Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1943

The Contenders:

Joan Fontaine: The Constant Nymph
Ingrid Bergman: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Greer Garson: Madame Curie
Jean Arthur: The More the Merrier
Jennifer Jones: The Song of Bernadette (winner)

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1943

The Contenders:

Casablanca (winner)
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Heaven Can Wait
The Human Comedy
In Which We Serve
Madame Curie
The More the Merrier
The Ox-Bow Incident
The Song of Bernadette
Watch on the Rhine

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1943

The Contenders:

Humphrey Bogart: Casablanca
Gary Cooper: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Mickey Rooney: The Human Comedy
Walter Pidgeon: Madame Curie
Paul Lukas: Watch on the Rhine (winner)

It Tolls for Thee

Film: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

I have something of a love/hate relationship with the writings of Ernest Hemingway. On the one hand, I think he was one of the great short story writers of the 20th century in English or any other language. On the other hand, I tend to hate his novels. My biggest problem with Hemingway’s novels is that the man couldn’t write a female character of any value or substance to save his life. In anything longer than a couple of pages, his woman characters turn into mush. All they can do is depend on the men for everything. They’re typically so given over to being in love that they are incapable of the simplest action without approval. In their own way, they sort of presage the Twilight books, at least from what I’ve heard (thanks, Nick). That being the case, I can’t say I was entirely excited about For Whom the Bell Tolls. This was additionally true thanks to the nearly 3-hour running time.

Like a lot of Hemingway with which I am familiar, For Whom the Bell Tolls trades on Hemingway’s personal experience in the Spanish Civil War. That in and of itself is fairly noteworthy. The two sides in the war were the communist Republicans and the fascists, which were led by Franco. The U.S., of course, was at war with fascists in 1943, which means that this film is actually pro-communist. Our heroes, in fact every named character, is fighting for the communist side of the conflict. Filmmakers could get away with this in the mid-1940s. Imagine trying this during the McCarthy years.