Like its leading man, The Lost Weekend was inevitable. Indeed, in a time when the Golden Globes had winners only, the NYFCC didn't always have runner-ups, and the National Board of Review could give its top prize to documentaries, The Lost Weekend is the only film of any of these five to appear on other contemporary Best Picture lists!
Your nominees for the 18th Academy Awards' Best Motion Picture of the Year:
The Bells of St. Mary's
The Lost Weekend
Mildred Pierce
Spellbound
My rankings, from fifth to first:
5. The Bells of St. Mary’s
It feels like an improvement over the original, or at least more focused. Unfortunately, it quickly forgets the major conflict it establishes in the first scene - the sister superior is too headstrong for a priest to handle - so that, while there are differences in approach and temperament between Crosby’s O’Malley and Bergman’s Benedict, there’s never any real tension. And just like the first, an eleventh-hour shakedown for your tears.
4. Anchors Aweigh
Basically a showcase for Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra with a whisper of plot thrown in - good enough, I say, I love watching them perform! Kelly goes on a tangent with Jerry the Mouse and other animated characters in a legendary, long bit; Sinatra meets Brooklyn gal Pamela Britton, who delivers the funniest performance. Great songs (“We hate to leave…”), great dancing, great leading men. Satisfying.
3. The Lost Weekend
Golden Globe winner for Best Picture, National Board of Review's Top Ten Films of 1945, NYFCC Awards winner for Best Film
Like a horror film, all theremin and Bavarian shadows, the handsome hero helpless against the appetite that possesses him. It really works much of the time, though there are moments where that stylization almost overwhelms the character and the story. At least it’s a highly watchable social-conscious film, delivering on message and entertainment. The long trek to find an open pawnbroker is the standout sequence, for me.
2. Spellbound
When it’s Ingrid Bergman trying to balance professional obligation and personal desire in every interaction with Gregory Peck, it’s a riot: a hallway of doors opens as they embrace, the icy pro melts before his strong jaw, everything is feverish and forbidden. Starts to lose some steam when it leaves the asylum to become a thriller with some psychobabble, but it’s having so much fun doing so, it’s hard to begrudge it. Silly ending!
1. Mildred Pierce
Surprised to find this a really easy #1 for me. Those performances, yes, but there’s also a lot on its mind regarding how parents care for their children and the expectations they should set; about class in America and how success can still be undermined by the perceived respactability of one's profession; about working women and the organization and homemaking of the household being the perfect skillset for maintaining a business; and about relationships between men and women, with perhaps a tinge of post-War anxiety about the new independence of women and the weakness of men who would not fight. I also love its progression of time versus labor, where growth and success seem to happen overnight, in a blink, barely enough time to appreciate it, even as every second of toil is felt.
Tomorrow, the nominees for Best Director: Clarence Brown (National Velvet), Alfred Hitchcock (Spellbound), Leo McCarey (The Bells of St. Mary's), Jean Renoir (The Southerner), and Billy Wilder (The Lost Weekend).
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