The 1978 Oscar race is best remembered as the year of the dueling Vietnam War movies but it almost didn’t happen.

Universal had planned The Deer Hunter for a February 1979 release and didn’t decide on limited New York and L.A. runs in mid-December until late November.

The L.A. Film critics were the first to announce their awards this year. Best Picture went to the “other” Vietnam War movie, Coming Home with The Deer Hunter’s Michael Cimino winning as Best Director.

The National Board of Review named Days of Heaven as Best Picture and Ingmar Bergman as Best Director for Autumn Sonata while the New York Film Critics named The Deer Hunter as Best Picture and Days of Heaven’s Terrence Malick as Best Director.

The Golden Globes nominated both all three early winners, The Deer Hunter; Coming Home and Days of Heaven, for Best Picture – Drama, adding Midnight Express and An Unmarried Woman into the mix. Midnight Express won while The Deer Hunter’s Cimino won as Best Director.

Directors Guild nominations went to The Deer Hunter’s Cimino; Coming Home’s Hal Ashby; Midnight Express’ Alan Parker; An Unmarried Woman’s Paul Mazursky and the team of Warren Beatty and Buck Henry for Heaven Can Wait, which won the Golden Globe for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy.

Oscar’s Best Picture slate consisted of The Deer Hunter; Coming Home; Midnight Express; An Unmarried Woman and Heaven Can Wait with Best Director nominations going to The Deer Hunter’s Cimino; Coming Home’s Ashby; Midnight Express’ Parker and Heaven Can Wait’s Beatty, with Woody Allen nabbing the fifth slot for Interiors , his first dramatic film.

So, beyond the five nominees for Best Picture, what would Oscar have chosen to complete a slate of ten? Certainly Days of Heaven and Interiors would have been there, and quite probably, so would have Autumn Sonata. Those were the eight films that kept popping up on ten best lists across the country.

With the sole exception of Heaven Can Wait, which was a remake of 1941 nominee Here Comes Mr. Jordan, this would have been quite a heavy line-up of drama. The other two nominations would almost certainly have gone to lighter fare. The hugely successful big screen return of Superman, aka Superman: The Movie, would most definitely be a contender.

The tenth slot would probably be a toss-up between The Buddy Holly Story; The Boys From Brazil and the long forgotten Movie Movie. I’d give the edge to The Boys From Brazil. Its subject matter may have been serious, but no one took seriously the plot to clone Hitler.

In the end, Universal’s release strategy worked. The Deer Hunter, which went into general release just before the Oscar nominations, won five of the nine it was nominated for including Best Picture and Director. Coming Home didn’t do too badly either. It won both Best Actor and Actress for Jon Voight and Jane Fonda, her second.