Yesterday\u2019s Academy Award nominations generated the annual debate over who was nominated and who was snubbed. But when it comes to Oscar snubs, a surprisingly large number of classic films were ignored by Academy voters.<\/p>\n
In my humid opinion \u2013 yes, humid, because I don\u2019t do humble \u2013 here are my picks for the 10 films that were shockingly denied access to Academy Award nominations. Mercifully, none of these films suffered in reputation for lacking acknowledgement for Oscar consideration.
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City Lights (1931).<\/strong> Arguably Charlie Chaplin\u2019s masterpiece, \u201cCity Lights\u201d was one of two silent features that found their way into theatrical release at a time when sound films had completely taken root in American cinemas. The other silent release, F.W. Murnau\u2019s \u201cTabu,\u201d won the Best Cinematography Oscar. But Chaplin\u2019s refusal to acquiesce to the sound film format and the significant box office triumph of his production clearly sparked jealousy among his peers, hence the absence of this landmark work among the nominees.<\/p>\n King Kong (1933). <\/strong>Producer David O. Selznick lobbied the Academy to honor \u201cKing Kong\u201d with a special award for its visual effect, but his efforts came to naught \u2013 special effects did not have their own award category until the 1939 category. But when one considers the categories where \u201cKing Kong\u201d was a shoo-in \u2013 Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Recording, even the Story and Screenplay competitions \u2013 the snub was stinging. Breathless (1960).<\/strong> Jean-Luc Godard\u2019s landmark work turned up in the U.S. for 1961 \u2013 and while it was unlikely for this French import to give \u201cWest Side Story\u201d a run for its Oscar money, it is a bit odd that the voters in the Original Screenplay and Editing categories chose to bypass \u201cBreathless.\u201d Heck, Jean-Paul Belmondo’s star-making turn and Jean Seberg’s affirmation of her talent deserved nominations. But this was hardly an aberration \u2013 none of Godard\u2019s films ever received an Oscar nomination, and this may have irritated the great filmmaker. When the Academy belatedly bestowed an Honorary Award in 2010 on Godard, he skipped the ceremony.<\/p>\n Yellow Submarine (1968).<\/strong> There was no category for Best Animated Feature in 1968, but this production could have received a special award or could have been included in the mix for Best Song (there were four new Beatles tunes), Best Score for a Musical Picture or even the Screenplay competition. Alas, \u201cYellow Submarine\u201d sailed out of the year with nary an Oscar nomination. <\/p>\n The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974).<\/strong> Admittedly, the year 1974 was overpacked with extraordinary films. But the total shutout of \u201cThe Taking of Pelham One Two Three\u201d must be one of the most outrageous omissions in Oscar history. And as much as I love Art Carney, the Best Actor Award for that year should have been given to Walter Matthau\u2019s utterly astonishing performance \u2013 but, sadly, Matthau (who already won an Oscar for \u201cThe Fortune Cookie\u201d in 1966) got elbowed out of sight in favor of non-Oscar winners Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman and Albert Finney.<\/p>\n Airplane! (1980).<\/strong> Surely, you can\u2019t be serious that one of the funniest films ever made failed to crack a smile or secure a vote from Oscar voters? I am serious and\u2026well, you know the joke. But even if the Original Screenplay category voters weren\u2019t amused, how could the acting community fail to appreciate the jollity of Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves or Stephen Stucker in the Best Supporting Actor category?<\/p>\n Shoah (1985). <\/strong>For too many years, the Best Documentary category has ignored groundbreaking and commercially successful documentaries in favor of mediocre and obscure works by filmmakers who, not coincidentally, were bigwigs within the Academy’s documentary branch. Perhaps the most draw-dropping snub among documentaries were Claude Lanzmann\u2019s landmark \u201cShoah,\u201d the most powerful nonfiction consideration of the Holocaust ever captured on film; “Shoah” also deserved consideration for the Editing and Sound Recording categories. The Academy tried to atone for the sin of this omission by later giving awards to lesser films that considered the obscenity and tragedy of the Holocaust \u2013 but none of these works came close to \u201cShoah\u201d for sheer emotional power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday\u2019s Academy Award nominations generated the annual debate over who was nominated and who was snubbed. But when it comes to Oscar snubs, a surprisingly large number of classic films were ignored by Academy voters. In my humid opinion \u2013 yes, humid, because I don\u2019t do humble \u2013 here are my picks for the 10 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":46194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1369],"tags":[1534,3101,2375,1593,585,626,751,3604,1051,3602,3603],"class_list":["post-46193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-retro-cinema","tag-academy-awards","tag-airplane","tag-charlie-chaplin","tag-jean-luc-godard","tag-king-kong","tag-marilyn-monroe","tag-oscars","tag-shoah","tag-the-beatles","tag-the-man-who-came-to-dinner","tag-walter-matthau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46193"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46203,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46193\/revisions\/46203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nThe Man Who Came to Dinner (1941).<\/strong> Warner Bros.\u2019 adaptation of the Moss Hart-George S. Kaufman comedy should have generated nominations for Monty Woolley (Best Actor), Reginald Gardiner or Jimmy Durante (Best Supporting Actor), Mary Wickes (Best Supporting Actress) plus nod for the Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction and Editing. Why did it get overlooked? Well, the studio had \u201cSergeant York,\u201d \u201cThe Maltese Falcon\u201d and \u201cOne Foot in Heaven\u201d as its big releases, so this comedy fell by the wayside as the heavier dramas were spotlighted.
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\nGentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).<\/strong> Howard Hawks\u2019 rollicking musical did everything right \u2013 wonderful Technicolor cinematography, a fun score with several new songs, peerless costume designs, a witty screenplay, and Charles Coburn\u2019s scene stealing performance that should have lassoed a Supporting Actor Oscar. While it was unlikely that Jane Russell or Marilyn Monroe would have received the Academy\u2019s blessing, how come the adorable little George Winslow didn\u2019t snag a Special Oscar for Best Juvenile Performance?
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\nThe Searchers (1956).<\/strong> Maybe the most insulting snub of all time was the refusal of Academy voters to recognize John Ford\u2019s brilliant Western. An argument could be made that this was the greatest Western ever made \u2013 and perhaps its lack of Oscar nominations was a dreary admission by Academy voters that they could never equal or surpass the genius of this commanding work.<\/p>\n