How Green Was My Valley
Citizen Kane may be considered one of the greatest films ever made, yet this Orson Welles grand tale of a newspaper magnate’s rise and fall lost out on Best Picture in 1942. Instead, the prize went to How Green Was My Valley, a drama depicting the struggles of a Welsh mining family. As director, co-author, producer, and star, Welles had every hand in the making of Citizen Kane, but his controversial film, thought to be based on media mogul William Randolph Hearst, managed to alienate him from Hollywood. How Green Was My Valley, from director John Ford, proved to be a more sentimental favorite of the time. (Don’t miss out on these classic movies that didn’t win Best Picture.)
An American in Paris
Before the 1950s, only three musical films had managed to win Best Picture at the Oscars. Then in 1952, Vincente Minnelli’s lavish, Technicolor spectacle An American in Paris, starring the one and only Gene Kelly, would steal the show, pulling off a surprising win for Best Picture over dramas A Streetcar Named Desire and A Place in the Sun. The sunny musical would take home six total Oscars that evening, proving that song and dance could be taken seriously.
