Fox
Oscar Nominations: 4
Picture, produced by Darryl F. Zanuck
Supporting Actor: Clifton Webb
Supporting Actress: Anne Baxter
Interior Decoration (b/w): Richard Day and Nathan Juran, art director; Thomas Little and Paul S. Fox, set decoration
Oscar Awards: 1
Supporting Actress
Oscar Context
In 1946, Edmund Goulding's “The Razor's Edge,” based on Somerset Maugham's novel, competed for the Best Picture Oscar with “The Best Years of Our Lives,” which won, Laurence Olivier's Shakespearean film “Henry V,” Frank Capra's “It's a Wonderful Life,” , and Clarence Brown's family melodrama “The Yearling,” co-starring Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman.
“The Best Years of Our Lives” was the most honored film in 1946, receiving the largest number of awards to date, 7 regular and a Special Oscar. It captured the mood of post-War America so effectively and so realistically, that even the more critical reviewers failed to see its flaws at the time.
The big loser was Capra's fable, which was a commercial failure at the time, but in later years came to be recognized by film critics as his masterpiece.
The Interior Decoration Oscar went to “Anna and the King of Siam.”
This was the first of Anne Baxter's Oscar nomination; the second was in the lead catgeory for “All About Eve,” in 1950.
