Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1945

The Contenders:

Dillinger
Marie-Louise (winner)
Music for Millions
Salty O’Rourke
What Next, Corporal Hargrove?

Music for Millions

Film: Music for Millions
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Music for Millions is a film I frankly can’t figure out. I mean, I kind of get it, but I also really don’t. There’s a plot here, although it’s a pretty sparse one. A great deal of this film exists specifically to give the audience a chance to hear some really good music played very well. Another chunk of the film exists specifically to allow Jimmy Durante the opportunity to be Jimmy Durante. The rest of it seems to be an advertisement for St. Christopher and Jesus.

Okay, I realize that from an atheist perspective that sort of thing is going to be annoying in the best of times, but in Music for Millions we’re essentially told that all you have to do to get what you want is pray really hard for it, and maybe give up something like ice cream as if you were having your own personal Lent. The bulk of this odious philosophy comes out of the mouth of the youthful Margaret O’Brien. O’Brien was disturbing as the pseudo-sociopathic Tootie in Meet Me in St. Louis, but in this film I actually loathed her.