ABOUT THE EPISODE:

The third and final antifascist film of the 1943 nominees, Watch on the Rhine doesn't, in fact, star Bette Davis, despite what the poster would have you believe. Paul Lukas is brilliant as a great dad who is literally antifa, and this is his movie through and through. A great supporting cast and snappy dialogue buttress this movie that, despite interference from the Hays Office, manages to effectively convey its still all too timely message.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1943 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Watch on the Rhine (1943)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Our hosts are finally free of their nemesis, Ernst Lubitsch after this week’s Heaven Can Wait (not to be confused with the film of the same name from 1978)… or are they? Suzan is pretty sure that this awkward shaggy dog story that infuriated David is the last of the Lubitsch nominees, but she’s thought that before.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1943 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Heaven Can Wait (1943)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

For Whom the Bell Tolls, on paper, seems to have all the ingredients of a great film: it’s got Ingrid Bergman, Gary Cooper, and a merry band of anti-fascists, all in Technicolor! What could possibly go wrong?

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1943 (Nominated)

Additional audio from For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Despite the tagline “Home is where you hang your guests!” The More the Merrier thankfully does not turn out to be the second movie in a row to focus on a hanging. This Jean Arthur vehicle frustratingly restricts its usually brilliant lead in a muddled film that can’t decide if it’s a screwball comedy about a DC housing shortage during World War II or a romantic comedy about the type A career woman saved from a boring future by a sudden romance with a brooding new acquaintance.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1943 (Nominated)

Additional audio from The More the Merrier (1943)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Signing off last week, our hosts were justifiably nervous about the nooses swinging from the tree in the poster for this week’s movie, but The Ox-Bow Incident turns out to be an excellent, if extremely dispiriting film. Henry Fonda turns in another excellent performance as a working class hero, alongside an ensemble of interesting and unique characters.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1943 (Nominated)

Additional audio from The Ox-Bow Incident 1943)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Our hosts have called a lot of movies weird over the last two and a half years, but The Human Comedy, starring Mickey Rooney and is neither very human nor a comedy, may be the weirdest one, yet. And it’s not even close.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1943 (Nominated)

Additional audio from The Human Comedy (1943)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

After a longer than expected hiatus, David and Suzan are BACK, with one fantastic movie!

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1943 (Won)

Additional audio from Casablanca (1943)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

They've watched good movies. They've watched more bad movies. But never have Suzan and David watched a movie as utterly confounding as In Which We Serve.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1943 (Nominated)

Additional audio from In Which We Serve (1943)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Starring Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman, both of whom are in better movies nominated this year, Random Harvest features the the rare x2 double amnesiac combo multiplier in a plot that is so ludicrous it strains the bounds of Suzan’s sanity and somehow makes David more resistant to its glaring problems.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1942 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Random Harvest (1942)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Being anti-Nazi is literally the least a film can do. It's also the most The Pied Piper does.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1942 (Nominated)

Additional audio from The Pied Piper (1942)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman, and Cary Grant star in The Talk of the Town, a screwball comedy about… the nature of criminal justice and worker exploitation? Or, more accurately, an unintentional romantic comedy about two men falling in love with each other, and their wingwoman. You decide!

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1942 (Nominated)

Additional audio fromThe Talk of the Town (1942)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

A propaganda film churned out and into theaters just 8 months after the battle for which it is named, Wake Island is a fascinating historical artifact… but is it a movie?

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1942 (Nominated)

Additional audio fromWake Island (1942)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Suzan and David disagree on just how good (or not) this Lou Gehrig biopic starring Gary Cooper, and featuring Babe Ruth as himself. But they both agree that baseball is… the sweet science? The beautiful game? The President’s apple pie?

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1942 (Nominated)

Additional audio from The Pride of the Yankees (1942)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

In a bit of film history podcast imitating film history, our first shot at recording this week’s episode will forever be lost to history— just like Orson Welles’s intended version of The Magnificent Ambersons.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1942 (Nominated)

Additional audio from The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

The winner of the 1942 awards, Mrs. Miniver starring Greer Garson is the quintessential representation of the British “Keep Calm and Carry On” response to World War II.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1942 (Won)

Additional audio from Mrs. Miniver (1942)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

A musical cum biopic starring James Cagney, Yankee Doodle Dandy, recycles some of our hosts’ least favorite old Hollywood clichés as it stumbles in its homage to Broadway historical figure George M. Cohan, but manages to pull out some unexpected and nigh on accidental moments of genuinely good film making.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1942 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

It should say a lot that our hosts found one of the least abhorrent parts of Kings Row to be Ronald Reagan. A jumbled melodrama depicting horrifying and unevenly denounced medical malpractice, murder/suicide, and child abuse, it’s the first movie Suzan has ever considered not even finishing.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1942 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Kings Row (1942)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Originally released in the UK in 1941 as 49th Parallel, this week’s movie and 1942’s first nominee was released in the US as The Invaders. Starring Laurence Olivier in possibly his most embarrassing role, and Leslie Howard as… well, Leslie Howard, it’s a disjointed bit of pro-war propaganda that’s so all over the place our hosts had to come up with a new way to rate it.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1942 (Nominated)

Additional audio from The Invaders or 49th Parallel (1942)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

In 1940, our hosts said that Rebecca, while being a fantastic movie, wasn’t necessarily a great Hitchcock film. Is this week’s film, Suspicion, both? Or neither? And wrapping up the 1941 awards, David and Suzan will surprise no one with their assessment of the Academy’s choice and who the winner should have been.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1941 (Nominated)

Additional audio from Suspicion (1941)

(Explicit language, as always)

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

There’s still a week go to, but judging by their review of the winner for 1941, How Green Was My Valley, Suzan and David aren’t going to think much of the Academy’s choice this year.

SHOW NOTES

Year Eligible: 1941 (Won)

Additional audio from How Green Was My Valley (1941)

(Explicit language, as always)