Hollywood Classics

29/11/2017 Best Picture Oscar Winners of the 1940s : 3. Casablanca- 1943. If we identify strongly with the characters in some movies, then it is no mystery that “Casablanca” is one of the most popular films ever made. It is about a man and a woman who are in love, and who sacrifice love for a higher purpose. This is immensely appealing; the viewer is not only able to imagine winning the love of Humphrey Bogart or Ingrid Bergman, but unselfishly renouncing it, as a contribution to the great cause of defeating the Nazis. No one making “Casablanca” thought they were making a great movie. It was simply another Warner Bros. release. It was an “A list” picture, to be sure (Bogart, Bergman and Paul Henreid were stars, and no better cast of supporting actors could have been assembled on the Warners lot than Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, Claude Rains and Dooley Wilson). But it was made on a tight budget and released with small expectations. Everyone involved in the film ha...

15/11/2017 Best Picture Oscar Winners of the 1940s :- "1941 Best Picture – ‘How Green Was My Valley’" John Ford’s touching coming-of-age story in a Welsh mining village is a fine movie from a lovely novel, but history has rightly judged Orson Welles' Citizen Kane as the better movie. A masterpiece of film noir, The Maltese Falcon, also missed the prize, along with the charming biopic Sergeant York; the melodramatic stage hit The Little Foxes; and Hitchcock’s spellbinding Suspicion. Other movies that lost in 1941 were the delightful Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Blossoms in the Dust, Hold Back the Dawn and One Foot in Heaven. How Green Was My Valley (film) 1941. 1. Profile :- Directed by John Ford Produced by Darryl F. Zanuck Screenplay by Philip Dunne Based on How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn Narrated by Irving Pichel Music by Alfred Newman Cinematography Arthur C. Miller Edited by James B. Clark Distributed by 20th Centur...

11/11/2017 Academy Hits and Misses in the Golden Age of Hollywood As the Best Picture Oscar winners of the 1940s prove, sometimes the Academy hits – and sometimes it misses by a mile. 1941 may have seen the most controversial Best Picture dust-up of all time, when the immortal Citizen Kane was beaten by the merely excellent How Green Was My Valley. Nevertheless, the 1940s were part of the Golden Age of Hollywood, hits and misses alike - a decade packed with stupendous films. 1. 1940 Best Picture – ‘Rebecca’ : Alfred Hitchcock’s first American-made film captured the top prize, beating out such wonderful competitors as Charlie Chaplin’s first “talkie," The Great Dictator; the funny, sophisticated Philadelphia Story; and the dust-bowl epic The Grapes of Wrath. Another of Hitchcock's films lost out the same year: Foreign Correspondent, a tense spy thriller that urged American entry into World War II. Also snubbed on a long list of nominees were The Letter, the Long Vo...