Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1939

The Contenders:

Dark Victory
Gone with the Wind (winner)
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Love Affair
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Ninotchka
Of Mice and Men
Stagecoach
The Wizard of Oz
Wuthering Heights

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1939

The Contenders:
Bette Davis: Dark Victory
Vivien Leigh: Gone with the Wind (winner)
Greer Garson: Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Irene Dunne: Love Affair
Greta Garbo: Ninotchka

Dark Victory

Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on laptop.

When I started watching films seriously, I wasn’t much of a Bette Davis fan. I didn’t understand the appeal. One of the things I’ve taken away from the last several years is that my opinions have changed a ton, and being a Bette Davis fan is one of those changes. I do love me some Bette Davis. When she’s good, and she almost always was, it’s hard to think of anyone better. The biggest hole in my Bette Davis filmography was Dark Victory until tonight. This is one of Davis’s better films and one of the more interesting films of 1939, which is saying something when considering how many great films came from that year.

Judith Traherne (Davis) is a spoiled rich girl who spends her days with her horses and partying with her friends. She’s been having headaches, though, and one day while riding a horse she hopes to turn into a steeplechase champion, she takes a tumble. A fall down the stairs leads to her being dragged to the doctor by her best friend Ann (Geraldine Fitzgerald). Her regular doctor, Dr. Parsons (Henry Travers) can’t make headway, so he takes her to a brain specialist named Dr. Frederick Steele (George Brent). A few tests and some worried looks later and we learn that Judith Traherne is suffering from a malignant brain tumor that requires immediate surgery.