Fans of Turner Classic Movies know that February is the channel’s 31 Days of Oscar month (and that, because of the leap year, only the first two days of March are included in this year’s celebration).  Many – like host Robert Osborne, who’s also an official red carpet greeter at the Academy Awards ceremony and author of the book 75 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards – look forward to the programming because it’s an opportunity to see (or showcase) movies that were recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with at least one Oscar nomination.  Perhaps the biggest highlight (for me) among those on the 2008 schedule was Wings (1927), a TCM premiere; it was the first and only winner for Best Picture, Production – a category that has since become known as Best Picture – and the only silent film to win that award.  Since next Sunday marks the eightieth time that AMPAS will bestow its awards, TCM’s programmers have plenty of choices for their annual event even when one considers all the restrictions (availability, rights to air, and/or self-imposed) that they face.  However, there are still dozens of classics one will never see during these “31 Days” because they didn’t manage to receive a single nomination in any category!

Controversy over Oscar’s nominees (or winners) is nothing new.  In the past, studios failed to back a performance or a film for personal (the actor wasn’t under contract) or political (e.g. agreements between the earliest studio execs to spread the wealth) reasons.  In some cases, they even made mistakes (missed a deadline or incorrectly filled out a form!) and, hindsight being what it is, there are immense differences of opinion over the passage of time.  Movies that weren’t well received in their day due to audiences’ preferences or world events have been reevaluated.  If one reviews more recent history of nominations, the existence of an incestuous relationship between the Academy and its film-makers seems self evident:  while too much box office tends to doom a movie (e.g. keeping it from earning critical acclaim), a successful picture is likely to receive at least one nomination (even if it’s in a minor category) so that its producers can tout it – hence promoting AMPAS – on their DVD release cover.

While some can and will argue which of the movies nominated should have won Best Picture in any given year, I think that it can be just as interesting to list those films that are missing from the Academy’s vaunted and venerated history (whether they were intentionally snubbed or just victims of gross oversight).  Though most of those included in this blog entry have subsequently been added to the National Film Registry (established after Congress passed the National Film Preservation Act in 1988), none of these films received a single nomination (not for its actors, its direction, its story, its cinematography … nada!) during the first 30 years of Oscar’s existence.

Horror classics or other underappreciated genres at the time (sci-fi)

• Dracula (1931) – added to the National Film Registry in 2000
• Frankenstein (1931) – added to the National Film Registry in 1991
• The Invisible Man (1933)

• King Kong (1933) – added to the National Film Registry in 1991

Bela Legosi and Boris Karloff were never nominated either

Great British movies (until Henry V (1944) and then Hamlet (1948) breakthrough)

• The 39 Steps (1935)

• The Lady Vanishes (1938) – and Hitchcock never won an Oscar either!

• Gaslight (1940) – just as good as the American version which, unlike most other remakes, received several nominations winning Ingrid Bergman her first of three statuettes; Anton Walbrook was never nominated.
• Kind Hearts and Coronets (1948)

Lost in a very competitive year, like that most Golden one: 

• Destry Rides Again (1939) – busy year for great ones, especially with Stagecoach (1939) and Stewart’s own Mr. Smith competing; added to the National Film Registry in 1996

• Midnight (1939) – John Barrymore was never nominated either
• The Roaring Twenties (1939) – neither director Raoul Walsh nor writer Mark Hellinger were ever nominated either
• The Women (1939) – added to the National Film Registry in 2007

Or even a year like 1950 (All About Eve, Annie Get Your Gun, The Asphalt Jungle, Born Yesterday, Cyrano de Bergerac, Father of the Bride, Harvey, King Solomon’s Mines, The Men, Sunset Blvd.)

• D.O.A. (1950) – added to the National Film Registry in 2004
• In a Lonely Place (1950) – added to the National Film Registry in 2007
• Winchester ’73 (1950) – director Anthony Mann was never nominated!

Comedies and other light fare

• Love Me Tonight (1932) – Maurice Chevalier never won; Jeanette MacDonald nor C. Aubrey Smith were never nominated; added to the National Film Registry in 1990
• Trouble in Paradise (1932) – Ernst Lubitsch never won; Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall, and Edward Everett Horton were never nominated; added to the National Film Registry in 1991
• Dinner at Eight (1933)
• Duck Soup (1933) – Groucho and his Marx Brothers were never nominated; added to the National Film Registry in 1990; #85 on AFI’s 100 Greatest Movies list; #5 on AFI’s 100 Funniest Movies list

• Modern Times (1936) – added to the National Film Registry in 1989; snubbed for being a silent film in the sound era and/or for Charlie Chaplin’s politics; #81 on AFI’s 100 Greatest Movies list; #33 on AFI’s 100 Funniest Movies list.
• Bringing Up Baby (1938) – despite his co-stars (Katharine Hepburn, Irene Dunne, Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell, etc.) receiving recognition for their comedic efforts over the years, Cary Grant never did; the definitive screwball comedy; added to the National Film Registry in 1990
• His Girl Friday (1940) – remakes (Anna Karenina, The Dawn Patrol, etc.) don’t usually receive recognition; added to the National Film Registry in 1993
• The Shop Around the Corner (1940) – writer Samson Raphaelson was never nominated; added to the National Film Registry in 1999
• Sullivan’s Travels (1941) – neither Joel McCrea nor Veronica Lake were ever nominated; added to the National Film Registry in 1990
• The Major and the Minor (1942)
• The Palm Beach Story (1942) – one of several great Preston Sturges films
• Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) – could be because it sat on a shelf for three years while the Broadway play with Boris Karloff finished its run; neither Peter Lorre nor Jack Carson ever managed a nomination either

Later, some dramas especially noirs and/or non-widescreen or independent movies 

• The Big Sleep (1946) – the best of the four Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall movies; was added to the National Film Registry in 1997; Elisha Cook Jr. was never nominated.
• My Darling Clementine (1946) – added to the National Film Registry in 1991; Victor Mature, Tim Holt, and Ward Bond were never nominated
• The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) – and John Garfield never won

• Out of the Past (1947) – Oscar didn’t know what they had – film noir – at the time; added to the National Film Registry in 1991; director Jacques Tourneur and actress Jane Greer were never nominated.
• Command Decision (1948) – war weary Academy; neither Van Johnson nor Edward Arnold were ever nominated
• Force of Evil (1948) – added to the National Film Registry in 1994
• The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) – added to the National Film Registry in 1995

• The Big Heat (1953) – Director Fritz Lang and actor Glenn Ford were never nominated during their careers either!
• The Night of the Hunter (1955) – Robert Mitchum’s only nomination was as a Supporting Actor in Story of G.I. Joe (1945); added to the National Film Registry in 1992
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) – added to the National Film Registry in 1994
• The Searchers (1956) – added to the National Film Registry in the first eligible year of 1989; Vera Miles and John Qualen were never nominated.
• A Face in the Crowd (1957)
• Paths of Glory (1957) – early (independent) Kubrick like this, which was added to the National Film Registry in 1992, and The Killing (1956); George Macready never received a Supporting Actor nomination either;  Sterling Hayden was never nominated.
• Sweet Smell of Success (1957) – added to the National Film Registry in 1993
• Touch of Evil (1958) – added to the National Film Registry in 1993; Joseph Cotten was never nominated.