Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1946

The Contenders:

Anna and the King of Siam
The Best Years of Our Lives (winner)
Brief Encounter
The Killers
Rome, Open City

I MIssed the Music

Film: Anna and the King of Siam
Format: Movies! Channel on rockin’ flatscreen.

Sometimes, you take a small step backwards. This happened to me when I watched the 1937 version of A Star is Born. It’s a good film in its own right, but it can’t compete with the 1954 version, and that’s the one I saw first. The same has happened with Anna and the King of Siam. This is a story I know and have seen before because I’ve seen The King and I, which features the defining role for the great Yul Brynner. Anna and the King of Siam is a fine film on its own, but side by side it can’t measure up.

I think it’s likely that you know the story. Anna Owens (Irene Dunne, and this story is based on the life of Anna Leonowens) arrives in Siam in the 1860s. She has been given the task of teaching the many children of King Mongkut (Rex Harrison). There is a great deal of culture shock, and much of the film concerns this. Anna is extremely (in the word of the day) headstrong, and a stubborn woman does not go over well in the court of the King of Siam. This lesson cannot evidently be taught to Anna despite the frequent efforts of Mongkut’s Prime Minister (Lee J. Cobb).