Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1948

The Contenders:

Irene Dunne: I Remember Mama
Ingrid Bergman: Joan of Arc
Jane Wyman: Johnny Belinda (winner)
Olivia de Havilland: The Snake Pit
Barbara Stanwyck: Sorry, Wrong Number

Come on Baby, Light My Fire

Films: Joan of Arc
Format: DVD from NetFlix on The New Portable.

As I get down to the last few dozen movies on my Oscars lists, I’m starting to find more and more movies that I avoided for one reason or another. With Joan of Arc, my avoidance happened because the movie wasn’t available anywhere I looked. Oh, I found a shortened version on YouTube that cut something like 45 minutes out of the theatrical release. I’d have watched that if I got desperate enough. But lo! and behold, suddenly NetFlix is carrying the film once again. I have to say this is one that, had I not had it on a list, I’d have walked away from partway through.

Joan of Arc isn’t a bad film; it’s just not a great one, or even a very good one. It’s long and talky and it doesn’t pull this off that well, which means that it’s also long and boring. It suffers as well from putting a mid-30s Ingrid Bergman in the role of a French teenager. We’ll get to that soon enough.