Golden Globe 2018

1953 was indeed a peculiar year. On the comedy or musical front, With a Song in My Heart took the Globe from Singin’ in the Rain, later to be celebrated as the best musical of all time and inspire generations of filmmakers (including Damien Chazelle, winner of the same award in 2017 with his La La Land).

The issue of antisemitism gets the Elia Kazan treatment in this tight drama sprung out of a personal experience: when producer Darryl F. Zanuck’ application to join the prestigious Los Angeles Country Club was denied because it was assumed (incorrectly) that he was Jewish.

War comes home in director Wiliam Wyler’s drama about three servicemen returning from the blood-soaked battlefronts of World War II to hometowns they no longer recognize. The project started out as an article in Time magazine about the difficulties encountered by troops coming home, turned into a screenplay by MacKinlay Cantor, commissioned by producer and studio head Samuel Goldwyn.

A powerful drama about four days in the life of an alcoholic writer spiraling out of control, The Lost Weekend is the fourth film of Billy Wilder’s extraordinary career as a director and only his third US production. Self-exiled in Hollywood after the ascent of Nazism in his native Austria, Wilder had left behind over a decade of steady work as a screenwriter, and was, in his own words, “learning to do it all over again”, in great part thanks to his collaboration with writer Charles Brackett, who would be his writing partner throughout his career.

The highest-grossing picture of 1944 had all the perfect elements: some drama, some comedy and lots of musical numbers by one of the biggest stars of the time, Bing Crosby. Developed by Paramount contract writers Frank Butler and Frank Cavett, Going My Way started out as an original concept by master director Leo McCarey (An Affair to Remember, Duck Soup, The Bells of St.

“For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible" – this card preceded the opening titles of The Song of Bernadette, director Henry King’s adaptation of Franz Werfel’s eponymous best-selling novel and our first best motion picture Golden Globe.