Best Original Story 1944

1927/28 through 1997
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What was the Best Original Story of 1944?

The Fighting Sullivans (Edward Doherty, Jules Schermer)
0
No votes
Going My Way (Leo McCarey)
2
17%
A Guy Named Joe (David Boehm, Chandler Sprague)
0
No votes
Lifeboat (John Steinbeck)
10
83%
None Shall Escape (Alfred Neumann, Joseph Than)
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 12

Big Magilla
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Re: Best Origianl Story 1944

Post by Big Magilla »

I sat down and watched The Fighting Sullivans for the first time in more years than I care to remember after watching The Human Comedy, which I also hadn't seen in some time.

I watched The Human Comedy because I was perplexed by the notion that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan were "reunited" for the remake, Ithaca, directed by Ryan. I didn't recall any scenes between the characters they play, and unless they've changed the story drastically, they don't. Hanks plays the deceased father whose narration introduces the characters, has a voice-over during a scene midway through and appears as a ghost in the film's fadeout. Ray Collins played the part in the original, Fay Bainter had Ryan's part as the mother. Bonnie Koloc, who played the mother in the 1984 Broadway musical version, was born in Waterloo, Iowa, the home of the Sullivans. She contributed a 1930s recording of the boys for the extras on the commemorative edition of The Fighting Sullivans .

As for the film itself, it plays like a B picture with a mostly unknown cast, but was actually an A picture that opened at the Roxy, New York's second largest theatre (after Radio city Music Hall), received excellent reviews and was a box-office hit. The antics of the kids become a bit tiresome, but not unwatchable. The characters of the grown boys other than Al, the youngest, who marries Catherine Mary (Anne Baxter), are not well developed, but the shocks, when they come, are winningly underplayed by Thomas Mitchell and Selena Royle as the parents. I'm not sure how much of the "story" is based on fact and how much is the writers' imagination, but one thing that we know from the extras is that the two oldest boys (born 1914 and 1916) enlisted in the Navy in 1937 and were discharged in 1941 before Peal Harbor. They re-enlisted after Pearl Harbor while the younger boys, born 1918, 1919 and 1922 respectively, enlisted for the first time. In the film they're all shown as having enlisted together for the first time with most of the action taking place in 1939 when the two older boys couldn't possibly have been there to participate in all the events leading up to Al and Catherine Mary's wedding and the birth of their son, Jimmie.

Best performance in the film? I'd have to say six-year-old Bobby Driscoll as young Al.
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Re: Best Origianl Story 1944

Post by Big Magilla »

The five Sullivan brothers who perished in the sinking of the USS Juneau at Guadalcanal in November, 1942 were always known as "the fighting Sullivans" but the film, originally released as The Sullivans was about the entire family. At the time of the original release in February, 1944, the parents were well-known political activists in the wake of their five sons' deaths. By the time the film was re-released in 1951, the parents had faded from public recognition but the legend of the five brothers had become even stronger, thus the renaming of the film and the title under which it was sold to TV in 1956 and has been known by ever since.
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Re: Best Origianl Story 1944

Post by Mister Tee »

I'd never given much thought to this whole story/screenplay dichotomy until Magilla raised it when this series started, and I'm still not clear about the exact parameters. Consider this year: why would not the two Sturges efforts (coming up next week) be candidates for original story ahead of such lame efforts as The Sullivans or A Guy Named Joe? I'm wondering if the Original Story category only applies if, as in the Going My Way case here, the credit under Original Screenplay is different -- either another author, or an additional one? It's the only way I can make sense of it.

I thought this was going to be an "I can't vote" instance, since I'd not been able to track down None Shall Escape, but on a whim I gave YouTube another look, and there it was. (It wasn't there a few months back when I initially checked.)

I'd seen The Sullivans (that's what it was called then) back in the mid-60s. All I remembered about it (SPOILER ALERT) was all the guys dying in the same incident. I watched again a few weeks back, and I see why that was the case: there's nothing else distinctive about the people or the film; the only thing worth knowing about them is how they died. It's a sad story -- and led to very sensible military reform -- but it's not much of a movie.

A Guy Named Joe presumably resonated during the war, when so many sweethearts never returned home, but in the distance of seven decades it just seems a routine/not very imaginative "angel" story. Spielberg's obsession with this is incomprehensible to me (and made for one of his worst movies).

None Shall Escape traces the fairly familiar rise of Nazism, but does it in a great many interesting ways. First, it presents itself as watching from the future: positing the war as finished (not quite a done deal in 1944), and envisioning something very close to the Nuremberg trials. Second, it charts the course not just from Hitler's rise, but from the end of the first World War and the bitterness over the Versailles treaty; this is way further back than most histories of the time went. Third, it locates itself in Poland, allowing for a more place-specific view of the history. Fourth, it centers it around a small set of characters whose interactions are as much personal as historical. Fifth, it structures itself within a series of interlocking flashbacks. And sixth, it clearly articulates the idea that Jews were being specifically targeted and slaughtered (a fact that was not universally acknowledged in 1944). All these things made the film a far more fascinating watch for me than I'd anticipated -- enough that, even though the film covers, as I say, somewhat familiar territory, I'd say it eminently deserves its nomination here.

I see Lifeboat is the landslide choice here, and I'd like to join in, to salute both Hitchcock and Steinbeck. But, honestly, I've never found the film that interesting -- I view it as one of the weakest Hitchcock films of the era (surrounded as it was by Shadow of a Doubt and Notorious). The characters are a bit too schematic, with nearly everyone serving a designated role in a didactic parable of the need to unite to fight the Nazis. It's OK, and it's not like any other contender is so great. But my vote will go elsewhere.

To Going My Way, in fact, which has never been very popular around these parts, but has always seemed to me a charming piece with deceptive emotional power. The story is sort of all over the place, but in a nice way -- it feels loose and quick on its feet. And the closing moment, with Fitzgerald's mother appearing and Crosby making his exit, makes me tear up every time.

I don't have a strong preference for any of these contenders, but, since I won't be able to vote for Going My Way in the big kids competition next week, I'll throw it my vote here.
Last edited by Mister Tee on Sat Aug 06, 2016 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Big Magilla
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Re: Best Origianl Story 1944

Post by Big Magilla »

I don't know whether I've seen None Shall escape or not. If I did I don't remember it.

A Guy Named Joe while better than Spielberg's remake,Always, has always been to me one of the lesser WW II films that came out during the war.

The strength of Going My Way lies in the characterizations of Barry Firtzgerald and to a lesser extent, Bing Crosby, not in McCarey's rather simple story. McCarey's sequel, The Bells of St. Mary's is much, much better.

The Fighting Sullivans is a genuine heartbreaker that earns its tears through the writing as well as the performances, particularly of Thomas Mitchell as the father, that I am almost tempted to vote for, but John Steinbeck's story for Lifeboat, drawn almost entirely from his imagination is the best work of fiction of the lot and therefore gets my vote.
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Best Original Story 1944

Post by Big Magilla »

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