1948: Best Screenplay

The closest equivalent to Adapted Screenplay at the 1948 Academy Awards is just plain Screenplay, differentiating itself from Original Story by honoring the writers of the script itself - the dialogue, the stage directions, the INT./EXT., all that. For some reason (and we mentioned this before) the people who wrote both the story and the screenplay did not get their own category his year, so the writers of The Search found themselves winning one category and being nominated in the other. Here it is, alongside another original (albeit with three screenwriters working off a fourth person's story) and three direct adaptations. But you can see that for yourself:

1948: Best Director

Got to this a couple days late, but here we go: Best Director, 1948.

Actually, before we get to the nominees - did you know this was also the first year that the Directors Guild of America gave out competitive awards? What was going on that everyone suddenly wanted their own trophies? 

There were only four nominees that first year, only half of whom were also nominated at the 21st Academy Awards: Anatole Litvak for The Snake Pit and Fred Zinnemann for The Search. The other two were Howard Hawks for Red River and Joseph L. Mankiewicz for A Letter to Three Wives...a 1949 film. Mankiewicz would repeat his win at the 22nd Academy Awards, while the winner of the 1948 Oscar wasn't even nominated at the DGA Awards. Go figure!

Here are Oscar's nominees:

1948: Best Actor

The question that haunts this category for this particular year: where's Humphrey Bogart's nomination for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre? 

From the Los Angeles Times: "There is nought but credit to give to the actor for his very fine performance. He has a terrific dramatic summit to reach in the later scenes, and does this with notable effectiveness." From the New York Times: "His performance in this film is perhaps the best and most substantial that he has done." From Variety: "Bogart...comes through with a performance as memorable as his first major film role in The Petrified Forest was in 1935. ...In a remarkably controlled portrait, he progresses to the edge of madness without losing sight of the subtle shadings needed to establish persuasiveness."

To many, this is the performance Bogart should have won for (possibly clearing the way for a Brando win in 1951). Perhaps the reason for Bogart's absence is the about-face. Every review notes that his fans may be disappointed to find that instead of another "indestructible private eye" or flawed good guy, he plays a real asshole. Allegedly, he himself told a critic weeks prior to the film's opening, "I play the worst shit you ever saw." It's a great performance but a challenging part, one that perhaps fans weren't ready to see and co-workers weren't ready to award.

Here's who got nominated instead:

1948: Motion Picture Story

Last week, we discussed the films of 1948 in general - well, 75 of them, at least. For the next two weeks, we look at what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences deemed, specifically, the best of the best. Starting today with Best Original Motion Picture Story.

In 1948, there is no Best Original Screenplay category or even a Best Story & Screenplay category. There is merely Original Story - made up of, yes, original storylines - and Screenplay - made up of screenplays based either on pre-existing work or aforementioned Original Stories. This is slightly unusual because although this delineation between writing a story (or treatment, outlining the events and arc of the plot) and writing a screenplay (the script itself with dialogue and all that) existed for some time, a category for writers who wrote both Story and Screenplay existed both before and after 1948. I'd love to know why, this one year was the exception.

Anyway, here's who they nominated:

1948: An Auspicious Start

Of the hundreds of films that qualified for the 21st Academy Awards, I watched 75. Over the next few days - indeed, starting yesterday - I'm going to talk about those films and my reactions to them, thirteen a day, in order of release - excepting, of course, the five nominees for Best Picture, which I'll get into when I discuss that category on July 20th.

I will mention, though, an interesting fact. Much has been made of Everything Everywhere All At Once sustaining its buzz from its debut at South By Southwest on March 11, 2022, through its theatrical release 14 days later, all the way to being named Best Picture on March 12, 2023, a year and a day later. It is impressive, if only because the Academy tends to be biased in favor of later releases. The year 1948 was no exception - three of the five Best Picture nominees, including the winner, came out in the last quarter. Still, it's impressive that one of those other two nominees came out right at the beginning of the year.

Treasure of the Sierra Madre had its Los Angeles premiere January 14th, 1948, before receiving general release ten days later. In the Los Angeles Times review dated January 15th, Edwin Schallert called it "curiously powerful" and predicted that Walter Huston's performance as an old prospector "would be on the next nominations list, were it not for the fact that [the film] belongs to 1948 rather than 1947." Schallert was right, though: not only did Huston père receive one of the film's four Oscar nominations, he also accounts for one of its three wins. And this was a year when the Awards were held in late March (in fact, a year and two months to the day following its general release)! Director-screenwriter John Huston also found himself up for two WGA Awards: Best Western (a win!) and Best Drama (a loss, to The Snake Pit).

That's how the film year of 1948 started. Here's what came after: