Best Films - 1942
by Andre Soares
Maligned at the time of its release, Once Upon a Honeymoon is a funny dark comedy that offers three excellent actors in top form: Cary Grant as the befuddled hero; Ginger Rogers as the ditzy heroine; and Walter Slezak as the smooth Nazi villain (and Rogers’s hubby). Rogers just doesn’t get it why each time she and her husband visit a new country, that country falls in the hands of Hitler’s Germany. Leo McCarey, no stranger to film comedy (The Awful Truth) directed from a screenplay by Sheridan Gibney, who was generally more adept at heavy drama (The Story of Louis Pasteur).
FILM
Once Upon a Honeymoon
Bambi
The Black Swan
Casablanca
Johnny Eager
The Magnificent Ambersons
The Major and the Minor
Random Harvest
Tales of Manhattan
The Talk of the Town
DIRECTOR
Mervyn LeRoy (Random Harvest)
Alessandro Blasetti (Quattro passi fra le nuvole / Four Steps in the Clouds)
Michael Curtiz (Casablanca)
Julien Duvivier (Tales of Manhattan)
Henry King (The Black Swan)
Mervyn LeRoy (Johnny Eager)
Leo McCarey (Once Upon a Honeymoon)
George Stevens (The Talk of the Town)
Orson Welles (The Magnificent Ambersons)
Billy Wilder (The Major and the Minor)
ACTOR
Gino Cervi (Quattro passi fra le nuvole / Four Steps in the Clouds)
Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca)
Ronald Colman (The Talk of the Town)
Ronald Colman (Random Harvest)
Gary Cooper (The Pride of the Yankees)
Cary Grant (Once Upon a Honeymoon)
Cary Grant (The Talk of the Town)
Joel McCrea (The Palm Beach Story)
Ray Milland (The Major and the Minor)
Robert Taylor (Johnny Eager)
ACTRESS
Ginger Rogers (The Major and the Minor)
Jean Arthur (The Talk of the Town)
Fay Bainter (The War Against Mrs. Hadley)
Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca)
Greer Garson (Random Harvest)
Joan Leslie (The Hard Way)
Carole Lombard (To Be or Not to Be)
Ginger Rogers (Once Upon a Honeymoon)
Ginger Rogers (Roxie Hart)
Alida Valli (Noi vivi / We the Living)
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Walter Slezak (Once Upon a Honeymoon)
Fosco Giachetti (Noi vivi / We the Living)
Van Heflin (Johnny Eager)
Halliwell Hobbes (The War Against Mrs. Hadley)
Alan Ladd (This Gun for Hire)
Charles Laughton (Tales of Manhattan)
Frank Morgan (Tortilla Flat)
Claude Rains (Casablanca)
Edward G. Robinson (Tales of Manhattan)
Aldo Silvani (Quattro passi fra le nuvole / Four Steps in the Clouds)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Agnes Moorehead (The Magnificent Ambersons)
Spring Byington (Roxie Hart)
Joyce Carey (In Which We Serve)
Gladys George (The Hard Way)
Rita Johnson (The Major and the Minor)
Joan Leslie (The Male Animal)
Susan Peters (Random Harvest)
Robin Raymond (Johnny Eager)
Dame May Whitty (Mrs. Miniver)
Teresa Wright (Mrs. Miniver)
SCREENPLAY
Sheridan Gibney (Once Upon a Honeymoon)
Charles Brackett & Billy Wilder (The Major and the Minor)
Ben Hecht, Ferenc Molnar, Donald Ogden Stewart, Samuel Hoffenstein, Alan Campbell, Ladislas Fodor, Laslo Vadnay, Laszlo Gorog, Lamar Trotti & Henry Blankfort (Tales of Manhattan)
Albert Maltz & W. R. Burnett (This Gun for Hire)
John Lee Mahin & James Edward Grant (Johnny Eager)
Larry Morey (Bambi)
Irwin Shaw & Sidney Buchman (The Talk of the Town)
Orson Welles (The Magnificent Ambersons)
Claudine West, George Froeschel & Arthur Wimperis (Random Harvest)
Cesare Zavattini, Giuseppe Amato, Piero Tellini & Aldo de Benedetti (Quattro passi fra le nuvole / Four Steps in the Clouds)
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Stanley Cortez (The Magnificent Ambersons)
Giuseppe Caracciolo (Noi vivi / We the Living)
Arthur Edeson (Casablanca)
James Wong Howe (King’s Row)
Sol Polito (Now, Voyager)
Harold Rosson (Johnny Eager)
Joseph Ruttenberg (Random Harvest)
Leon Shamroy (The Black Swan)
Sidney Wagner (Tortilla Flat)
Joseph Walker (Tales of Manhattan)
ORIGINAL SCORE
Max Steiner (Now, Voyager)
Werner Heymann (To Be or Not to Be)
Max Steiner (Casablanca)
Max Steiner (In This Our Life)
Herbert Stothart (Mrs. Miniver)
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