1944 Best Picture:
Going My Way

Competition:
Double Indemnity, Gaslight, Since You Went Away, Wilson

Other Winners:
Best Actor: Bing Crosby, Going My Way
Best Actress: Ingrid Bergman, Gaslight
Best Supporting Actor: Barry Fitzgerald, Going My Way
Best Supporting Actress: Ethel Barrymore, None But the Lonely Heart
Best Director: Leo McCarey, Going My Way

Cast: Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, Rise Stevens, Frank McHugh, Gene Lockhart, William Frawley, James Brown, Jean Heather

Storyline: When Father Fitzgibbon's church faces bankruptcy, he enlists the help of a young Father O'Malley, but quickly begins to question the young priest's unorthodox views.  

Did it deserve to win: I think you had to be there!  Going My Way is a syrupy sweet film, where everyone has a heart of gold.  The film may leave you feeling good about the world, but its not exactly groundbreaking. 

Double Indemnity, the Barbara Stanwick-Fred MacMurray thriller, about murder and double-crossing, all in the name of money, was a much more interesting picture, and one that holds up to this day.  

Since You Went Away, the American 'Mrs. Miniver' starred Shirley Temple, Claudette Colbert and Jennifer Jones.  A story about women guarding the home front, this film was easy to relate to by movie-going audiences in 1944.

Wilson, the epic about the rise and fall of President Woodrow Wilson, was another big picture that year that was a favorite to win.

In 1944, the world was deeply entrenched in the war, and the news wasn't looking good.  Perhaps this feel-good picture, with Bing crooning with the kids, was just what the people needed.  

Critique: Hindsight is 20/20, so my criticism may not be fair to this film, which I know is loved to this day, by people worldwide.  My father, in fact, would kill me for putting this film down.  

I just find it hard to buy into Bing Crosby as being the liberal kind of guy that this film paints him to be.  The message in this film is that we must accept people as they are, but the challenge to the character's was very weak.  Who couldn't accept some precocious white youngsters, and a beautiful young virgin, who wishes that her family would let her live her own life. 

Where were the black people in this film?  Or the Jews?  Sorry, but Going My Way is nothing more than a Saturday afternoon, feel-good picture.  While it may have been relevant for the times, it hardly holds up as the best picture of its year.  

On a lighter note, the film has some of Bing's most memorable songs, including Silent Night and Swinging on a Star.

Best Scene:  I thought Whoopi Goldberg did it better in Sister Act, but Father O'Malley whipping those choir boys into shape was somewhat amusing.

Behind the Scenes: Barry Fitzgerald achieved something that year that could never be repeated; a nomination for the same role in both the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories.  He won the latter, while the Academy quickly changed its rules so that this couldn't happen again. 

Fitzgerald decapitated his Oscar while practicing his golf swing. During the war, statues were made of plaster, as bronze and metal was being rationed for the war effort.

Leo McCarey became the first person to ever win the Directing and the writing Oscar.

Ingrid Bergman won the Oscar for Best Actress for Gaslight.  At the time, she was working on the sequel to Going My Way, The Bells of St. Mary, with Crosby and Fitzgerald. The three actors appeared on the set the next day as Oscar winners.

Tallulah Bankhead, the outrageous theatre actress/boozer/cokehead, was conspicuously absent from the list of Best Supporting Actress nominees for her role in Lifeboat.  She claimed that her refusal to associate with the studio system was the reason behind it. 

Jennifer Jones presents Ingrid Bergman her Oscar for Best Actress in Gaslight.

Opera singer, Rise Stevens, makes a rare appearance in movies, when Bing enlists her to help his choir.

Frank McHugh is Father O'Dowd, good friend to O'Malley.