Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1942

The Contenders:

49th Parallel
Mrs. Miniver (winner)
The Pride of the Yankees
Random Harvest
The Talk of the Town

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1942

The Contenders:

49th Parallel
Kings Row
The Magnificent Ambersons
Mrs. Miniver (winner)
The Pied Piper
The Pride of the Yankees
Random Harvest
Talk of the Town
Wake Island
Yankee Doodle Dandy

O Canada

Film: 49th Parallel
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

I find propaganda films an interesting sub-genre of film. 49th Parallel is unquestionably a propaganda film, and absolutely one that is specifically geared toward American audiences specifically as a way to drum up support for the war. Unlike many a later film that humanizes the average German soldier, the bulk of the Germans in this film, particularly the lead German, is portrayed as an inhuman monster. Such is the nature of propaganda, after all.

The premise is an interesting one. In the early days of the war, a German submarine approaches the Canadian coast. A group of six men from the submarine go ashore as a raiding party. Just as they come ashore, a squadron of Canadian planes spots the sub and bombs it, sinking it, stranding the half dozen sailors in the middle of nowhere in the Canadian wilderness. They resolve to get to the American border and find a German embassy, since at the time, America was still a neutral country.