AND THE OSCAR DOESN’T GO TO… Alfred Hitchcock

Here we are. The ultimate ‘I can’t believe he never won an Oscar!’ Oscar-less genius of all time. I didn’t want to do this – or did I? – but it seems like I can’t resist an blogathon! My friend Maddy over at the Classic Film and TV Corner is hosting a blogathon about Alfred Hitchcock and I thought, what better way to participate than to combine it with my own series of posts, AND THE OSCAR DOESN’T GO TO…? As we all know, Alfred Hitchcock never won a competitive Oscar, despite being nominated 5 times. I shall go through all the nominations, who won instead, and why that might have been. Here we go!

1941 – Nominated for Rebecca, lost to John Ford for The Grapes of Wrath – Hitchcock and John Ford are two of the greatest filmmakers of all time. So to have them up against each other was quite something – the other nominees were Sam Wood for Kitty Foyle, George Cukor for The Philadelphia Story and William Wyler for The Letter. Of the five nominees, Hitchcock and Ford had the best chance of winning, with Cukor a close third. But Hitchcock’s rift with David O. Selznick may or may not have contributed to his loss. John Ford was reliable and well-liked; and this was his second Oscar. Alfred Hitchcock was new in Hollywood and, while Rebecca went on to win Best Picture, Ford may have seemed like the safest choice for Director. This isn’t to say he was plain ‘safe’, just that in Hollywood circles, people’s familiarity with Ford, coupled with their relative unfamiliarity with Hitch at that point may have contributed to Ford’s win.

1945 – Nominated for Lifeboat, lost to Leo McCarey for Going My Way – Now, in retrospect, neither of them should have won. This should have been Billy Wilder’s to lose. Again, in retrospect. Wilder was nominated for Double Indemnity, which is the strongest movie / direction of all five; Otto Preminger for Laura (which you know I also love) and Henry King for Wilson being the other two. It seems that Going My Way’s loveliness won Hollywood over that year. I personally love McCarey, I think his versatility is vastly under-appreciated – he directed the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup AND Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember? Come on. This, however, should have maybe gone to Wilder. Which brings me to…

1946 – Nominated for Spellbound, lost to Billy Wilder for The Lost Weekend – Alas, Wilder won his first Oscar the following year, this time for the heart-wrenching Lost Weekend. With Ray Milland at the forefront, both on screen and in the hearts and minds of Academy voters (talk about a deserved Oscar!), this wasn’t going to anybody but Wilder. Not McCarey again for The Bells of St Mary’s, not Clarence Brown for National Velvet nor Jean Renoir for The Southerner.  The 1940s were Wilder’s first foray into directing, having written scripts for several directors in the 1930s, so this was, in a sort of way, the right time to award him, after over a decade in the business and a prolific one at that.

1955 – Nominated for Rear Window, lost to Elia Kazan for On The Waterfront – I’ve often said that I think On The Waterfront is one of the most perfect films ever made. The acting, he script, the cinematography and, of course, the direction come together in such a powerful way that I don’t think anything could have beaten it that year, for either Director or Picture. The other nominees being Wilder again for Sabrina, George Seaton for The Country Girl and William A. Wellman for The High and The Mighty.  For some inexplicable reason, this was Hitchcock’s only nomination in the 1950s, which I personally consider to be his best ever decade. Rear Window was a director’s picture. The sheer ingeniousness of it, is something to behold. But… On The Waterfront is an equally fantastic movie and Kazan’s… shenanigans…. aside, he was objectively a brilliant director. But should this have been one of those times when Director and Picture go to two different movies? Perhaps… Just… perhaps.

1961 – Nominated for Psycho, lost to Billy Wilder for The Apartment – Now… everyone knows The Apartment is my favorite film of all time, so I am absolutely not going to complain about this. In retrospect, I think this, along with Rear Window, was his best shot at winning, but then Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine started playing gin rummy and it was all over. The other nominees, Jules Dassin for Never on Sunday (another Oscar-less genius), Jack Cardiff for Sons and Lovers and Fred Zinnemann for The Sundowners, just prove once again that 1960 really was a phenomenal year for cinema. And how wonderful it is that we got two of the greatest films ever made out of it! And on a final note, I’d like to point that, upon the release of The Apartment, Hitchcock wrote a note to Wilder saying, ‘Dear Mr Wilder, I saw THE APARTMENT the other day. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed it and how beautifully made. I felt this so much that I was impelled to drop you this note. Kindest regards, Alfred Hitchcock.’. Absolutely magnificent.

A few other things I want to point out as well:

I think he should received other nominations. I think Vertigo (1958) is a massive, massive oversight. Also Notorious, though 1946 was a fiercely competitive year. North By Northwest (1959) should have gotten a nod too.

I also think he had fairly decent competition every time he was nominated and that may explain why he went Oscar-less his whole career. That isn’t to say I agree with every choice, but as I said, I think the actual problem was that he missed out on other nods that could have sealed the deal.

Finally, the Oscars are by no means indicative of someone’s talent or longevity, as evidenced. You know I love the Oscars, but I fully acknowledge their lack of merit. Still, doesn’t mean I won’t keep banging on about them!

See you at the next AND THE OSCAR DOESN’T GO TO, and check out the other entries in this blogathon here.

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