Best picture 1938

I would say You Can't Take it With You, because it's the only one of all the nominations that I've seen.

I have to throw my vote in with "The Adventures of Robin Hood. I know, in my case, it is sentimentality because I love the glorious Technicolor and swaggering action of all the characters. Errol Flynn, Claude Rains, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone and (the almost perfect) Eugene Pallette are too delicious for words. Add Erich Korngold's music and Curtiz'a direction and you get a movie that can be watched over and over and never grows old.

I think "You Can't Take it With You" is a decent movie, but when they broadened the play as a movie they lost much of the character driven humor of the dialogue. The slapstick that was added in seems forced and the adding tons of people to the cast didn't help. Good movie and it is always nice to see a comedy recognized as best picture as it so rarely happens.

"Grand Illusion" is a masterpiece, but I had to be older and more sophisticated in film to really appreciate it. "Pygmalion" and "Jezebel" are good and I enjoy the others nominated, but they don't say best picture to me.

I'll stick with Robin Hood.

I would probably vote for YCTIWY. I have seen all of the other movies on the list but all long ago, except for Jezebel. I saw it on a new DVD recently and was quite disappointed -- an overblown turkey in my oppinion and one of Betty Davis' worst performances in spite of her AA win. Pygmalion and Grand Illusion are both very good movies, but I would not have voted for either, because I don't think foreign movies, even British, should be allowed in AA voting. Of the others on that list for me The Citadel would be the strongest competetor for Can't Take, etc.

He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45

Everything being equal ...... meaning: in the absence of any language barriers ..... the best film in that group is Renoir's La Grande Illusion. It certainly has the most to say, and is also an exceptionally well done movie in every other respect as well.

Of course, there was not a chance in the world that a non-English language film was going to win the Best Picture vote in that era (and it's not that much more likely now).

The one that I find the most purely entertaining is probably The Adventures of Robin Hood. (My French isn't nearly good enough for the Renoir not to require more effort / work to watch.)

The right movie won that year.

Volker Flenske: (While torturing David) I don't know why you're doing this to yourself!

I've not seen all of those but Grand Illusion & Pygmalion are both much better, I would even say essentially perfect.