The Red Danube (1949)

Billeted in an Austrian convent run by mother superior Ethel Barrymore in post World War II Europe, British colonel Walter Pidgeon, along with aides Angela Lansbury, Peter Lawford, and Robert Coote, is tasked with monitoring for possible subversive activities against Allied countries while also supporting the repatriation of Soviet citizens. Complications arise when Lawford falls in love with Russian ballerina Vivien Leigh who is in hiding at the convent. A potentially intriguing story about the early days of the Cold War is marred by heavy-handed religious propaganda where Pidgeon’s understandable post-War agnosticism is deemed unacceptable by Barrymore and the film. It also requires a buy-in of a lukewarm romance between bland Peter Lawford and weak-willed Leigh. At least Lansbury’s character escaped that fate.

Oscar Nomination: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White