My Top Ten Films of 1945

With apologies to The Body Snatcher, Lady on a Train, Murder He Says, A Royal Scandal, and Story of G.I. Joe, these are my Top Ten Films of 1945:

The Big Winner: Best Picture, 1945

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:

Anchors Aweigh

The Bells of St. Mary's

The Lost Weekend

Mildred Pierce

Spellbound

My rankings, from fifth to first:

The Tough Choice: Best Supporting Actress, 1945

The most difficult category of the year, because it truly is a murderer's row. Three of these actresses were nominated for their first and only time: Eve Arden, who went on to fame and fortune on television; and teenage actresses Ann Blyth and Joan Lorring, both playing "bad girls" in different degrees and accents. The other two were returning nominees. Angela Lansbury had just made her film debut the year before and already found herself a two-time nominee. Anne Revere had been nominated for The Song of Bernadette two years prior, but it was her role as the mother in National Velvet that won her the Academy Award:

She was nominated again for Gentleman's Agreement two years later, but the Red Scare effectively blacklisted her for twenty years. What a stupid time. Anyway, here are the nominees for 1945's Best Supporting Actress:

Eve Arden, Mildred Pierce

Ann Blyth, Mildred Pierce

Angela Lansbury, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Joan Lorring, The Corn is Green

Anne Revere, National Velvet

In Mildred Pierce, Eve Arden is the wisecracking friend and co-worker, while Ann Blyth is the traitorous, ungrateful daughter. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Angela Lansbury is the saloon singer who maintains her innocence and, disastrously, falls in love with the titular heel. In The Corn is Green, Joan Lorring is the uncouth daughter of a schoolteacher's housekeeper who presents a challenge for the household and its hopes for the young Welshman they hope to make a writer of. And Revere is Momma to Liz Taylor.

My rankings, from fifth to first:

Joan Gets Hers: Best Actress, 1945

Joan Crawford did not show up to collect her Academy Award in person. 

By 1945, Crawford had been in the industry for 20 years. She'd been a critical and box office darling since 1928's Our Dancing Daughters, was one of the "all-stars" in the 1931-32 Best Picture winner Grand Hotel, and was even dubbed Queen of the Movies by Life in 1937. But, as happens, her star waned, especially when she was listed among other notables as being "box office poison" in a Hollywood Reporter ad taken out by an independent exhibitor. Oh, she worked, yes, but to increasingly dismal results, and she parted ways with longtime home studio MGM. 

At Warner Bros., she begged Michael Curtiz for the lead role in Mildred Pierce, about a working woman who sweats and slaves to provide her children with perhaps more than they can afford, and who is rewarded with a booming business...and an ungrateful daughter and a scheming new husband. He wanted Barbara Stanwyck, and forced Crawford to audition. Which she did. And won the part. And the movie was a hit. And now, for the first time ever, she was nominated for an Academy Award.

But she did not show up. Blame those first-time jitters, perhaps, but Crawford begged off from appearing, claiming illness. Still, she had the show playing on the radio, and when she heard she won, she jumped into action. By the time the morning papers came out, there she was: in her sickbed, full face of makeup, clutching her Academy Award for the suddenly summoned photographers.

She had to face off against another first-timer and three previous winners. The nominees being:

Ingrid Bergman, The Bells of St. Mary's

Joan Crawford, Mildred Pierce

Greer Garson, The Valley of Decision

Jennifer Jones, Love Letters

Gene Tierney, Leave Her to Heaven

Ingrid Bergman had just won last year, and here she was playing the leading lady in the sequel to last year's Best Picture winner, Going My Way: she plays a nun who occasionally butts heads with Bing Crosby's Father O'Malley. Greer Garson was nominated last year, too, and here she was for the fifth time in a row, having won once for 1942's Mrs. Miniver: she plays the daughter of an embittered former worker who works for, and falls in love with the son of, the man her father worked for and hates. Jennifer Jones was nominated for Supporting Actress last year, but this was her third nomination in a row, having won for 1943's The Song of Bernadette (she came back the next year, too): she plays an amnesiac who may have murdered her husband. Gene Tierney is the only nominee who got a one-and-done, but it's worth noting that her role in Leave Her to Heaven came about due to the success of last year's Laura, in which she played Laura: here she plays a woman so obsessed with her husband, she tries to isolate him by any means necessary.

My ranking, from fifth to first.

Bangers, All: 1945, Part Seven

August and September 1945. This is the end of the War. In August, the atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Emperor Hirohito steps down in acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. That same month, the British government is lobbied by the Zionist World Congress regarding the creation of Israel, while in Vietnam, the Viet Minh takes over Hanoi, sparking the August Revolution. The French are driven to the South by September, dividing the country in two. September also sees this happening in Korea, where in the North, the Soviets begin trumpeting Kim Il Sung as a war hero, while in the South, an American Military Government is established. The stage is now set for the next century of conflicts. War, it never ends...

Stateside at the movies, meanwhile...: