1952: The Next Two Nominees Are...

Two Best Picture nominees in one month!

Yes, we must be getting close to The Season, because while The Greatest Show on Earth debuted in February, it took til midsummer to get two of our other Best Picture nominees on the board: High Noon and Ivanhoe.

High Noon is, famously, an allegory for the blacklist. Carl Foreman wrote the screenplay about a man looking for friends and fellow defenders, abandoned by the people he thought he could trust when he needed them most, his doom egged on by a town that can only think in terms of how his presence effects their profits. Ivanhoe is not, it's a historical drama based on a beloved work of literature, but it was #1 at the box office four weeks in a row and the second highest-grossing 1952 release.

Both films came at the end of July. Of the twelve films we cover today, they're right in the middle. As you can see:

1948: Original Song

In 1956, The Red Balloon made history as the first short film to win an Academy Award in a category other than the short film categories. A little less than a decade before that, however, "Wet Blanket Policy" became the first short to be nominated outside the shorts. 

The Woody Woodpecker cartoon runs a little over six minutes and was not even among the five up for Best Short Subject - Cartoon, a category won by MGM's "The Little Orphan," starring Tom and Jerry. Instead, it found itself up for Original Song, thanks to the new composition of a title tune, "The Woody Woodpecker Song." The song was a hit and is credited with really getting out the word on the bird, with fan clubs springing up and cinemas screening matinee blocks of Woody Woodpecker cartoons.

He still didn't win the Oscar, of course. Here's the competition:

1948: The Season

Today marks the last day of the mini-reactions (I don't know if they're in-depth enough to count as reviews or critiques). This bunch takes us from October 1st straight through Christmas Day, what today would pass as Awards Season. Not so different then, frankly: of the 16 titles we bring up today, nine would go on to Oscar nominations with six winning at least one, accounting for 50% of the night's overall winners! It's true, for everything there is a season...