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Decision Before Dawn (1951)
Rate:
4
Viewed:
2/25
2/25:
Decision Before Dawn is the least known Best Picture nominee of the 50's.
When I saw it was "NOMINATED FOR 1951 BEST PICTURE OSCAR" on the DVD cover, I blinked twice and thought to
myself, "Did they have ten nominees at the time?" But nope...the practice ended eight years earlier. After
seeing the film, I've concluded the Academy Awards made a mistake. It has everything to do with the construction
of the story with too much "go over there" during the middle.
The premise didn't initially make sense to me. Neither did the first hour. By the time Oskar Werner was on his own,
things started to get better. When Richard Basehart and Hans Christian Blech were finally shown again
after being absent for so long, there went the entire film. After Oskar Werner's and Hans Christian Blech's
characters were killed, I suddenly knew that they got used for nothing. Plus, I didn't believe they could
keep escaping the Nazis successfully so many times.
Therefore, the best move is to give Oskar Werner the leading role and let him carry the film from start to
finish. That way, he would've been Oscar-nominated easily because he was very good. However, Oskar Werner wasn't
well known yet, having come over from Austria, and this was his first Hollywood film. It's too bad that they
discarded him right after, but he would get the chance to make a powerful impact in
Ship of Fools and
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Meanwhile, the
cinematography is excellent with the bombed-out German cities being for real.
All in all, fans of Oskar Werner will be glad to see him in Decision Before Dawn, but it's a
disappointing movie overall.