After last week’s episode, Suzan and David find themselves with a sense of déjà vu— another week, another boring war movie. Not even Gregory Peck’s good looks could save Twelve O’Clock High. Also, find out if the Academy chose correctly among the 1949 nominees, or if our hosts think they should have picked something else.
Year Eligible: 1949 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Twelve O’Clock High (1949)
(Explicit language, as always)
An early attempt at the “Band of Brothers” style war movie (and about the 101st airborne, weirdly enough), Battleground is something of an unwieldy mess, with unmemorable characters, no real theme, and generally a step backward in competency compared to even the silent war movies nominated for the very first Oscars. But it does have one good speech.
Year Eligible: 1949 (Nominated)
Additional audio from Battleground (1949)
(Explicit language, as always)
The winner of the 1949 awards, All the King’s Men is an interesting example of how a good movie can be made by accident… but can a film be accidentally great?
Year Eligible: 1949 (Won)
Additional audio from All the King’s Men (1949)
(Explicit language, as always)
The Heiress is the second movie in 3 weeks where producers tried to make Olivia de Havilland "ugly" to win an Oscar. De Havilland plays, rather unconvincingly, a wealthy young woman in the mid-1800s courted by a gold digging Montgomery Clift as the ur-f*ck boy, who runs away and abandons her the minute her abusive jerk of a dad threatens to take away her inheritance. Despite its many flaws, once she is allowed to be an actual adult in the last 20 minutes of the film, Hell hath no fury like Olivia de Havilland scorned, which just might be worth the preceding hour and a half… maybe.
Year Eligible: 1949 (Nominated)
Additional audio from The Heiress (1949)
(Explicit language, as always)
Based on a serialized novel that was printed in Cosmo, A Letter to Three Wives is an absolutely bonkers film about an off-screen narrator running off with the husband of one of her so-called best friends, and then sending all of them a letter telling them to guess which one. Really. It is really about that. Really. It is really about that.
Year Eligible: 1949 (Nominated)
Additional audio from A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
(Explicit language, as always)