady things, and they get their comeuppance in the end. Going My Way ends with a rebuilt church, a rebuilt parish and a man who cleanly and clearly accomplished what he came to do. For all of its faults, Going My Way is certainly a feel-good movie.

People walked out of both movies satisfied, but one was happy, the other depressing. It’s understandable that the happy movie was rewarded. I still don’t agree with the decision, but I understand it a little more.

I will say one more thing before signing off. If you are a screenwriter and you’ve never seen Double Indemnity, see it. It has an amazing script with dialogue that is dripping with subtext, an intricately woven plot, and an excellently structured story. It is a script that any screenwriter can learn from.

The first thing that I’m going to say about this film was that I found it to be very disappointing. Every once in a while I’ll come across a film that can never seem to close the deal, and this film was certainly an example of that. It was as though director Leo McCarey and writers Frank Cavett and Frank Butler were afraid to have bad things happen to their characters. They would set up potentially dramatic situations, but then they wouldn’t fully pay them off, and almost always gave their characters an easy way out. As a result, we’re left with a film that is disjointed and ends up dragging towards the end because they didn’t do a good enough job in creating a cohesive story. This is a film that has no spine, and the main character, Father O’Malley (played wonderfully by Bing Crosby) has little to do and very few opportunities to be heroic when he could have gone down as one of the great heroes in cinematic history.

Going My Way is filled with missed opportunities.

I think that the reason the film missed so many opportunities was that it wasn’t focused. The first thing we see is Father Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald) getting threatened with foreclosure by the banker Ted Haines Sr. (Gene Lockhart). Father O’Malley shows up a short time later and confesses to his friend Father O’Dowd that the bishop has sent him to this parish to take over and manage it properly since the aging Father Fitzgibbons seems to have lost the capacity to do so, having started this parish 45 years earlier. Right from the beginning, we’re set up to think that this church is in danger of being closed, and Father O’Malley’s goal as the hero of the story is going to be to save it.

Then Father O’Malley and the audience are introduced to a couple of troubled youths. They bring a turkey to the church for Father’s Fitzgibbons and O’Malley, but Father O’Malley discovers that they stole the turkey, and the boys, along with several other neighborhood boys are in danger of being sent to reform school. Father O’Malley then takes it upon himself to bring all of the boys into the church and form a boys’ choir. We think, this is great! Father O’Malley is going to figure out a way to use the boys’ choir to raise money and help save the church.” We are, however, mistaken.

But from there the story really just goes off the rails. A series of small problems keep cropping up and Father O’Malley continues to solve them, and there are few to no consequences for any of them. Every time it seems like something dramatic is about to happen, the problem is solved without anyone even breaking a sweat. The first act is spent developing an antagonistic relationship between Fathers O’Malley and Fitzgibbins, but it never reaches a dramatic level. Father Fitzgibbons tries to get the bishop to transfer Father O’Malley only to find out from the bishop that Father O’Malley will be his eventual replacement. Without telling anyone, Father Fitzgibbons leaves the church and wanders the street in the rain. Father O’Malley looks for him, but he’s eventually brought back to the church by the police, no worse for the wear. There are several other examples of these episodic types of problems that completely break up the flow of the story and we don’t really hear another word about the potential foreclosure until the third act, if you can really determine where the third act begins.

Father O’Malley later meets up with Genevieve Linden, an opera star and a woman with whom he was romantic in the past. He tells her about a song that he’s written, and she tells him that if he can get it published, then they might be able to get enough money for it to save the church. Father O’Malley creates an arrangement that includes the choir, and they perform it for a recording executive who passes on it because it’s a little too sentimental and schmaltzy. Once he’s left, Father O’Malley starts playing a different tune that he wrote to cheer everyone up. Hearing that tune from outside, the executive comes bounding in and offers to buy that tune, and the church is saved. No sooner are Fathers O’Malley and Fitzgibbons celebrating their success than does Father O’Dowd come running in to the seminary to tell them that the church has caught on fire and they watch as it burns to the ground. Father O’Malley tells Father Fitzgibbons not to worry, and that they will rebuild it.

There’s a little more to the story after that, but it’s the last bit that I want to take issue with. The previous paragraph should have been the crux of the entire story and it took about ten minutes to deal with. It seems as though the director and the writers felt like they had so many great ideas that they couldn’t choose which ideas to cut, so they used all of them. This is a film of subplots. That’s what I meant earlier when I said the film had no spine. There was not one over-arching story idea that took hold of the story in order to drive the action like there should have been. Then the film makers could have chosen the two, or maybe 3, best subplots in order to help establish character, set mood, and all of the other things that subplots are designed to do. Rather this story is a puddle of subplots that has created an episodic film that had no real climax, no dramatic arc and little drama at all. In fact, it felt like it ended very abruptly even though it’s over two hours long. The reason for that was because the plot was so disjointed so as to make it impossible to reach a crescendo.

Story-wise, this was not a great film.

The characters, at first glance seem to be the strength of the film, but even their development is flawed. Bing Crosby won Best Actor for his portrayal of Father O’Malley in Going My Way and he played the likable priest very well.  However, his character doesn’t change a whole lot as a character throughout the film, although he inspires change in those around him. Father Fitzgibbons goes through the most pronounced character change. He starts out the film as a closed-minded and curmudgeonly old man, but ends the film with new life and a new appreciation for those around him. However, even with that said.  There wasn’t a ton of organization in creating his character as well. His reactions to events early in the story were not terribly consistent, and he was a bit all over the place. He did, however, become a lot more focused by the end of the film. Also, Ted Haines Sr. has a nice character arc, but he’s such a minor character that it isn’t as impactful on the audience. It certainly wasn’t as impactful had Father O’Malley gone through some dramatic change. Perhaps if he hadn’t been confident going into the gig, but like Maria in The Sound of Music, his confidence grew as he gained more successes, then the story might have been more engaging, even with its episodic nature. But O’Malley does not go through that. He has few, if any flaws and he has no room at all to grow.

I do want to mention something else regarding the relationship between Father O’Malley and Father Fitzgibbons. As mentioned above, this should have been a much more antogonistic relationship, and it was set up to be that way. I spent the first few minutes of the film thinking that thematically this was going to be a changing of the guard story. Out with the old, the tired and the cynical and in with the new,  the energetic and the ambitious. But that is not what happened. Like everything else in this film, they glossed over the relationship. They left it shallow, just like the story and just like most of the characters. This is a shallow film.

I think what must have won the Oscar for Going My Way is the acting. As mentioned above, Bing Crosby won Best Actor that year and Barry Fitzgerald won Best Supporting Actor, and he was strangely enough also nominated for Best Actor for the same role. Indeed, the acting is very good in this film, and especially considering the acting of the time, the actors in this film did a very good job of creating characters that seemed like real human beings that live in the real world.

Again, this points to the earlier thought that I had where the film makers didn’t seem to want to make life hard on their characters. They liked their characters too much (or not enough) to put them in bad situations that they would have had to worked to get out of. All of this leads to the creation of a film that came up way short of great.

Did the Academy get it right?

No they did not. In fact, the Academy was wrong on several fronts that year. Going My Way also won awards for direction and writing and took home six of the nine Academy Awards for which it was nominated. As stated above, I am not a fan of either the directing or the writing in this film. Double Indemnity was nominated against Going My Way and is a far superior film in almost every way. Double Indemnity has a compelling story, riveting characters, and a masterfully written script. The acting might not be as good, although Barbara Stanwyck was nominated for Best Actress. Billy Wilder’s direction is far superior to what McCarey did in this picture, and the screenplay that Wilder and co-writer Raymond Chandler wrote was much better than what Cavett and Butler did for Going My Way. Indeed, history has borne that out as well, as Double Indemnity is ranked #29 on AFI’s list of the top 100 films of all time and Going My Way is not on the list at all. We’ve seen over the years that one film can gain all of the momentum going in to awards season and can take awards over other superior films, and that was certainly the case in 1944.

What can I say about Casablanca that hasn’t been said or written about by film makers and film historians over the past 70 years? AFI has it ranked #2 on its list of the Top 100 movies of all time, trailing only Citizen Kane. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman became screen legends off of its wake. In my own personal opinion, it’s as close to a perfect movie as there is, and it’s one of my two favorite movies of all time.

Most everyone knows the story of Casablanca, so rather than just giving a plot synopsis, I’m going to focus on two aspects of this film that make it so compelling and they both have to do with the script. Yes, there are a dozen or so iconic lines that everyone knows, and there’s even a line that isn’t in it that many people think is. (No one ever says, “Play it again, Sam.” in Casablanca.) What I’m actually going to focus on here are the character development and the story structure. This screenplay, written by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch masterfully handles both of those elements in a way that any aspiring screenwriter should study.

Anyone who follows this blog with regularity knows that I am an advocate of three-act structure. In actuality, I am an advocate of three-act structure for screenwriters who are trying to break into the business and are trying to get a spec script noticed. My philosophy is that you need to prove that you know the rules before you’re allowed to break them, and a production company or a studio is not likely to buy a spec script from a new writer if the structure isn’t solid, even if the story is. Now you’re asking, what does this have to do with Casablanca? Well, I’ll tell you. We all have heard that a movie is told in 3 acts, with the first act being 25-30 pages, the second act being 50-60 pages and the third act being 25-30 pages. Well, Casablanca is told in four acts, and Act I and Act II are transposed. Not only that, but Act I is very short, only 20 minutes, and so only 20 pages. That might sound strange, or even foolish, but think about it in terms of the Hero’s Journey, as defined by Chris Vogler in his book, The Writer’s Journey, another writing style for which I am an advocate. Rick is the story’s hero. His Ordinary World is living with Ilsa in Paris. The Call to Adventure is when the Nazis are about to invade the city and he needs to leave because he has fought against them in the past and would be sent to a concentration camp if they discover him there. The refusal of the call will actually come in the Third Act when he refuses to give Ilsa and Lazlo the letters of transit so that they can escape Casablanca. Sam serves the role of Mentor in the First Act and the Crossing of the First Threshold is when Rick and Sam get on the train to leave Paris after Rick has received the note from Ilsa saying that she can’t come with him or see him again.

That leads us to the Special World, which is the city of Casablanca. Much like other special worlds, we find out right away that the rules are different there. People are different there, and it is unlike any place anyone has ever seen and it certainly different from Paris. Rick’s appearance is different as well. He dressed normally in Paris, but always wears a tuxedo in his club. His attitude is different as well. In Paris Rick is gregarious and loving. In Casablanca, he is the cynic who “sticks his neck out for no one.” In Casablanca there are nefarious characters like the shady Ugarte. There is Signor Ferrari, the owner of the Blue Parrot, who specializes in Black Market deals. And of course, there is Louis Renault, the corrupt Prefect of Police (played brilliantly by Claude Raines). All of these people are typical of characters that you would normally meet in the Tests, Allies and Enemies section of the Hero’s Journey, which typically takes place in the beginning of the second act.  The next stage of the Hero’s Journey is the Approach. That happens in Casablanca when Ilsa and Lazlo arrive at Rick’s Cafe. The Approach is always the section of the Hero’s Journey that leads the Hero to the Supreme Ordeal, which divides Act II into two sections. The Supreme Ordeal happens in Casablanca after the flashback to Paris ends when Ilsa arrives at Rick’s after closing time to tell him that she never would have come to Casablanca if she had known that he was here. Drunk and despondent, Rick chases her off. The Reward follows the Ordeal, and it shows Rick having a more subdued conversation with Ilsa, and we see their romance start to bud again. That is followed by the Refusal of the call, which as mentioned before usually happens in Act I, but is happening in Casablanca’s Act III. Lazlo discovers that Rick has letters of transit, which would allow Lazlo and Ilsa to leave Casablanca without permission from Renault. Rick refuses to give Lazlo the letters and when Lazlo asks for a reason, Rick tells him to ask his wife.

The end of the second act and start of the third act is generally marked with The Road Back section of the Hero’s Journey. The Road Back in Casablanca, which actually marks the beginning of Act IV, has Ilsa coming to Rick’s cafe to beg him to give them the letters. When his refusal persists, she points a gun at him. In one of the many famous lines of the film, he tells her, “Go ahead. Shoot. You’ll be doing me a favor.” Finally, Ilsa gives in to her own passion, and confesses to Rick that she still loves him and will stay with him in Casablanca. The Road Back is often times the climax of a film, and Casablanca is no different. Rick masterfully orchestrates his and Ilsa’s escape, appearing to double cross Lazlo and Ilsa, only to show that he’s really double crossed Renault. Then we have the famous scene on the runway where Rick tells Ilsa that she has to go to Lazlo and that the “troubles of two people don’t add up to a hill of beans”. He convinces her to go, and the Return with the Elixir shows the plane taking off, Rick shoots the Nazi officer trying to keep Lazlo from escaping, and Rick and Renault reach the beginning of their beautiful friendship.

There it is. Casablanca as told in four acts. There are three distinct changes in the direction of the story and the Ordinary World is shown after we’ve been watching the Special World for about 40 minutes. All of the elements are there to see in the Hero’s Journey, and the screenwriters, along with director Michael Curtiz, constructed a story that has stood the test of time.

The other impressive aspect of this film, and particularly the screenplay, comes in the form of its character development. As the film begins, we hear a lot of people talking about Rick, so that we practically know him before he’s officially introduced. Rick may be one of the most complex characters ever created in American cinema. He is a sentimental cynic who has a habit of fighting for lost causes, and the lost cause here turns out to be Rick, himself. But even in the end, he redeems himself to the point where he may not actually be such a lost cause after all. Rick has depth, the likes of which is rarely seen. Even though Humphrey Bogart’s acting chops will never be confused with those of Paul Newman or Marlon Brando, he was the perfect choice to play Rick with his sarcastic wit, his smoldering anger and his heroic character arc. All of this was written in to the script and the character development also was integral in advancing the story.

Ilsa is another complex and deep character. She is filled with secrets and her motives are never entirely clear, but in a good way. It’s in a way that creates suspense and intrigue in the story. Even when she confesses to Rick that she loves him, there’s still the chance that she’d rather be with Lazlo. She shows her desperation to save Lazlo by threatening to kill Rick, even though we finally come to realize that she’d never really hurt him. Even when her actions are somewhat suspect, she’s always thinking of the men that she loves rather than herself. She didn’t tell Rick that she wasn’t leaving Paris because she was afraid that that would make him stay and that would lead to his capture, so the only way she could help him was to break his heart. Something like that needs to be the goal of every screenwriter. Give your character an impossible choice. That will make the audience care about him or her, and it will be especially so if the decision that they make is a selfless one. It will be even more so if your character has to hurt another character in order to help that other character, just as Ilsa had to hurt Rick in order to help him.

Finally there is Renault. He is a likable villain, even though he isn’t really the villain of the story. That distinction goes to Major Strasser. Renault is a classic character who is forced to play both sides of the coin. He doesn’t like the Germans, but he knows that he has to play ball with them in order to maintain his position. At his core, he is a good man, but he’s not above using his position of power to his advantage. He is a walking, talking contradiction that is personified when Strasser tells him to come up with a reason to close Rick’s cafe. He tells Rick that he’s “shocked, SHOCKED to find out that gambling’s going on here.” as the roulette dealer hands him his winnings for the night.

That is the main idea behind most of the characters in Casablanca. Most, if not all of them, have some sort of internal conflict or contradiction. That creates deep and complex characters that are interesting and compelling.

Did the Academy get it right?

Yes, they absolutely did, and it was a slam dunk this time. Casablanca is one of the greatest films of all time and it was nominated against a particularly weak field. For Whom the Bell Tolls was the only other feature nominated that year that has achieved any level of timelessness, and that’s mostly because it’s based on such a classic book. But it did have Gary Cooper, and Ingrid Bergman was in it as well. She had quite a year in 1942. But overall, Casablanca was clearly the best film of the year, and was in fact the best film of the decade and one of the best films of all time. It was also one of the most deserving Oscar winners ever.

The United States had officially been involved in World War II for just under a year when Mrs. Miniver was released in 1942, and the film, while more than a mere propaganda film, certainly used the growing sense of nationalism and patriotism to its advantage. The film takes place in England and starts out in 1939 in the days leading up to Britain’s entrance into the war. We are introduced to Mrs. Miniver (Greer Garson) as she walks through the streets of London after a day of shopping. Then, against her better judgment, goes back to a boutique to buy an expensive hat and would rather her husband not find out how much it costs. Upon returning to her village outside London, she happens upon Mr. Ballard, the train station master and he proudly shows her a beautiful rose that grew in his garden and wants to enter into the next garden festival. He also wants to name it the Mrs. Miniver after her because it turned out so beautifully. She doesn’t know how to respond at first, but then tells him she’d be honored.

She goes home and discovers that Mr. Miniver (Walter Pidgeon, who became the second man after Clark Gable to play the leading man in consecutive Best Picture Winners) has spent too much money on a new car, and so she isn’t as worried about showing him the new hat. In this time we meet their young son and daughter, and we later meet their older son, who has come back from Oxford as quite the idealist and sympathizer for the working man. Through all of this, we are introduced to the rather idealic lifestyle that they live in the English countryside. The Miniver’s are a typical working-class family and a happy family living in a happy village during a happy time. That happiness is eternally shattered once Britain is thrust into WWII.

Rather than going through an entire plot synopsis, I want to focus on two scenes in particular that I thought were outstanding examples of filmmaking and of screenwriting in particular. The first example scene happens a little more than half way through the film, after the war has started. The Minivers live on a river and so they own a boat. Mr. Miniver and all of the other boat owners are called into duty to motor across the English Channel to support English troops who are stranded between enemy troops and the see at Dunkirk. Meanwhile, word has gotten round that a German pilot was shot down nearby, but escaped capture and may be milling around the village. After Mr. Miniver has been gone for four days, Mrs. Miniver bumps into Mr. Ballard and chats with him for a moment just outside her house. After he makes his way down the road and out of site, Mrs. Miniver sees the German, apparently unconscious in a nearby bush with his gun lying near his hand. Mrs. Miniver reaches for the gun, but the German regains consciousness and picks his gun up and points it at her. He chases her back to the house and threatens to shoot her if she makes a sound. He then demands food, and she gives him a loaf of bread. Then he wants meat, so she pulls a ham out of the ice box. He then wants milk, and she gives him a jar. As the pilot stuffs his face with meat and bread, they hear the milkman whistling up the drive way. After a few tense seconds, he drops off the jars outside and bounds away. The pilot then demands a coat, and she gives him one as well. As he tries to stuff the food into the pockets, Mrs. Miniver notices that he can only use his left hand and his right arm is badly wounded.  He tries to leave the house, but is overcome by his wounds and he passes out. She takes his gun and she calls the police, telling them to also bring a doctor. He wakes up and she tells him that she’s called the police and that it will be better. She helps him to a chair, gives him a cold towel and tells him he’ll be looked after in a hospital and that the war won’t last forever. He then tells her that more Germans are coming. Thousands. They’ll bomb British cities and will destroy them all. He taunts and torments her until she slaps him just as the doctor and the police arrive and take him away. Just a moment later, her young son comes in the kitchen asking who was here. Then she hears Mr. Miniver’s boat coming up the river, and she rushes out to greet him. His boat is shot up and he’s exhausted, but he’s home and safe.

The whole sequence takes up just under 15 minutes, and it is told in 3 acts. That’s why I want to focus on this scene. It’s almost like a mini-feature, and the film makers gave the sequence its own 3-act structure within the confines of the scene. The first act is when Mrs. Miniver comes outside and sees Mr. Ballard. They chat in the peaceful bliss of the riverfront garden and all seems well. They talk about Mr. Ballard’s rose and he assures her that Mr. Miniver will be back soon. Mr. Ballard then walks down the road and Mrs. Miniver sees the German pilot. The second act begins when he chases her back into the house. In fact, the scene’s first plot point is Mrs. Miniver finding the pilot and waking him up. If the end of the first act in a feature is defined by where the adventure begins, then the adventure of this scene begins with the pilot chasing her to the house. The second act takes place in the kitchen, and the drama increases as he demands food and milk. It continues to increase when the milkman comes to the door and it is finally abated when the pilot is overcome and passes out. Mrs. Miniver then takes the gun and calls the police, thus ushering the third act of the scene. In the second act the pilot had all of the power, and the power shifted to Mrs. Miniver, signaling a change in acts. The third act shows Mrs. Miniver as a peacemaker trying to help the wounded German, then in true propaganda fashion, the German, unappreciative of the help she has offered him, tells her that their whole way of life is about to be over and that the Germans will bomb them and kill thousands of them, even women and children. The police show up and take him away, and the scene ends in a Hero’s Journey fashion as Mr. Miniver returns with the elixir, that in this case is safety and relief.

In fact, not only does this scene have three distinct acts, it also has a nearly complete Hero’s Journey, with a clear Ordinary World; a clear Crossing of the First Threshold; Tests, Allies and Enemies; a Supreme Ordeal; a Road Back; a Resurrection; and the aforementioned Return with the Elixir. That is excellent film making and even better screenwriting. Any aspiring screenwriter should study that scene to see how they can structure their own scenes in such a way. It heightens drama and moves the story along.

The other scene I’d like to focus on happens near the end of the second act. Mr. and Mrs. Miniver are in the bomb shelter with the young children, reading them stories and waiting for the bombardment to end. The children fall asleep before the bombs start falling. But they do start falling and the Minivers have a very mundane conversation as though they were having it any night of the week over a cup of coffee. Mrs. Miniver does her knitting and Mr. Miniver drinks his coffee and they chat about what she’s knitting and the upcoming flower show, as well as when the eldest son will be arriving by train. All the while the sounds of the barrage get closer and closer. Mrs. Miniver is reading Alice in Wonderland, and they discuss what a wonderful book it is, and Mr. Miniver reads some passages from it. Mrs. Miniver even recites some verse from memory. All the while bullets and bombs explode until the cacophony of noise wakes the children and the din can no longer be ignored as their shelter rattles and the children start to scream. Then, after agonizing minutes the barrage is over and they’re safe.

What makes this scene so effective is the duality of it. The film makers did a great job of building tension in the scene by having the Minivers ignore it for as long as they could. With the sounds of bombs and bullets, the Minvers kept trying to hold on to some bit of normalcy. The dialogue has terrific subtext, and this is yet another scene that aspiring writers would serve themselves well by studying.

The rest of the film is very good as well. The film makers did a fine job of creating characters that had good depth and there were some very engaging character arcs. In fact, Lady Beldon, the local aristocrat has perhaps the most complete character arc of all as she starts out the film as arrogant and selfish and finishes the film as vulnerable and self-less. There are also some fine moments of storytelling sans dialogue. The oldest son, Vin joins the RAF, and he signals to Mrs. Miniver every time he flies by the house by stalling his engine and then restarting it. It’s a way of telling her (and the audience) without dialogue that he’s still alive and well. The love story between Vin and Carol Beldon is equally engaging. Indeed, it is the many and deep relationships that allow this film to be more than merely a propaganda film. So too does the thematic depth. This is a story about taking advantage of the time you have in this world and not taking anything for granted.

Did the Academy get it right?

As I’ve said about other films, I don’t necessarily think they got it wrong. Unlike the previous three years, this was not a particularly strong group of nominees. Certainly a case could be made, and a strong case at that, for either The Magnificent Ambersons or The Pride of the Yankees. It’s easy to look back with the benefit of hind sight and say that one of those other films should have won. However, this was a film about persevering through WWII, and the war’s outcome was still very much in doubt. In fact, it was not out of the realm of possibility, even at that time, that Germany could have won that war. This film raised people’s spirits in a way that transcended cinema and kept morale high. With that in mind, it’s hard to argue with the decision. In fact, the scene that may have won the Oscar for Mrs. Miniver is the last scene in the film. The members of the community sit in a bombed out church after a particularly tragic barrage. The vicar stands on a makeshift altar in front of the congregation and speaks for all of them when he asks why so much pain and suffering has been cast upon them. Why should the innocent be made to suffer? He goes on to tell them that this is not only a war of soldiers in uniform, but a war of all the people. It must not only be fought on the battlefield, but on the farms and in the factories and in the hearts and minds of everyone who loves freedom. He decrees that this is the People’s War and beseeches everyone to go out and fight it and may God defend the right. We then look through a hole in the roof of the church as a battle wing of fighters flies off to battle. Then finally, under the “The End” title card, there is a PSA to buy defense bonds and stamps with every paycheck. Clearly, this is a film that took place in a unique time with a unique sensibility and it played to those sensibilities in a very effective way. That’s what won it the Oscar, and that’s what makes it hard to argue with the Academy’s decision.

In what would historically prove to be one of the most controversial decisions on the Academy’s history, How Green Was My Valley took home the award for Outstanding Motion Picture of 1941. John Ford, one of American cinema’s great directors, helmed this film about a Welsh mining town and one of the families that called its valley home, and chronicled that family’s disintegration as the world became more modern and the old ways of doing things no longer applied.

When most people think of John Ford, they think of the amazing Westerns that he made, like Stagecoach, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Searchers. He would prove over the course of his career, however to be quite adept at handling all types of genres, and How Green Was My Valley was about as straight ahead a drama as you can possibly imagine. It starts off with an unseen man packing up his belongings. A narrator tells us that he’s leaving the valley after 50 years and that he shall never return. The town is now old and decrepid and everything and every one that made such a wonderful place to live in the past is now gone. We then see the narrator as a young boy walking up a trail that overlooks the valley with his father. He tells us how much he admired his father and how his father never said anything that was untrue or turned out to be false.

We then see that valley as it was in its prime. All of the men of the town return home from the coal mines to the open doors of their loving families. Mr. Morgan and his five older sons arrive from the mine, and young Huw (the narrator) helps them get cleaned up along with his sister Angharad (Maureen O’Hara). Two new people show up to town that day. The first is a young woman named Bronwyn, who is betrothed to one of the Morgan brothers. The second is Mr. Gruffydd (Walter Pidgeon), the town’s new preacher, and Angharad is immediately smitten with the young preacher.

Things start to go awry in the town when a notice is posted that all of the wages will be cut. It’s not a large cut, but it’s enough to notice. Mr. Morgan is elected to be a spokesman for the workers, and he delivers the news to his sons that the price of coal has come down and they all need to take the cut. The sons, however, want to unionize. Mr. Morgan tells them that he’ll have no such socialist talk in his house. The next day, however, Mr. Morgan is made an example of, and has to stand out in the rain as all of the other workers pass him by. That is the last straw for the sons, and they tell their father that they’re going to join a union. Being the traditionalist that he is, Mr. Morgan tells his sons to leave the house rather than talk union at the dinner table. A union is formed, and the workers go on strike. Mr. Morgan  is against the strike and some throw bricks at his house and Mrs. Morgan stands up for him at a meeting reminding everyone who her husband is and what he means to them as workers and as a town. She has Huw with her and they fall in a frozen lake and need to be rescued by the very people she was just chastising. They both nearly die and the doctor tells Mr. Morgan that he’s not sure if Huw will ever be able to walk again. But Mr. Gruffydd tells Huw that with faith in God anything is possible and he’s walking again by the spring.

The strike ends as well, and the workers are guaranteed better wages, however they aren’t guaranteed jobs. Since the wages are higher, the jobs are fewer, and so two of the sons decide that they want to seek out better opportunity in America. The family continues to splinter when Cafartha, the boss of the mine arrives at the door and tells Mr. Morgan that his son Ivor would like to seek his permission to court Angharad, even though she’s in love with Gruffydd. Angharad doesn’t want to marry Ivor but Guffydd convinces her to do so because as a preacher he could never provide for her. He’s prepared to live a life of sacrifice and poverty for himself, but it would kill him to put Angharad and any potential children through a life like that. Gruffydd sets up an opportunity for Huw to attend school in the next valley. After some initial conflicts with other boys and with the instructor, Huw gets very good grades and Mr. Morgan rightly calls him a scholar. However, Huw wants to work in the mines. Mr. Morgan tells him that he can be a doctor or a lawyer, but Huw wants to follow in the footsteps of his father, which makes his mother very happy. She says that it would make her proud if Huw turns out to be as fine a man as his father or his brothers. Mr. Morgan is not convinced, however, and would like him to make more of himself, but tells him that the choice is his and the blame will be his as well if it turns out to be the wrong decision.

Huw goes to see Angharad when she returns from New Zealand, and he can see that she doesn’t love her husband, but still loves Gruffydd. In fact, the housekeeper can see that as well, and starts spreading the rumor that they’re having an affair. The rumor spreads like wildfire and  Gruffydd finally has to give up his congregation under the pressure, but not before telling the congregation that they’ve learned nothing from him. The come to church out of fear of eternal damnation but don’t see that Jesus was about love. Huw goes to see him and then the bell rings signifying an accident at the mine. All of the people run to the mine but Mr. Morgan doesn’t emerge. Huw, Gruffydd, and some others go down into the mine to find him and Huw discovers him under a slab of stone and Mr. Morgan dies in Huw’s arms. As we watch them bring Mr. Morgan’s body up from the mine the narrator tells us that his father never died, as all of the things he taught him have lived on.

How Green Was My Valley is about a lot of things and it’s a deep story thematically speaking. It’s about the old ways giving ground to the new, but that the new ways aren’t always better for everyone. The film seems to lament the disappearance of a simpler way of life, but doesn’t always spell out what that simpler way is. It’s a deep film. In the beginning Mr. Morgan chastises his sons for wanting to unionize. He doesn’t want to rock the boat and is willing to accept that the bosses will treat them well because they’re human beings. He feels this way because it’s always been this way and it always will be this way. But then, by the end when Huw passes up an opportunity to get an education and become something more than a miner, Mr. Morgan is upset and wants his son to try and do something different in order to have a better life. Mr. Morgan has grown as a character and realizes that the future is coming fast. Huw, however, wants the world to stay the same even as he’s been watching it change all around him. Only Mr. Morgan’s death shows Huw that the old ways are dying and neither the valley or the rest of the world that hey live in will ever be the same. Ultimately the spine of this story is progress. However it makes no statement at all on whether progress in and of itself is a good or a bad thing. The workers unionize and get higher wages, but there are fewer positions. The coal mine is continues to be the main source of income for the valley, but it’s slowly polluting the valley so that it is no longer green by the end of the film. Huw is given an opportunity to get an education in order to better himself, but ends up wanting nothing to do with that and would prefer that the world remain as it is, or once was but will never be again.

Clearly this film reflected its time. Even though it was set during the Victorian era, there are many parallels between it and America of the early 40’s. Having lived through World War I and the Great Depression, and now with World War II at the doorstep, Americans were living in a very tumultuous time. Many people could remember simpler times within their own lifetimes, but things were much more complicated now. Many people had probably lived at a time when everything made sense and you could count on one day being the same as the day that came before it. Now, no one knew what kind of world we would be in a year or two later. Was progress this great thing that would always lead to positive outcomes. How Green Was My Valley challenged that notion. Just because you’re moving forward doesn’t mean your moving in the right direction and there are always unintended  consequences to even the best intentioned deeds.

Did the Academy get it right?

No they did not. I have two words for you: Citizen Kane. Here are three more: The Maltese Falcon. And one more for good measure: Suspicion. All of those films were better than How Green Was My Valley. Many film historians and scholars, as well as the AFI list of the top 100 films will tell you that Citizen Kane was the best film ever made. Indeed, Citizen Kane is like an entire year of film school rolled up into one film. I don’t mean to gush over it, but the writing, the acting and the cinematography of Citizen Kane were all superior to How Green Was My Valley. Just as I said about Gone With the Wind, there isn’t a lot that I can say about Citizen Kane that hasn’t already been said or written about by film historians and scholars over the past 73 years. All I will say is this. How Green Was My Valley is a fine film. It’s expertly crafted and has a deep message that is woven seamlessly into the story to build a compelling drama. But there is a reason that Citizen Kane is so highly regarded. It tells a compelling story of starting with nothing, gaining everything and then losing it. It also has a main character harkening back to a simpler time, but does it in a way that is subtler and more heartbreaking when the crux of the story is revealed. Indeed, any aspiring screenwriter could learn a thing or two about story and character development by studying Citizen Kane. Finally, Gregg Toland’s cinematography in that film and their use of deep space, which was incredibly innovative at the time, should have all by itself gotten Citizen Kane recognized as the best picture of the year. This wouldn’t be the last time that the Academy got it wrong, but this was certainly one of the largest Best Picture blunders in the history of the Academy.

David O. Selzinck won his second consecutive Oscar for Outstanding Production (Best Picture) in 1940, following up the transcendent Gone With the Wind with the sublime Rebecca. Directed by Alfred Hitchock, Rebecca took storytelling to new heights, at least as far as the award for Best Picture is concerned. Rebecca had arguably the most sophisticated storyline and complex plot of any of the previous winners. It was a psychological thriller as well as an engaging love story. It had a linear plot that had a strong Hero’s Journey structure, but had at least two main plot twists that kept the audience guessing. This is a film that I had seen a couple of times, but had never really paid particularly close attention to until viewing it again this past weekend, and it is an instructive film for writers, directors and actors.

Rebecca tells the story of a young woman (Joan Fontain) who meets a wealthy, but reclusive widower named Maxim de Winter while on holiday in Monte Carlo. She actally stumbles upon him as he appears to be contemplating leaping from a cliff. He tells her to leave him alone, but something about her intrigues him. The young woman is actually working as a type of traveling secretary/paid companion for another socialite, the obnoxious Edyth Van Hopper, but she takes ill and isn’t in need of having events coordinated so the young woman’s time is spent with Maxim. Just as the young woman is about to leave with Edyth, Maxim asks her to marry him an the most unconventional way, but she accepts. Before taking her leave, Edyth warns the young woman that she’s about to enter into a world for which she isn’t prepared.

Maxim and Mrs. de Winter arrive at Maxim’s childhood home, the sprawling mansion known as Manderlay. Mrs. de Winter is initially intimidated by all of the servants, but none so much as Mrs. Danvers, a cold and cross head of the household who adored Maxim’s late wife Rebecca, and refuses to show any grace or kindness to Mrs. de Winter. The memory of Rebecca is everywhere in the house, with guests, and apparently with Maxim. Everyone that Mrs. de Winter asks in regards to Rebecca tells her that Rebecca was the most extraordinary, beautiful and amazing woman. Mrs. de Winter, being a plane, softspoken girl with such a modest upbringing could never compete.  Mrs. de Winter tries her best to fit in and to make Maxim happy, but she always seems to inadvertantly remind Maxim of Rebecca. What’s more is that Mrs. Danvers will not let the memory of Rebecca fade away. Indeed, all of stationary and all of the linens continue to have an embroidered R in them. The character arc of Mrs. de Winter has her grow from weak to strong, and she finally demands that the house be hers. She tells Mrs. Danvers to remove all of the stationary and all of the bedding. Horrified, Mrs. Danvers tells her that those items belonged to Mrs. de Winter, and defiantly, Mrs. de Winter declares, “I am Mrs. de Winter now!” That moment sets Mrs. Danvers even more against her, and she gets some measure of revenge that will be mentioned below.

For the most part, Maxim shows Mrs. de Winter every kindness, but he can’t go with her when she chases the dog to the boat house near the beach, as Rebecca had been apparently drowned while sailing in her boat and Maxim had to identify her body when it washed up on shore several weaks later. He can’t bear to be near that house. Later, when Mrs. de Winter convinces Maxim to let her organize a masquerade ball, Mrs. Danvers tricks her into wearing a costume that is an exact replica of the last one the Rebecca wore before she was drowned. Maxim completely loses control and humiliates her in front of the other guests, demanding that she remove the costume. Then a distress signal from the ocean reveals a ship in trouble and everyone leaves the party to assist in the rescue. Mrs. de Winter finds Maxim inside the boat house, and he tells her that Rebecca has won. A diver had just found Rebecca’s boat on the bottom of the sea and Rebecca’s body was still inside it. This was no surpirise to Maxim as he confesses to Mrs. de Winter that he put her there. He goes on to tell her that he hated Rebecca. He knew after being married to her for two weeks that he’d made a terrible mistake. She went on to make his life miserable and one night in the boat house she provoked him to the point of no return and before he realized what he had done, he had killed her. So he put her in her sail boat, took it to the ocean, drilled some holes in the hull and let it sink. The woman he identified some time later and who is buried in the family plot was not Rebecca. She was no one. From nowhere.

An inquiry is opened, and Jack Favell, a former lover of Rebecca’s tries to blackmail Maxim because he has a letter that he’s certain proves that Rebecca didn’t commit suicide, as is being perpotrated by Maxim. Favell believes that Rebecca was pregnant with his child, and that Maxim killed her in a jealous rage. They discover that Rebecca saw a doctor in London the day before she died, so they go to see the doctor who tells them that Rebecca wasn’t pregnant, but in fact had cancer. Now the suicide is completely plausible and Maxim is exonerated. Rebecca lied to Maxim about carrying another man’s child in order to goad Maxim into killing her. This is a very sinister thing to do since it’s an indirect form of suicide, and it also forces Maxim to carry this burden with him, potentially to the end of his days. Favell, who is an ally of Mrs. Danvers, calls her up and tells her what happened and that Maxim and the new Mrs. de Winter are now free to live a long and happy life together at Manderlay. Mrs. Danvers, however, has other ideas. She will not allow them to be happy at that house, and she sets the mansion ablaze. Rushing home, Maxim finds Mrs. de Winter, who has escaped, but Mrs. Danvers wasn’t so lucky. They watch as the house collapses upon her.

One thing that struck me while wathching this film over the weekend was how strong of a Hero’s Journey this film had. It also had terrific character growth and beautifully written dialogue. If you’re an aspiring screenwriter, this is a film you should know. The Ordinary World shows the future Mrs. de Winter working for Edyth Van Hopper. The Meeting of the Mentor is essentially the future Mrs. de Winter getting courted by Maxim. The Call To Adventure is when he asks her to marry him. Her Refusal of the Call is manifested by her reluctance to answer him at first and by her not wanting to tell Edyth Van Hopper. She Crosses the First Threshold when she marries Maxim and moves with him to Manderlay. The Tests, Allies and Enemies are revealed as many of the staff and Maxim’s friends try to help her get acclimated. They become her allies. The clear enemy is Mrs. Danvers, whose jealosy of Mrs. de Winter manifests itself in her shoddy treatment of her. There are many tests throughout this stage, most of which Mrs. de Winter fails, like the walk to the boat house, a scene where she breaks a valuable statuette, but is too afraid to tell Mrs. Danvers. Not until she defiantly tells Mrs. Danvers that she is Mrs. de Winter now does she come out on top of a test, and it’s an important character moment as she’s gone from intimidated waif to strong and determined woman. The Approach is the scene in the boat house where Maxim confesses to murdering Rebecca and hiding her body at the bottom of the ocean. The Supreme Ordeal is the inquiry with the coroner as they have to rehash old memories and Maxim nearly loses his temper and his freedom all at once. The Reward is the scene at the Doctor’s office where the doctor reveals that Rebecca had cancer and that suicide was a completely plausible scenario for her death. The Road Back is literal in this film, and it’s the scene where Maxim is rushing home, and he can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. Meanwhile, Mrs. Danvers is appraoching Mrs de Winter, who is sleeping and appears dead, with a candlestick. The Resurection happens when Maxim returns home and finds Mrs. de Winter alive and well, but Manderlay is engulfed in flames. The Return With the Elixir is when we watch the house collapse on Mrs. Danvers, and the dream of Rebecca finally dies with her.

That is a very strong strucure, and the twists that Hitchcock and screenwriters Robert Sherwood and Joan Harrison put into this story are as seamless as they are surprising. They also add huge amounts of drama to the story at a crucial moment. The film is about two thirds of the way through when Maxim admits to killing Rebecca, and the story takes a whole new direction, which heightens the audience’s interest. Then the twist at the end where we find out the Rebecca had cancer and tempted Maxim into killing her as a means of indirect suicide does a couple of things. It gives you sympathy for Maxim that someone could be heartless enough to do that. Discovering that twis also allows Maxim to get away with the murder, which is itself a twist as well. That’s some brilliant storytelling right there, that as I said before, any aspiring screenwriter could learn from and should study.

One other thing I’d like to discuss regarding Rebecca is the characters. There is some outstanding character development going on in this film. Mrs. de Winter, who starts the film nameless, and acquires the name Mrs. de Winter only after she marries Maxim grows from a weak character to a strong one. Maxim goes from a tormented person to a man at peace with his past. Both of the characters experience these arcs concurrently and they happen in ways that are believeable and natural within the confines of the story. Even Rebecca, who we never meet, is a character that we get to know very well. She has a definite character arc throughout the film as we start out only hearing about how wonderful and beautiful and kind she was. By the end of the film, Rebecca has turned into a manipulative, greedy, unfaithful woman who is willing to subject her husband to a lifetime of torment in order to get one last victory over him, even in death. The other thing that all of the characters have is depth. These characters are real people that we can relate to even though we’ve never lived through circumstances remotely similar. These are real people with real problems and we can’t help but be fascinated by their journeys.

Did the Academy get it right?

Once again it was no slam dunk. Even though the competition this year wasn’t as fierce as in 1939, there were still at least three films nominated against Rebecca that would go on to be classics. The Grapes of Wrath was one of the most important films ever released and it made Henry Fonda a star. The Great Dictator was a biting satire from Charlie Chaplin that criticized Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany in a way that few films had up to that point. The Philadelphia Story is one of the great romantic comedies of all time and had some serious star power with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant and James Stewart in the lead roles.  Those are three certified classics, and The Grapes of Wrath (21) and The Philadelphia Story (51) are on AFI’s list of the top 100 films of all  time. Rebecca, ironically, is not on that list. Personally, I feel that the intricately woven story made Rebecca a worthy winner for Best Picture in 1940, but either of those other films would have been worthy as well. Ultimately, I don’t think it’s a tragedy that Rebecca won (as we’ll discover, the real tragedy occurred the following year). It was an outstanding film, and may or may not have been the best film of 1940.

What can I say about Gone With the Wind that hasn’t already been said by film historians and film scholars over the past 75 years? The film’s results speak for themselves. It won an unprecedented 10 Academy Awards, including Outstanding Production (Best Picture). To this day it remains #1 at the box office by a wide margin when you go by number of tickets sold. It is the #3 movie of all time on AFI’s list of 100 Greatest Movies, coming behind only Citizen Kane and The Godfather. This is truly a film worth celebrating.

Most all of us know the story. Scarlett O’Hara is in love with Ashley Wilkes, but he’s betrothed to marry his cousin Melanie. The dashing gun runner Rhett Butler becomes infatuated by Scarlett, and pursues her. Scarlett marries another man to make Ashley jealous, but he’s killed in the Civil War. Scarlett spends the war with Melanie and both of them fret for Ashley’s safety. Ashley comes back from the war for a Christmas furlough and nine months later, Melanie gives birth to their son. The problem is that Atlanta is under siege from Sherman and the city is burning down around them. Scarlett helps Melanie deliver her baby and implores Rhett to help get them out of Atlanta and back to Tara, the plantation and Scarlett’s childhood home. After getting them close enough, Rhett leaves them. Seeing all of the refugees makes him feel guilty that he didn’t take a more active roll in fighting the war, so he goes off to join the lost cause. Scarlett gets back to Tara where she discovers that her mother has recently died, and it’s made her father insane. The Yankees have been through and taken all of the crops and animals with them. Digging at the dirt, Scarlett vows that whether she has to lie, cheat, steal, or kill, she’ll never go hungry again.

The second half of the film shows Scarlett marry Frank Kennedy, the man that her sister wanted to marry, but she does it in order to get her hands on his money so that she can save Tara, which was under threat of foreclosure due to unpaid taxes that the Yankees had leveled on them. Then one day, Scarlett is attacked while riding her wagon through Shanty Town and one of her former slaves saves her life. Ashley and her husband organize a raid on Shanty Town and Ashley is wounded. Rhett and some others bring him back to the house and Rhett informs Scarlett as she dotes over Ashley that her own husband is lying dead in the creek having been shot through the head. Rhett finally gets Scarlett to agree to marry him, but it’s largely a marriage of convenience, since Scarlett still harbors her feelings for Ashley. The problem is that Rhett, for all of his cynicism, actually falls in love with Scarlett. They have a baby they name Bonnie, and Rhett feels real love for the first time. He takes her on a trip to Europe and figures they never need to see Scarlett again. However Bonnie gets homesick and convinces Rhett to take her back to Atlanta where Scarlett tells Rhett that she’s pregnant again. In a moment of heartlessness he tells her to cheer up, for maybe she’ll have an accident. She swings to hit him and he ducks, leading her to fall down the stairs and lose the baby. A short while later, Bonnie is riding her pony and she falls off and breaks her neck. Melanie, trying to have a baby against the doctor’s advice, dies a short time later. Rhett watches as Scarlett and Ashley comfort each other and leaves before Scarlett finally sees that Ashley is nothing more than a weakling who never really returned her love. She realizes that Rhett is the only man for her, but it’s too late. With his famous line about not giving a damn, Rhett walks out of her life. Continuing on one of the film’s themes, Scarlett vows to go back to Tara to think of a way to get him back knowing that tomorrow is a new day.

There are two words that come to mind when thinking about Gone With the Wind. The first word is epic. This is an epic film on many levels. It tells the epic tale of the fall of the South and it’s way of life, however that is more of a backdrop to the story of Scarlett O’Hara and how her selfishness and need for an unrequited love led her to lose everything, gain it all back, and then lose it again. Scarlett O’Hara is one of the most complex and deepest characters in the history of mainstream American cinema, and that also helps to make the film so epic. Everything is big in this film. It’s told on a grandiose scale that involves everything from the cinematography to the acting.

That leads me to the second word that comes to mind when reflecting on Gone With the Wind and that word is melodramatic. This is a very melodramatic film. There are scenes between Scarlett and Ashley, between Melanie and Ashley, and between Scarlett and Rhett that look like they’re the precursors to the modern-day soap opera with their over the top acting and played up musical score. The overlapping love stories add to the melodrama, as does the very melodramatic and tragic ending.

To me what makes this film so wonderful are the two main characters of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. This would be the third Best Picture Winner of the decade in which Clark Gable would play the leading man, and he seemed to have been born to play Rhett Butler. Certainly this is his most memorable and signature role. He played it with sophistication and panache that has made Rhett Butler one of the most iconic characters in the pantheon of cinema. He’s a cynical man who sees life with a realism that the idealistic would-be swashbucklers of the South couldn’t see as they enthusiastically prepared for war. He could see Scarlett for what she really was and was intrigued. This intrigue turned into infatuation and infatuation turned into love. By the end of the film, he is truly hurt that it seems he’ll never win Scarlett’s love. He’s then so hurt that when it appears that he has won it, he can’t believe that it’s true. As mentioned above, Scarlett O’Hara is one of the most complex characters I’ve ever seen in any film, and Vivien Leigh became her alter ego. Externally, Scarlett changes very little over the course of the film. However, she goes through a myriad of internal changes. She always remains spoiled and manipulative, however it’s how she uses those traits over the course of the film that define her condition. She goes from helpless to tyrannical. Spoiled to sophisticated. Essentially she changes to a soft little girl to a woman hardened by the extraordinary circumstances through which she’s lived, but never loses her childlike infatuation for Ashley Wilkes until it’s too late.

If you consider yourself to be a film buff, then this is a film you should see. It is an emotional film that has moments of levity. It is a serious film that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It is an epic and it is certainly worthy of being counted amonst the greatest films of all time.

Did the Academy get it right?

Now, before you go thinking that this was a slam dunk, consider this list of films: Dark Victory, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Love Affair, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights. Those were the nine films nominated against Gone With the Wind for Outstanding Production. By my count, eight of them are certified classics, and I’d be willing to bet that at least five of them could have won, had they been released during either the previous year or the following year. I would say that if 1939 wasn’t the strongest year of Oscar contenders, then it was certainly among ’em. Ultimately, though, it had to be Gone With the Wind. All of the films listed above are fine films, and some are exceptional. However there is something special about Gone With the Wind. Even when it was released, it was more of an event than any film that had been released before it. It has become a timeless film that only The Wizard of Oz can match of the films that were released that year. On a side note, has any director had as great a year as Victor Flemming did that year, when he directed both Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz? Ultimately, Gone With the Wind is one of the greatest film ever made, and despite the heavy competition, was clearly the best picture of the year.