Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1936

The Contenders:

After the Thin Man
Dodsworth
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
My Man Godfrey
The Story of Louis Pasteur (winner)

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Picture 1936

The Contenders:

Anthony Adverse
Dodsworth
The Great Ziegfeld (winner)
Libeled Lady
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Romeo and Juliet
San Francisco
The Story of Louis Pasteur
A Tale of Two Cities
Three Smart Girls

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1936

The Contenders:

Walter Huston: Dodsworth
Gary Cooper: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
William Powell: My Man Godfrey
Spencer Tracy: San Francisco
Paul Muni: The Story of Louis Pasteur (winner)

Spreading the Disease

Film: The Story of Louis Pasteur
Format: Video from the Magic Flashdrive on laptop.

I like films that stress science. Not movie science, but real science, the kind that actually figures things out and might potentially improve life for people. The Story of Louis Pasteur certainly seemed to be a film right in line with films like Dr. Erlich’s Magic Bullet, Sister Kenny or Madame Curie, films that glorified good science in a way that translated well to the average filmgoer. I appreciate stuff like that. We need more of it because at least Americans are really, really stupid when it comes to science as a general rule.

There’s no mystery what this is about in general. Specifically, this is about Pasteur’s work not in creating pasteurization, but in developing vaccines for anthrax and rabies. Like many a film that deals with scientific discovery we will have a brilliant and determined hero scientist who makes a world-changing discovery that is immediately dismissed by those in power in the scientific halls of knowledge. In this case, our plucky hero is the titular character, Louis Pasteur (Paul Muni). The main opposition comes from Dr. Charbonnet (Fritz Leiber), a doctor who is appalled by the idea that diseases can be caused by microbes and aghast at the implication that he should wash his hands or sterilize his instruments between patients.