Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1969

The Contenders:

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (winner)
The Damned
Easy Rider
The Wild Bunch

"The Darned" Doesn't Go Far Enough

Film: The Damned
Format: DVD from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I knew going into The Damned that I was going to be in for a rough ride. I’ve been spending too much time with short movies lately, though, and needed to get something with a little more heft crossed off. I’ve also been ignoring the 1960s of late, not for any reason other than I’ve just been watching from other decades instead. The Damned, which clocks in north of two-and-a-half hours and is from 1969, fit both criteria. That it’s also a singularly unpleasant film about pre-war Germany and the rise of the Nazis is another matter entirely.

So, this is very much a film with characters centered in Nazi ideology, but it’s absolutely not a war film. Instead, the focus is on a wealthy German family that runs a steel-making empire. The family has weathered the defeat of Germany in the Great War and the massive economic depression that followed. Now, with the rise of National Socialism, the family deals with its evolving opinion of the new chancellor. Sounds like fun, right?