The Razor’s Edge starring Gene Tierney, Tyrone Power, and Anne Baxter is a film so uneven as to be whip-lash inducing. A bizarre and meandering first 90 minutes eventually lead to a tight, hour long thriller that barrels forward at lightning speed. But how good can a movie possibly be when almost half of it should have been cut?
Year Eligible: 1946 (Nominated)
Additional audio from The Razor’s Edge (1946)
(Explicit language, as always)
It’s A Wonderful Life is best known as the movie everyone watches on television at Christmas time, but Suzan has never seen it before, and David’s never seen it outside of the month of December, so how does it hold up when our hosts watch it in the middle of spring?
Year Eligible: 1946 (Nominated)
Additional audio from It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
(Explicit language, as always)
Who would have thought that a Saturday afternoon kid’s matinee of a movie would cause such controversy? Suzan thinks The Yearling is a well made movie for which she is absolutely not the audience, while David’s childhood experience with the genre makes his criteria for a good “boy adventurer” movie quite strict. Will his argument bring down Suzan’s opinion, or will hers raise David’s estimation of this movie about a little boy and his pet deer?
Year Eligible: 1946 (Nominated)
Additional audio from The Yearling (1946)
(Explicit language, as always)
The winner of the 1946 nominees, The Best Years of Our Lives is a well intentioned story of three men returning home to their very different families after World War II that set the bar for confronting the challenges facing returning military veterans. While there are two or three solidly acted and moving scenes, Best Years tends seems to think shutting up, getting a good job, and marrying a nice wife are the best cures for war trauma and PTSD— unfortunate for a generation of 1940s moviegoers that probably could have used some talk therapy.
Year Eligible: 1946 (Won)
Additional audio from The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
(Explicit language, as always)
From time to time, a Best Picture nominee feels as if it were an intentional attack across the decades to specifically dispirit and infuriate David and Suzan. Laurence Olivier’s turn as director and star of Henry V, released in 1944 but confusingly nominated for the 1946 Oscars, is one of those acts of future aggression.
Year Eligible: 1946 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Henry V (1946)
(Explicit language, as always)