Oscars 1940: Black and White and Color


The newspapers weren’t happy about the latest development at the Oscar ceremony—the sealed envelope. It meant, of course, no advance word on who the winners were, resulting in missed deadlines for the dailies and more hours of competition-free reporting for radio. It was also the first year that the category of Interior Decoration was split in two, one set of nominees for black-and-white films and another for movies shot in color. Cedric Gibbons and Paul Groesse took the black-and-white prize for Pride and Prejudice; Vincent Korda won the statuette for his work on Alexander Korda’s vibrant The Thief of Bagdad. “The particular glory of this film is its truly magnificent color,” wrote New York Times critic Bosley Crowther about the British fantasy adventure. “No motion picture to date has been so richly and eloquently hued, nor has any picture yet been so perfectly suited to it.”
BEST PICTURE
Rebecca
BEST DIRECTOR
John Ford, The Grapes of Wrath
BEST ACTOR
James Stewart, The Philadelphia Story
BEST ACTRESS
Ginger Rogers, Kitty Foyle
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Walter Brennan, The Westerner
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jane Darwell, The Grapes of Wrath