Best Screenplay 1940

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What were the Best Original and Adapted Screenplays of 1940?

Angels Over Broadway (Ben Hecht)
0
No votes
Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (Norman Burnstine, Heinz Herald, John Huston)
1
3%
Foreign Correspondent (Charles Bennett, Joan Harrison)
5
17%
The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin)
8
27%
The Great McGinty (Preston Sturges)
2
7%
The Grapes of Wrath (Nunnally Johnson)
7
23%
Kitty Foyle (Dalton Trumbo)
0
No votes
The Long Voyage Home (Dudley Nichols)
1
3%
The Philadelphia Story (Donald Ogden Stewart)
0
No votes
Rebecca (Robert E. Sherwood, Joan Harrison)
6
20%
 
Total votes: 30

Big Magilla
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Re: Best Screenplay 1940

Post by Big Magilla »

Here's the original post:
Reza wrote:Dorris Bowdon, Movie Actress Known for Role in 'Grapes of Wrath,' Dies at 90

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 12 (AP) - Dorris Bowdon, a film actress of the 1930's and 40's and the widow of the writer and producer Nunnally Johnson, died on Tuesday at the Motion Picture Country House. She was 90.

Dorris Bowdon as Rose of Sharon in the film "The Grapes of Wrath," for which her husband, Nunnally Johnson, wrote the screenplay.
Her death was confirmed by her son, Scott Johnson.

Her best-remembered role was the part of Rose of Sharon in "The Grapes of Wrath." Based on the novel by John Steinbeck, the film's screenplay was written by her husband.

She had been spotted not long before by a Hollywood talent scout in a play at Louisiana State University and signed to a contract at 20th Century Fox. While visiting producers' offices to inquire about film roles, she encountered Johnson. Their marriage lasted 39 years, until his death in 1977.

Miss Bowdon was in three films directed by John Ford: "Young Mr. Lincoln," "Drums Along the Mohawk" and "The Grapes of Wrath." She retired after making "The Moon Is Down" (1943), also written by Johnson and based on another Steinbeck novel.

In addition to her son, Mr. Johnson of Los Angeles, she is survived by her daughters, Christie Lucero of New Mexico and Roxana Lonergan of Los Angeles, and by four grandchildren.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1940

Post by Sabin »

Apparently, this board appropriately memorialized Dorris Bowdon as Nunnally's widow when she passed away in 2005.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1940

Post by dws1982 »

Mister Tee wrote: In the space of maybe four youthful years, I saw Take Her She's Mine, The World of Henry Orient and The Dirty Dozen in the movies, and The Man in the Grey Flannel Suite and Three Faces of Eve on TV (the latter his career pinnacle as director).
Damien was a big fan of this.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1940

Post by Big Magilla »

Variety has really been out of it the last few years but I hadn't heard this one before.

Dorris Bowden's claim to fame is linked to her marriage to Nunnally Johnson. To not even name him even when referring to him as "the film's screenwriter" in reference to her best remembered film role as Rosasharn in The Grapes of Wrath is outrageous.

I remember when show business deaths were front-page news and TV entertainment reporters referenced them even if they couldn't pronounce their names or those of their spouses correctly. I'll never forget a prominent San Francisco female critic referring to Joan Bennett's late husband Walter Wanger (pronounced Wayne-jer) as Walter Whang-ger (with a hard g) when she died in 1990.

I got over expecting to see major stars obits on or near the front page with the death of Greer Garson. Granted her fame had been diminished by 1996, but page 15 of the San Francisco Chronicle is where they usually reported the death of a local businessman or dog-catcher, not an Oscar-winning legend of her stature.

Nowadays, it's hit-or-miss whether the death of a famous actor not known for their TV work even makes the news.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1940

Post by Reza »

Mister Tee wrote:
Sabin wrote:I just rewatched The Grapes of Wrath for a zoom with my family. We're going through the WGA's 101 Best Screenplays list. It's an excellent film, but it got me looking up the script's writer, Nunnally Johnson. Today, this guy is pretty much a total unknown but he has a very impressive career.
This is a real generation-gap story, because I've been familiar with Nunnally Johnson's name from my earliest film-fan years.
Yes truly a generation-gap story. I've been familiar with his work since I was 14 or 15 having devoured many an old classic film. I always took interest in reading the credits at the start of each film so was pretty familiar with the names of editors, cinematographers, music scorers, production & costume designers and the scriptwriters of which Johnson was a very prominent name. Have seen 54 films for which he wrote the screenplay.

I can totally understand how his wife's obituary skipped his name. Most articles are written nowadays without any proper research.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1940

Post by Mister Tee »

Sabin wrote:I just rewatched The Grapes of Wrath for a zoom with my family. We're going through the WGA's 101 Best Screenplays list. It's an excellent film, but it got me looking up the script's writer, Nunnally Johnson. Today, this guy is pretty much a total unknown but he has a very impressive career.
This is a real generation-gap story, because I've been familiar with Nunnally Johnson's name from my earliest film-fan years.

In the space of maybe four youthful years, I saw Take Her She's Mine, The World of Henry Orient and The Dirty Dozen in the movies, and The Man in the Grey Flannel Suite and Three Faces of Eve on TV (the latter his career pinnacle as director). Since I was even then beginning to register screenwriters' names, I had him in my head as a major talent, even though I didn't get to The Grapes of Wrath till I was a senior in college, five years after The Dirty Dozen.

Looking at a list of his credits, I see I've seen a rather startling 24 of his efforts. Some of them are routine, but, in addition to Grapes, Holy Matrimony, Woman in the Window and Roxie Hart are top-notch, and you could do well worse than My Cousin Rachel, The Dark Mirror, and The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo (or The World of Henry Orient, for that matter).
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Re: Best Screenplay 1940

Post by Sabin »

I just rewatched The Grapes of Wrath for a zoom with my family. We're going through the WGA's 101 Best Screenplays list. It's an excellent film, but it got me looking up the script's writer, Nunnally Johnson. Today, this guy is pretty much a total unknown but he has a very impressive career.

John Steinbeck went on record in saying of the adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath: "That's the best script I have ever read. More dramatic in fewer words than my book."

Nunnally Johnson wrote sixty movies in total. In the 1930s, he was a full-time scriptwriter for 20th Century Fox. At some point, he began producing his screenplays as well, including The Grapes of Wrath, as well as The Woman in the Window and The Gunfighter. In the 1940s, he co-founded International Pictures and began producing films that he wrote. In the 1950s, he began directing movies he wrote, including The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (a Director's Guild of America nominee) and The Three Faces of Eve (which won Joanne Woodward the Academy Award). He also wrote How to Marry a Millionaire, The World of Henry Orient, and The Dirty Dozen. And he died in 1977.

Something else Nunnally Johnson did that writers today would love to do: he wrote the shots into his scripts. He would describe the movements, not intrusively but consistently into all of his scripts. Because he was a producer he got away with it. That is unthinkable today. Again: we've never heard of this guy. Apparently, John Ford was lining up a shot and told Nunnally on set "I don't know who's going to get the credit for this, you or me."

Nunnally Johnson wasn't even listed in his wife's obituary in Variety. They met on the set of The Grapes of Wrath (his third wife). She played Rose. When she passed away at the age of 90, he had since passed away. Variety reported: "Dorris Bowdon, a movie actress best remembered for her role in John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath who left acting after she married that film's screenwriter, has died. She was 90."

It's his wife's obituary and his name wasn't listed but John Ford's was! Justice for Nunnally.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1940

Post by The Original BJ »

Angels Over Broadway is the kind of movie where, in scene after scene, most of the characters' motivations just simply don't make any sense. It's not that I want movie characters to behave in the most obvious manner possible, but I have a real hard time watching something where the writer in me can't understand why everyone is behaving completely illogically at every moment. (Biggest offender? The last scene, which basically feels like, well, I guess we have to have a happy ending now.) It gets zero consideration.

Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet is a thoroughly standard biopic of the era. It's certainly not the worst such entry -- partly because it doesn't wear out its welcome so egregiously with an excessive running time -- but it's another I pass over without a second thought.

Obviously I'm happy that Preston Sturges has an Oscar for his career. The problem is, The Great McGinty wouldn't even crack my top five Sturges movies. As Mister Tee says, it's got a strong premise, but it's just not all that funny along the way. I saw it at a point when I'd become used to laughing out loud consistently at Sturges fare, and was disappointed this had more of a first-draft feel, with the jokes yet to really be polished.

Like most, my vote comes down to the remaining two movies, and it's a close call, as I enjoy both.

Foreign Correspondent is one of the earlier entries in Hitchcock's canon of films about wrongly accused heroes on the run. It's not quite as strong as North by Northwest (and maybe not even as strong as the earlier 39 Steps), but it's still a pretty rollicking thriller, with a densely plotted story, a lot of amusing black humor, and some great set pieces (McCrea hanging off the side of the hotel is a particularly breath catching moment). I would have no problem choosing it, and respect the choice of anyone who did.

But I'll say The Great Dictator is the overall more ambitious high-wire act. It's quite funny, containing numerous sequences that have become iconic (the dance with the globe, the barbershop shaving race), and possessing a still-sharp strain of anti-war satire that runs throughout. And the finale -- which I know some find mawkish -- works for me on its own as an inspiring call for unity in the throes of despair, and in context as a powerful emotional button that further elevates much of the comedy that has come before. The Great Dictator is, like much of Chaplin's work, humor with a human (and humanist) pulse, and it gets my vote for its script in this category.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1940

Post by The Original BJ »

I'm in agreement that His Girl Friday and The Shop Around the Corner would have made excellent nominees in the Adapted roster, though many of the actual nominees are quite strong nonetheless.

The one nominee that clearly doesn't deserve the slot is Kitty Foyle, which is a lightweight trifle centered around a pretty shallow protagonist and a thoroughly uninteresting love triangle. This is the kind of movie that's so puzzling as an across-the-board nominee; in today's era, even the poorer nominees generally focus on subject matter with some heft. It's mostly indefensible that voters in 1940 deemed this frivolity worthy of inclusion.

For a screenplay cobbled together from multiple plays, The Long Voyage Home feels remarkably of a piece. Yes, the plot is episodic, but the material flows pretty seamlessly, the attention to character detail is quite rich, and the sense of maritime environment is beautifully realized. I tend to respond not too well to most men-at-sea movies, but this is a clear exception, if not enough of an exception to earn my vote against such strong competition.

I'm not familiar at all with the stage version of The Philadelphia Story to know if it's too much of a filmed play for screenwriting prizes; it certainly doesn't feel like anything wildly opened up for the cinema. But, judging based on the material, the writing is very strong -- the plot moves briskly, the one-liners are really funny, and the characters are all so well-drawn the viewer is kept guessing which man Hepburn will end up with until the very end. Certainly based on a dialogue standpoint, it's very easy to understand why this ended up the winner.

But I prefer the other two movies overall, and in both cases, I can actually evaluate their strengths as adaptations, as I've read both du Maurier and Steinbeck's novels. Rebecca's adaptation is more faithful, but with some smart alterations for the screen version (the ending, with Mrs. Danvers clinging to Manderley until the bitter end, was invented for the movie, and is definitely an exciting way to conclude this screen story). And the movie preserves a lot of what made the original novel so beloved -- its fascinating psychology, its passionate romance, its haunting mystery. I could have voted pretty happily for it in this category.

But I'll conclude that The Grapes of Wrath was just a tougher adaptation assignment overall. It's impressive not simply because the film took an all-time great work of American literature and turned it into an all-time great piece of American cinema, a task that many screenwriters have failed at when tackling landmark books. But Nunnally Johnson took a book with elements that don't lend themselves to narrative filmmaking at all -- entire chapters focused on mood and environment rather than any main characters -- and crafted a script that gives a broad sense of Depression-era life in America while streamlining the material into a single narrative about the Joad family. I know there are those who find the film's altered ending too sentimental -- certainly compared to the birth sequence that ends the book -- but damn, I think Ma Joad's "We're the people" speech is an emotional knockout of a finale, the perfect capper to such a consistently heartfelt film. In a close call over Rebecca, it gets my vote.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1940

Post by Mister Tee »

The rather undistinguished original batch would be much improved by including The Bank Dick – a very funny Fields film, even if it’s been somewhat downrated by revisionists.

Angels over Broadway is a Hollywood cautionary tale: Ben Hecht wrote many, many hugely enjoyable genre scripts; you could count on him for rapid-fire dialogue, a wised-up tone, and tight narratives. With that behind him, he apparently decided he had Important Things to Say that his usual work wasn’t allowing him; the result is this aspiring-to-metaphysical-profundity effort that’s a near-complete embarrassment – filled with the kind of purple dialogue you could imagine Hecht sneering at in any other context. Truly awful.

I found Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet interesting simply because I didn’t know a thing about the man – his once-groundbreaking cure for syphilis having been long superseded by penicillin, whatever fame he’d had was long gone (not unlike Sister Kenny, whose revolutionary polio treatments became unimportant after the Salk/Sabin vaccines). It’s just another inventor bio, but an engrossing enough one (presumably Huston’s contributions helped).

As happy as I’ve been to advocate for Preston Sturges in his other nominations (as well as the once or twice he was left out), I can’t really endorse his one win, for The Great McGinty. McGinty has an absolutely terrific, Sturges-ian premise – “I did one right thing in my life, and it wrecked everything”. But the execution is bland by Sturges standards; more frenetic than funny. In fact, for that year, I’d far prefer a nomination for Christmas in July – also not top-drawer Sturges, but with more memorable dialogue throughout.

The Great Dictator has its moments – many involving Jack Oakie – but it runs way too long, and has an ending that may well have suited the times, but feels way over-earnest today. It’s odd that this second-tier effort got Chaplin more Academy attention than his genuine classics.

So I go with Foreign Correspondent. It, too, has a bit too much wartime earnestness – McCrea’s sign-off warning feels like an ending for a propaganda film, not a thriller – and I find the plane crash/rescue rather bland dramatically. But, the film leading to these pedestrian final moments is greatly entertaining – full of nifty sequences (the umbrellas, the windmill, the tower) and tightly structured. Not great Hitchcock, but more than enough to win this category.

There are several splendid films that could and should have made the adapted list: Pride and Prejudice – for the era, an unusually faithful and witty Austen adaptation; The Shop Around the Corner – one of Lubitsch’s best two or three films; and His Girl Friday – a remarkably smooth rework of the classic that makes it into a romantic comedy without losing the bite of the original.

All of these should have been there rather than Kitty Foyle, a soap opera that gives “women’s picture” a bad name. A ridiculously convoluted story that seems to exist mainly to give Ginger Rogers’ character a chance to tell off some high society swells. One of many scripts that make me question Dalton Trumbo’s reputation as a screenwriter.

Philip Barry is an odd duck of a playwright – a social-conscience writer who worked most famously in the realm of high-society romantic comedy. The Philadelphia Story is probably the best of his work; it manages a rather unusual romantic rivalry (Grant/Stewart/the fiancé makes it a quadrangle, I guess) and also gets in its jabs at both the wealthy and the pompous left. The film’s win here is no great injustice, though I won’t echo it.

Rebecca is one of the screen’s better gothics – a semi-ghost story (in the sense that Rebecca’s shade seems to live on in Mrs. Danvers). It’s a moody piece, for which credit goes most to Hitchcock. But it’s also got a solid narrative spine, any number of well-drawn characters, and, at heart, an unusual sort of love story. It’d be a perfectly acceptable choice.

O’Neill thought The Long Voyage Home was the best screen version of any of his plays, and it’s hard to argue with him. Of course, he didn’t live to see Long Day’s Journey, but even that I don’t think, as a film, matched the smoothness of this effort. It helps that the sea plays are among the least dated of O’Neill’s work from the 20s and 30s – they’re simple and pure, without the bombast of things like The Great God Brown. Beyond that, the four plays are nicely blended here, and don’t overdo the male-camaraderie thing like too much of Ford. It’s a small but graceful film.

But I’ll go for Ford’s more prominent effort, The Grapes of Wrath – an unusually tough (for the era) version of a novel that’s scathing and tender in equal measure. The Joad family and their compatriots are drawn with sympathy and grit, and their journey to Calfornia is compelling both along the way and after they reach their destination. Film history is of course rife with adaptations of famous novels, many of them abject failures and many more pale echoes of what thrilled on the page. The Grapes of Wrath belongs to that small group of films that at least came close to doing justice to their source material, and deserves the win here for that achievement.
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Re: Best Screenplay 1940

Post by Big Magilla »

Original

As with Original Story, none of these are bad choices,Dr, Ehrlich;s Magic Bullet and The Great Dictator are more than that, but the one that I watch over and over is Foreign Correspondent which may not be Hitchcock's best film by a long shot, but has one of the most complex scripts of any of his films. It gets my vote.

Adapted

I've never gotten the popularity of Kitty Foyle and don't understand its nomination here over The Shop Around the Corner, His Girl Friday, The Thief of Bagdad, Pride and Prejudice, Our Town, Pincocchio and so many other worthy choices.

The Long Voyage Home is a good adaptation of O'Neill's play and the winner, The Philadelphia Story, is one of the screen's most buoyant comedies, but the two real gems here are Rebecca and The Grapes of Wrath.

Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison's adaptation of Rebecca is classy on every level, but what Nunnally Johnson does in adapting Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath is uncanny. His adaptation of the novel that comes closest to being "the great American novel" than any other yet written becomes the screenplay for the strongest candidate for the "best American film" yet made, Daryl F, Zanucks' hastily written curtain speech for Ma Joad not withstanding, certainly by the standards of the day. It get my vote.
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Best Screenplay 1940

Post by Big Magilla »

The beginning of an era marks the end of our going backwards over Original and Adapted Screenplay nominations.
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