1942 probably the most viewed year of film in the 40's previously by me was dominated by one female centered story. This dominating picture was the eventual best picture winner Mrs. Miniver which might have been looked upon better then were as now it comes off rather preachy and overdone. Greer Garson who won in the lead role is better in Random Harvest that year and the fact this is one of the rare female led pictures to win the top prize does not reflect well on the academy I feel. 1942 was the second last year before the academy done away with nominating 10 nominees for this prize. Of those nominated the ones I've seen are seven and of those there are some clunkers but best above the ones I've seen is Orson Welles The Magnificent Ambersons. I would personally nominate that one largely because it's brilliant and still stands up well for how changed it might've been by many, many edits.
The greatest film achievement for me of 1942 is Casablanca. Yes the film won the best picture prize the year prior but technically the film premiered in 1942. All hat can be said about Casablanca has been said but I'm going to give reasons why I believe it to be the best of this years film. Firstly it's the most timeless film as time goes by. Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains and especially Humphrey Bogart are practically perfect in this all adding this to this not so typical love story and making it capture your attention all these years later. The director Michael Curtiz films this classic like all the greats where you just fall head over heals watching just magic happen on screen again and again. Without this film I believe we would never properly understand love and all that sometimes must be sacrificed with it.
The academy really made some questionable choices in 1942 but when it comes to it the ones I would have reconized outside Ambersons and Casablanca are Saboteur yet again an overlooked crime thriller from Hitchcock, Bambi the most heartbreaking of Walt Disney animated films and Yankee Doodle Dandy the musical biopic that really defined my love of musicals early on. While the academy rewarded James Cagney, Greer Garson, Van Heflin and Teresa Wright with the acting prizes this year the women are rather terrible choices. Heflin is nomination worthy and Cagney in retrospective was the right choice by the academy because his work is just pure joy to watch as the man owns the screen. Claude Rains while nominated a year later for Casablanca in either year would be the proper choice for his supporting turn, Bette Davis should've taken the actress prize for Now, Voyager which for me would've been her first award even though she had won two oscars previously. The supporting actress winner is one of the greatest turns to be overlooked by the academy because they had the chance to reward her by actually nominating her but just looking to the young ingenue to reward. This performance and actress I'm talking about is Agnes Moorehead for her breathtaking work as Fanny in Orson Welles The Magnificent Ambersons. She just is electric in the film and explodes so much it's one the earliest and greatest crimes the academy ever made.
While I've seen 34 films from 1942 the year is dominated by by top 10 and outside those the quality seems to drop where we get good films for the year but all time not as much. Below is the list of my wins and nominations that I would've preferred happening that year.
OUTSTANDING PICTURE:
1. Casablanca (Produced by Hal B. Wallis)
2. The Magnificent Ambersons (Produced by Orson Welles)
3. Saboteur (Produced by Frank Lloyd)
4. Bambi (Produced by Walt Disney)
5. Yankee Doodle Dandy (Produced by William Cagney)
6. Now, Voyager
7. The Major and the Minor
8. Random Harvest
9. Woman of the Year
10. Gentleman Jim
OUTSTANDING DIRECTOR:
Michael Curtiz for Casablanca
Michael Curtiz for Yankee Doodle Dandy
Alfred Hitchcock for Saboteur
Orson Welles for The Magnificent Ambersons
Sam Wood for The Pride of the Yankees
OUTSTANDING LEADING ACTOR:
Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in "CASABLANCA"
James Cagney as George M. Cohan in "YANKEE DOODLE DANDY"
Ronald Colman as Charles Rainer in "RANDOM HARVEST"
Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig in "THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES"
Monty Woolley as Sheridan Whiteside in "THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER"
OUTSTANDING LEADING ACTRESS:
Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund in "CASABLANCA"
Bette Davis as Charlotte Vale in "NOW, VOYAGER"
Greer Garson as Paula in "RANDOM HARVEST"
Katharine Hepburn as Tess Harding in "WOMAN OF THE YEAR"
Ginger Rogers as Susan Applegate in "THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR"
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Ward Bond as John L. Sullivan in "GENTLEMAN JIM"
Walter Brennan as Sam Blake in "THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES"
Robert Dudley as Wienie King in "THE PALM BEACH STORY"
Van Heffin as Jeff Hartnett in "JOHNNY EAGAR"
Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault in "CASABLANCA"
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Mary Astor as The Princess Centimillia in "THE PALM BEACH STORY"
Gladys Cooper as Mrs. Henry Vale in "NOW, VOYAGER"
Hattie McDaniel as Minerva Clay in "IN THIS OUR LIFE"
Agnes Moorehead as Fanny Minafer in "THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS"
Dame Mae Whitty as Lady Beldon in "MRS. MINIVER"
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
Preston Sturges for The Palm Beach Story
Peter Viertel, Joan Harrison & Dorothy Parker for Saboteur
Melchior Lengyel & Edwin Justus Mayer for To Be or Not to Be
Ring Lardner Jr. & Michael Kanin for Woman of the Year
Robert Buckner & Edmund Joseph for Yankee Doodle Dandy
OUTSTANDING ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
Screenplay by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein & Howard Koch; Based on Everybody Comes to Rick's by Murray Burnett & Joan Alison, Casablanca
Screenplay by Orson Welles; Based on The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons
Screenplay by Billy Wilder & Charles Brackett; Based on The Major and the Minor by Edward Childs Carpenter, The Major and the Minor
Screenplay by Arthur Wimperis, George Froeschel, James Hilton & Claudine West; Based on
Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther, Mrs. Miniver
Screenplay by Casey Robinson; Based on Now, Voyager by Olive Higgins Prouty, Now, Voyager
OUTSTANDING ART DIRECTION:
Art Direction by Carl Jules Weyl; Set Design by George James Hopkins for Casablanca
Production Design & Art Direction by Albert S. D'Agostino; Set Design by Darrell Silvera for The Magnificent Ambersons
Art Direction by Robert Haas; Set Design by Fred M. MacLean for Now, Voyager
Art Direction by Hens Dreier & Ernst Fegte for The Palm Beach Story
Art Direction by Carol Jules Weyl for Yankee Doodle Dandy
OUTSTANDING BREAKTHROUGH/DEBUT:
Anne Baxter (The Magnificent Ambersons)
Norman Lloyd (Saboteur)
Diana Lynn (The Major and the Minor)
Susan Peters (Random Harvest)
OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Arthur Edeson for Casablanca
Nicholas Musuraca for Cat People
Stanley Cortez for The Magnificent Ambersons
Sol Poolito for Now, Voyager
Joseph A. Valentine for Saboteur
OUTSTANDING COSTUME DESIGN:
Orry George Kelly for Casablanca
Edward Stevenson for The Magnificent Ambersons
Irene Maud Lentz for The Palm Beach Story
Irene Maud Lentz for To Be or Not to Be
Milo Anderson for Yankee Doodle Dandy
OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE OF THE YEAR:
The Magnificent Ambersons (Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, Richard Bennett, Don Dillaway)
The Man Who Came to Dinner (Monty Woolley, Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Richard Travis, Jimmy Durante, Grant Mitchell, Billie Burke, Reginald Gardiner, Elisabeth Fraser, George Barbier, Mary Wickes, Russell Arms, Ruth Vivian, Nanette Vallon)
Mrs. Miniver (Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright, Dame May Whitty , Reginald Owen, Henry Travers, Richard Ney, Henry Wilcoxon, Christopher Severn, Brenda Forbes, Clare Sandars, Marie De Becker, Helmut Dantine, John Abbott, Connie Leon, Rhys Williams)
Saboteur (Priscilla Lane, Robert Cummings, Otto Kruger, Alan Baxter, Clem Bevans, Norman Lloyd, Alma Kruger, Vaughan Glaser, Ian Wolfe, Dorothy Peterson, Murray Alper, Kathryn Adams, Pedro de Cordoba, Anita Sharp-Bolster, Billy Curtis, Marie LeDeaux, Jeanne Romer, Lynne Romer, Frances Carson)
To Be or Not to Be (Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Stanley Ridges, Sig Ruman, Tom Dugan, Charles Halton, George Lynn, Henry Victor, Maude Eburne, Halliwell Hobbes, Miles Mander)
OUTSTANDING FILM EDITING:
Owen Marks for Casablanca
Robert Wise for The Magnificent Ambersons
Warren Low for Now, Voyager
Daniel Mandell for The Pride of the Yankees
Otto Ludwig for Saboteur
OUTSTANDING DRAMATIC/MUSICAL SCORE:
Frank Churchill & Edward H. Plumb for Bambi
Max Steiner for Casablanca
Bernard Herrmann for The Magnificent Ambersons
Max Steiner for Now, Voyager
Ray Heindorf for Yankee Doodle Dandy
OUTSTANDING ORIGINAL SONG:
Bambi, "Little April Shower" (Music by Frank Churchill; Lyrics by Larry Morey)
Bambi, "Love is a Song" (Music by Frank Churchill; Lyrics by Larry Morey)
Holiday Inn, "White Christmas" (Music and Lyrics Irving Berlin)
This Gun for Hire, "I've Got You" (Music by Jacques Press; Lyrics by Frank Loesser)
This Gun for Hire, "Now You See It, Now You Don't" (Music by Jacques Press; Lyrics by Frank Loesser)
OUTSTANDING PERFORMER OF THE YEAR:
Laird Cregar (The Black Swan, Joan of Paris, This Gun for Hire)
Bette Davis (In This Our Life, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Now, Voyager)
Greer Garson (Mrs. Miniver, Random Harvest)
Tyrone Power (The Black Swan, Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake , This Above All)
Robert Preston (Pacific Blackout, Star Spangled Rhythm, This Gun for Hire, Wake Island)
OUTSTANDING SOUND RECORDING:
Bernard B. Brown for Arabian Nights
C.O. Slyfield for Bambi
Bailey Fesler & James G. Stewart for The Magnificent Ambersons
Thomas T. Moulton for The Pride of the Yankees
Nathan Levinson for Yankee Doodle Dandy
OUTSTANDING SPECIAL EFFECTS:
Fred Sersen for The Black Swan
Vernon L. Walker for Cat People
Gordon Jennings for I Married a Witch
Lawrence W. Butler for Jungle Book
John P. Fulton for Saboteur
I've seemed to venture back far in history these past three occasions but next I am to venture to 20 years ago three films from Cannes broke the studio hold on the oscars and started the beginning of the indie takeover of the academy awards. Even though neither of these three won the award it went to The English Patient which holds some connections of romance to Casablanca so we will see if it stands as high with me as it would've with the academy 20 years ago.
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