Oscar Got It Wrong: Best Adapted Screenplay 1943

The Contenders:

Casablanca (winner)
Holy Matrimony
The More the Merrier
The Song of Bernadette
Watch on the Rhine

Paint Me a Picture

Film: Holy Matrimony
Format: Internet video on laptop.

If you think of a proper English gentleman from the ‘30s and ‘40s, you’re thinking of Monty Wooley. This is true if you know who Monty Wooley is or you’ve never heard the name mentioned before. I mean, look at that mustache in the picture above. Wooley made his living as a light comic actor in films that weren’t really laugh-out-loud funny but more sweet and charming, generally with Wooley playing a crusty old man who actually has a heart of gold underneath his imperiousness and blustering. He's the angry version of Edmund Gwenn. Such is very much the case with Holy Matrimony.

Priam Farll (Wooley) is an acclaimed painter who is also a notorious recluse. For a quarter of a century, Priam has moved from remote location to remote location accompanied only by Henry Leek (Eric Blore), his manservant. So, while Priam happily paints away, Henry handles the day to day affairs. These 25 years of happiness come to a sudden end in 1905 when Priam is summoned back to England to be knighted, a ceremony he takes in poor grace.