Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1941

The Contenders:

Citizen Kane (winner)
The Devil and Miss Jones
Sergeant York
Tall, Dark and Handsome
Tom, Dick and Harry

Decisions, Decisions

Film: Tom, Dick and Harry
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Once upon a time, Burgess Meredith was young. For those of us who remember him as Mick from the Rocky films, that seems difficult to believe, but it’s true. There was even a time when he could pull off being a romantic lead. Evidence is Tom, Dick and Harry, a little slip of a comedic romance released about half a year before the U.S. entered World War II. Tom, Dick and Harry isn’t the sort of film to set the world on fire because there’s not really a lot to it. It’s an odd bit of wish fulfillment that seems more or less designed to keep people happy as the war loomed.

I’ll sum this up nice and quickly. Janie (Ginger Rogers) works as a telephone operator. She’s dating Tom (George Murphy), a dull but solid and ambitious car salesman. After a night at the movies and a run-in with an obnoxious ice cream salesman (Phil Silvers), Tom asks Janie to marry him. After some fussing, she agrees, and dreams that night of what it would be like to be married to a guy who is married to his job.