oscaralbert Review of Grandad of Races

Grandad of Races (1950)

Most everyone's Oscar bracket gets busted . . .

[6/10 · 13 July 2015]

. . . by the various "shorts" categories. This is partly because almost no one sees them before the winners are announced. More importantly, the tiny handful of people who DO pick these winners know that they're operating in a virtual vacuum. Free from any meaningful oversight, they often seem to take a perverse pleasure in picking statuette winners by dart throw, bribery, Cronyism, or Opposite Day. Though I'm not sure at this late date which of these four selection methods put the Golden Boy Statue in the paws of the people behind one of the 1950 One-reel shorts "winner," GRANDAD OF RACES, I can make an educated guess. Maybe it was a one-off, along the lines of a selection honcho losing a bundle at the Santa Anita track the afternoon of the vote, and singling out GRANDAD's tribute to equine abuse in Siena, Italy, just for spite. If a fair field had been assembled for documentary shorts in 1950, it could have included at least one entry detailing the beginning of The Korean War. Surely a thoughtful package of shorts also would have encompassed a piece exploring the effect on the Canadian Psyche of that country being nuked TWICE by America (History's first "Broken Arrow" occurred near Vancouver on Feb. 13, followed by a B-50 incident Nov. 10). Speaking of nukes, why nothing about Alger Hiss being convicted of perjury, President Harry Truman Okaying the H-Bomb, or scientist Albert Einstein warning of Mutually Assured Destruction? On a lighter social note, Beetle Bailey and the Peanuts comic strips both made their newspaper debuts, along with the Volkswagen Microbus on the World's Lovers' Lanes and NOTORIOUS actress Ingrid Bergman's illegitimate baby (though there's no proof that the latter two developments were related to each other). Pope Pius XII discovered a shocking new incident that happened to the Virgin Mary 1,900 years earlier, South Africa adopted Apartheid, Israel adopted Jerusalem, and the current Dalai Lama was crowned. Darlington hosted NASCAR's initial 500-mile stock car race, the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel opened, a B29 bomber killed and injured 85 people in a California neighborhood, and some thugs pulled off Boston's Great Brinks Robbery. If the Oscar voters were totally Hell-bent on bringing some exotic sporting event to the Public's Attention, they could have given us a short showing how the tiny nation of Uruguay finally got on the map by winning Soccer's World Cup. Instead, we get GRANDAD! Horsefeathers!