Succes or Snub? Casablanca (16th Academy Awards Review Pt. 2)

 To read part 1, click here.

 

The Song of Bernadette Suite~The Song of Bernadette - Alfred Newman

Casablanca’s Oscar win is interesting on a few counts. For one thing, you may remember that one of the rules the Academy has (and that we use as a baseline for movies to complain about in this series) is that the year’s considerations are for whenever the movie came out in Los Angeles. Casablanca was originally released in New York City during the closing weeks of 1942 but it didn’t receive its wide release until January of 1943, qualifying it for the 16th Academy Awards instead of the 15th. Furthermore, January is usually regarded as the bad season of films, even back then. If a movie is released in January, it’s not usually getting big accolades, especially at the Oscars. The fact that this movie was still on people’s minds twelve months later speaks volumes about just how much people loved Casablanca.

Anyway, the next couple chapters will be divided in half between war movies and then actual landmark pictures. If you remember last chapter, I pointed out that most of the movies made shortly after the war began were generally pretty terrible films that try way, way too hard to be patriotic. Looking at our itinerary of films for this blog, there seems to be a bit of an uptick in quality. While most Hollywood films were still thinly-veiled propaganda films, audiences started demanding more quality in their movies, instead of just unabashed preachiness (presumably Casablanca’s huge success at the beginning of the year may have influenced many people in showbiz to start changing gears).

There was also a weird little sub-genre that garnered steam this year in what were known as “for the troops” musicals. These basically had a loose framing device wherein our main character would go on an adventure to try to put on a show for the troops and then rope in numerous studio stars into a giant revue that dominates the back half of the movie (e.g. This Is The Army, Star Spangled Rhythm, Thousands Cheer). Probably the most notable is Stormy Weather

as it was one of the first movies to celebrate African-American contribution to American cinema and culture. We’ll discuss this further in later chapters but this and another (very fun) musical called Cabin in the Sky were the first films since the Hays Code’s development to celebrate African-American culture (stereotyped though they may be).

(The history of African-American representation in cinema during the war years is somewhat interesting and complex, especially considering how the culture was not represented well ever since Hallelujah! (1930). To make a long story extremely short, starting in 1942, Hollywood films and scripts had to be screened by the Office of War Information, a branch of the federal government set up to disseminate war information and review any and all scripts and discard ones that were deemed un-American. Now having to acquiesce to not one but two censoring boards is a large part of why there were so many unapologetically propagandistic films during WWII. President Franklin Roosevelt, who wished for black suffrage but felt constrained by the politics of his era, instructed the OWI to instruct Hollywood producers to make films celebrating African-American and other minority heritage to try to influence audiences to being more accepting. While you may critique the OWI as being a tool of propaganda for the federal government, they’re also the reason why Sam in Casablanca wasn’t portrayed as an offensive stereotype like the producers may have originally wanted and why films celebrating black pride even existed in the first place. This push-and-pull dynamic between the studios, the OWI and the Hays Office exists constantly in the background of the war years.)

With all that being said, there were better war movies that came out in 1943. For example, you have movies like Destination Tokyo

and Air Force

which are played a lot more straight. These are the closest films to demonstrations of real war missions that audiences would have played along with. They’re a little slow-paced by today’s standards but, for their time, are very excellent. I also personally love Five Graves to Cairo

which is set during the North African campaign where the main character manipulates the Nazis in a fun little heist-esque scenario.

Probably the best of these ancillary war movies, however, is This Land Is Mine

which has similar themes and set-ups to Casablanca. This movie is set in actual Vichy France and revolves around a cowardly schoolteacher named Albert Lory (Charles Laughton), who finds himself sucked into the local resistance. It was one of the most beloved films of the year that it came out and features Laughton in one of his all-time greatest performances. In most other movies, he was usually typecast as the villain, a role he performed admirably, so it’s nice to see him in a more heroic role. And not just any hero, someone who is a total wimp and pansy.

It’s very against type for Laughton but it’s an excellent performance and a severe snub for the Best Acting Oscar. Similar to Humphrey Bogart’s (equally-snubbed if you can believe that) role in Casablanca, you genuinely believe that he is such a coward that it feels so much more rewarding when he finally does the right thing and stands up to the Nazi menace. While his performance is excellent, the rest of the movie is a little too slow-paced and does get preachy towards the end. Again, different values of the 40s so not begrudging it but it definitely pales in comparison to Casablanca.

On the other side of the aisle, the more genre-heavy pictures continued their slow but steady domination of the box office. Universal kept making monster movies, trying to reignite the success of The Wolf Man (1941) and Frankenstein (1931) with the next batch of icons. This resulted in three (technically four) quasi-forgotten monsters in Captive Wild Woman (the movie that introduced the Gorilla Girl)

Son of Dracula (the movie that introduced Count Alucard)

The Mad Ghoul (do you really need me to tell you the name of the villain in this movie?)

and a remake of Phantom of the Opera (which won the Oscar for Best Color Art Direction).

While all of these are very fun, they’re not quite “movie of the year” material in the same way that the earlier monster films from the dawn of the sound era could be argued as being. Another interesting piece of film history is Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man

which is the first ever crossover movie. Universal would be having a lot of fun with these as it’s the first time we ever saw a “monster mash” movie where two monsters fight each other. As time went on, Universal horror films would transform from creepy commentary on taboo subjects into just watching these movie monsters interact with each other. This would be a fun little subgenre that has been responsible for more enjoyably bad movies than you can count. Even by those standards, this one is pretty bad. Still a neat piece of film history though.

And the final landmark is Lassie Come Home

which is the start of the “boy and his dog” genre wherein a pet runs away and must find its way home. Yes, this is a very unique and very distinctive genre. Historical relevance aside, it’s as cutesy as you think it is so no comments here.

Moving onto our feature notes, I’m not entirely sure what the frontrunner was as most of the awards that year were pretty split. Each of the major acting awards went to a different movie (Best Actor to Paul Lukas in Watch on the Rhine, Best Actress to Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette, Best Supporting Actor to Charles Coburn in The More the Merrier and Best Supporting Actress to Katina Paxinou in For Whom the Bell Tolls) and the only film that won more than one or two awards was Casablanca. Looking at these, however, and the spirit of the times, probably the closest thing to a frontrunner would’ve been For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Song of Bernadette.

For Whom the Bell Tolls was the second-highest-grossing film of the year (after Casablanca) and isn’t really a WWII propaganda film but isn’t not one… if that makes sense? Look, let me try to explain: the film revolves around an American volunteer named Roberto (Gary Cooper) who enlists in the Spanish Civil War to fight the fascist government of Francisco Franco and falls in love with a local guerilla named Maria (Ingrid Bergman). So, different war but same movie about the fight against fascism so you get the gist.

This was a very well-regarded film in its heyday as evidenced by its huge box office gross and was one of the first real war epics, stretching out to almost 3 hours. However, length doesn’t always mean everything. Even ignoring the fact that it lost out to Casablanca, the two films warrant comparison as they have some similarities. Both movies are about a cynical hero whose tragic romance provides their impetus to stand up to an evil government. The difference? Casablanca accomplished this story in half the time that For Whom the Bell Tolls takes.

Ignoring the ungodly length (and it can be very difficult to do so), the film has aged tremendously poorly. Even back then, the battle scenes here seem pretty lackluster to what Cecil B. DeMille accomplished in The Crusades (1935) and The Buccaneer (1938) and both of those movies were in the 30s. Even given the fact that it was based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway doesn’t add much to the story as it seems to lack the Hemingway touch.

The Song of Bernadette is a little bit better.

The film revolves around the real-life story of Bernadette Soubirous (Jennifer Jones), a poor, 19th-century French girl who claims to have seen and met the Virgin Mary. This revelation turns her whole world upside down as she is alternatively decried and derided by her community. This crisis of faith and Christian martyr story is the type of thing that the Academy crowd adored back then and this is probably the closest approximation of Oscar bait that you could call for a 40s crowd. At the time, this was highly regarded as one of the almost-great films although it has since been largely forgotten.

Despite being Oscar bait, this is a pretty good (albeit long) film. I particularly enjoy the villains in this picture as Bernadette is persecuted both secularly from the Imperial Prosecutor (Vincent Price who is always such a delight when he plays the bad guy) and religiously by a strict nun who is more focused on the rules than being a good Christian (Gladys Cooper). Jennifer Jones’ performance was celebrated at the time as one of the great Best Actress wins though, looking back with hindsight, it’s not particularly special.

Considering how the movie that won the following year was a film about a Christian cleric, that probably indicates this would’ve won had Casablanca not been around. It’s an interesting time capsule that shows how public opinion changes as a movie can go from being a classic to being forgotten over time.

Another highly-regarded film that has aged well, and is still considered a classic, however, is Shadow of a Doubt.

This is often considered the most definitive Hitchcock movie as well as his first true masterpiece. At the risk of sounding like I’m pigeon-holing one of the greatest movie directors of all time, when you look at many of the latter masterpieces that Hitchcock is most renowned for (i.e. Strangers on a Train (1951), Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958) etc.), he does seem to have a tested formula. A normal person dealing with some personal relationship problems ends up becoming privy to a sinister murder of an attractive young woman which threatens to upend their entire world.

Shadow of a Doubt was the first film of his to really perfect this formula. Charlie Newton (Teresa Wright) is a bored teenage girl living in idyllic suburbia whose life is upended with joy when her Uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) (who she’s named after) comes to visit the family and stay for a while. The two instantly hit it off but Charlie becomes the center of a strange conspiracy as she encounters two mysterious men (Macdonald Carey and Wallace Ford) who seem to be stalking Uncle Charlie. Uncle Charlie, in turn, seems to only clam up any time anyone asks him why he’s staying with the Newtons.

From there, the plot takes a few twists and turns that I won’t spoil but it’s one Hell of a fun ride. Hitchcock stated that this was his personal favorite movie he ever made and it definitely feels like the first film he ever got close to perfect. Even in the best of his previous films, there always seemed to be some notable flaws or a story beat that wasn’t thought out quite well. Here, the film hits all of its dramatic beats pretty close to the mark, the acting is excellent and the pacing is exquisite. Hitchcock’s trademark dark humor is especially on point in this film, as there’s a running gag where Charlie’s father, Joseph (Henry Travers), and his best friend (Hume Cornyn) frequently have morbid arguments about what the best way to murder someone would be. What starts off as funny jokes, however, seem to just add to Charlie’s stress as she slowly realizes that her life is starting to come on the line.

The film is also still a really good thriller with some memorable setpieces that leave you wondering how Charlie will get out of them. While Shadow of a Doubt is an excellent film, and still holds up as one of Hitchcock’s best, it’s not quite as impactful as Casablanca. It was, however, still a wholesale snub across the board, especially for a movie that was as lauded at its release as it was (every major critic considered it Hitchcock’s best yet). Hitchcock definitely should have at least been nominated for Best Director and Joseph Cotten’s chilling performance as Uncle Charlie Oakley should have been considered for the Best Actor award (though I’m not entirely sure whether he would qualify as Lead or Supporting).

The only movie that came out in 1942 that was in the same level of quality as Casablanca in terms of having something important to say about the world around it probably would’ve been The Ox-Bow Incident.

Considered one of the best Westerns ever made, The Ox-Bow Incident is an early foray into a niche little sub-genre called the psychological Western, which is basically a Western that forces the protagonist to confront some dark truths about themselves. The set-up is quick and simple: a frontier town has received news that a local rancher named Larry Kinkaid has been murdered by cattle rustlers. So a posse forms to track down the rustlers to Ox-Bow Canyon where they find a trio of men camping with a large herd of cattle. Are they the murderers or is it just a coincidence?

The rest of the movie details the ensuing kangaroo court as the whole posse debates back and forth between whether or not the men they found are the murderers and whether or not they should kill them. While the set-up does indicate that this is a movie that’s meant to act as a cautionary tale on the dangers of lynching and vigilante justice, The Ox-Bow Incident does a great job at making you question your own morality in this situation. I genuinely had no idea whether the men the posse found were the murderers or not until the answer is revealed at the end of the movie. For every argument brought forward that they could be innocent, there’s another, equally captivating one on why they could be guilty. But then the question is so what? If they’re guilty, shouldn’t they still be given a fair trial and not just summarily killed?

The whole look of the film is very dark and perfectly reflects the grim tone of the story. Henry Fonda plays the main character, Gil Carter, and while it’s not his greatest character, he does a perfect job as the everyman whose soul is being lost by what he sees in front of him. While The Ox-Bow Incident was nominated for Outstanding Motion Picture, it received no other major award nominations. It also proved to be a relative failure at the box office, although that may also partly be because Warner Bros. executives openly admitted to having absolutely no idea how to market such a grim film.

This is probably going to be one of the shortest “feature presentation” film reviews in the Success or Snubs of this series as there’s not really a whole lot more to talk about The Ox-Bow Incident without giving away the ending. It’s also one of those films where the less you know going in, the better it’ll be so do yourself a favor and go watch it.

With that in mind, we’re also just treading water here. While Shadow of a Doubt and The Ox-Bow Incident are both very excellent films, Casablanca is just in another league here. It was the most timely to American culture at the time, the most influential and contains some of the most beloved and iconic characters and scenes of all time. While you could argue The Ox-Bow Incident might be better on a technical perspective (note: I’m not saying it is, I’m just saying you could make the argument), Casablanca just more perfectly encompassed the zeitgeist of 1940s America and getting us all to understand that the world is a lot bigger than us. (Supposedly Hays Office President Joseph Breen said that he considered Casablanca his favorite film he ever reviewed. Puts into perspective just what a nerve it touched with people.)

While Casablanca did deserve the Oscar, there’s still a vignette here that we can use to criticize the Academy. The film was co-produced by Jack Warner and Hal B. Wallis, a former producer for Warner Bros. who set up his own production company and contracted out his services to Warner Bros. This guy was a big deal, having produced for Warner Bros. films such hits as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Sergeant York (1941). By all accounts, Casablanca was Wallis’ movie. He was the one who selected the script, supervised production, chose most of the cast and crew and, along with director Michael Curtiz, put the dailies together.

When Casablanca was announced as the winner, Wallis got up to accept the trophy and was immediately shoved out of the way by Jack Warner who went up to claim it for himself. As Wallis got up to approach the stage, his way was blocked by several henchmen of the Warner Bros. If this awards ceremony was based on merit as they pretend they are, Jack Warner would’ve been confronted and told to at the very least share his award. Or told to sit down. Or at the very least Wallis would've been approached afterward and given some commissary prize. But it’s not. It’s a tool used by Hollywood producers to celebrate themselves. The image conjured up by this is enough to satisfy this image of Hollywood. One of the greatest movies of all time is contracted to an indie producer by a studio mogul and the credit for it falls on the mogul.

Still, if we’re grading this by the choice itself, this was a good one. By just about every stretch of the imagination, calling Casablanca the Outstanding Motion Picture of 1943 was a…

SUCCESS!

Personal Favorite Movies of 1943:

• Air Force (dir. Howard Hawks)
• Captive Wild Woman (dir. Edward Dmytryk)
• Casablanca (dir. Michael Curtiz)
• Five Graves to Cairo (dir. Billy Wilder)
• Phantom of the Opera (dir. Arthur Lubin)
• Shadow of a Doubt (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
• Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (dir. Roy William Neill)
• The Mad Ghoul (dir. James Hogan)
• The Ox-Bow Incident (dir. William A. Wellman)
• The Song of Bernadette (dir. Henry King)

Favorite Heroes:

• Albert Lory (Charles Laughton) (This Land Is Mine)
• Captain Cassidy (Cary Grant) (Destination Tokyo)
• Charlie Newton (Teresa Wright) (Shadow of a Doubt)
• Corporal John J. Bramble (Franchot Tone) (Five Graves to Cairo)
• Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) (Casablanca)

Favorite Villains:

• Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains) (Casablanca)
• Imperial Prosecutor Vital Dutour (Vincent Price) (The Song of Bernadette)
• Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (Erich von Stroheim) (Five Graves to Cairo)
• Sister Mary Vauzous (Gladys Cooper) (The Song of Bernadette)
• The Merry Widow Murderer (Shadow of a Doubt)