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

Cedric Gibbons

“Gibbons was responsible for the physical look of most of the 20th century through his designs for MGM, which were wildly influential both at the time and now, when we look back at his era.”
— Historian Steven Bingen, author of MGM: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot, in an interview with Stuart Galbraith IV

Cedric Gibbons, a graduate of New York’s Art Student League, began his long association with the movies at Edison Studios in 1915. In 1918, he served as art director at Goldwyn Studios. When Goldwyn became incorporated with Metro Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures in 1924, forming MGM, the young designer signed on as the new studio’s art director, a position he would hold for the next 32 years. More than 1,500 films bear his name as art director while a number of designers on his staff went uncredited. Nevertheless, the look of MGM films—and much of the studio proper—are reflections of Gibbons’s taste, creativity and discipline.

Here’s a brief look at his legacy.

Click to read more ...

Designs on Film

Production design and set decoration receive their due in a handsome volume by author Cathy Whitlock that covers every decade since the early days of movies. Working closely with the Art Directors Guild, Whitlock touches upon the successful careers of Anton Grot, Cedric Gibbons, Van Nast Polglase and other masters of the art and provides thoughtful examinations of various styles, from German expressionaism and Art Deco to fantasy films and costume dramas. It's all here, and well worth a look.