15th National Board of Review Awards
December 23, 1943
The 15th National Board of Review Awards were announced on 23 December 1943.
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. Filmed and set during World War II, it focuses on an American expatriate (Bogart) who must choose between his love for a woman (Bergman) and helping her husband (Henreid), a Czechoslovak resistance leader, escape from the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Germans. The screenplay is based on Everybody Comes to Rick's, an unproduced stage play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. The supporting cast features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson.
Saverne is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. It is situated on the Rhine-Marne canal at the foot of a pass over the Vosges Mountains, and 45 km (27 mi) northwest of Strasbourg.
The Ox-Bow Incident is a 1943 American Western film directed by William A. Wellman, starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews and Mary Beth Hughes, with Anthony Quinn, William Eythe, Harry Morgan and Jane Darwell. Two cowboys arrive in a Western town, when news arrives that a local rancher has been murdered and his cattle stolen. The townspeople, joined by the two cowboys and cowboys from other ranches, form a posse to catch the perpetrators. They find three men in possession of the cattle, and are determined to see justice done on the spot.
Watch on the Rhine is a 1943 American drama film directed by Herman Shumlin and starring Bette Davis and Paul Lukas. The screenplay by Dashiell Hammett is based on the 1941 play Watch on the Rhine by Lillian Hellman. Watch on the Rhine was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Paul Lukas won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Kurt Muller, a German-born anti-fascist in this film.
The year 1943 in film featured various significant events for the film industry.
"Die Wacht am Rhein" is a German patriotic anthem. The song's origins are rooted in the historical French–German enmity, and it was particularly popular in Germany during the Franco-Prussian War, World War I, and World War II. The original poem was written by Max Schneckenburger during the Rhine crisis of 1840, and is generally sung to music written by Karl Wilhelm in 1854, seven years after Schneckenburger's death.
Harold B. Wallis was an American film producer. He is best known for producing Casablanca (1942), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and True Grit (1969), along with many other major films for Warner Bros. featuring such film stars as Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Bette Davis, and Errol Flynn. As a producer, he received 19 nominations for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Forbach is a commune in the French department of Moselle, northeastern French region of Grand Est.
Walter Van Tilburg Clark was an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and educator. He ranks as one of Nevada's most distinguished literary figures of the 20th century, and was the first inductee into the 'Nevada Writers Hall of Fame' in 1988, together with Robert Laxalt, Clark's mentee and Nevada's other heralded twentieth century author. Two of Clark's novels, The Ox-Bow Incident and The Track of the Cat, were made into films. As a writer, Clark taught himself to use the familiar materials of the western saga to explore the human psyche and to raise deep philosophical issues.
Lorraine is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of Grand Est. Its name stems from the medieval kingdom of Lotharingia, which in turn was named after either Emperor Lothair I or King Lothair II. Lorraine, originally the southern or "upper" part of this kingdom, came to be ruled by the Holy Roman Empire as the Duchy of Lorraine before the Kingdom of France annexed it in 1766.
Cyril John Mockridge was an English film and television composer. He received professional training at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In the early 1930s, Mockridge went to Hollywood where he scored and arranged the music for more than a hundred films including Cheaper by the Dozen, River of No Return and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
Air Force is a 1943 American World War II aviation film directed by Howard Hawks and starring John Garfield, John Ridgely, Gig Young, Arthur Kennedy, and Harry Carey. The film was distributed by Warner Bros. and produced by Hal B. Wallis and Jack L. Warner. It contains incidents of supposed fifth-column activities by Japanese Americans that never happened. Conceived by then - Lieutenant General “Hap” Arnold in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, it was originally scheduled for release on December 7, 1942, on the first anniversary. It became impossible to meet that deadline, and it premiered in New York City on February 3, 1943 and was released on March 20. The film's storyline revolves around an actual event that occurred on December 7, 1941. An aircrew ferries an unarmed 1940 series Boeing B-17D Flying Fortress heavy bomber, named the Mary-Ann, across the Pacific to the United States Army Air Forces base at Hickam Field. They fly right into the middle of the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor and the beginning of America's major involvement in the Second World War. An uncredited William Faulkner wrote the emotional deathbed scene for Ridgely, who played the commander and pilot of the Mary-Ann.
James Basevi was a British-born art director and special effects expert.
The following is a list of the Top 10 Films chosen annually by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, beginning in 1929.
Holy Matrimony is a 1943 comedy film directed by John M. Stahl and released by 20th Century Fox. The screenplay was based on the 1908 novel Buried Alive by Arnold Bennett. It stars Monty Woolley and Gracie Fields, with Laird Cregar, Una O'Connor, Alan Mowbray, Franklin Pangborn, Eric Blore, and George Zucco in supporting roles.
The 9th New York Film Critics Circle Awards, announced on 28 December 1943, honored the best filmmaking of 1943.
Louis V. Arco was an Austrian stage and film actor whose career began in the late 1910s.
Niderviller is a commune in the Moselle department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. It is mostly known for the Niderviller pottery, established in 1735 and still producing there.
The Ox-Bow Incident is a 1940 western novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark in which two local cattlemen are drawn into a lynch mob to find and hang three men presumed to be rustlers and the killers of a local man. It was Clark's first published novel.
Charles Eugène of Lorraine was the head of and last male member of the House of Guise, the cadet branch of the House of Lorraine which dominated France during the Wars of Religion, remained prominent as princes étrangers at court throughout the ancien régime, and participated in the émigré efforts to restore the Bourbons to the throne. He was an officer in the French and Habsburg militaries during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.