17 My Oscar Picks: 1969-70

1969

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: Midnight Cowboy
My Pick: Midnight Cowboy

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: John Schlesinger, Midnight Cowboy
My Pick: John Schlesinger, Midnight Cowboy

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: John Wayne, True Grit
My Pick: Jon Voight, Midnight Cowboy


BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Maggie Smith, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
My Pick: Jane Fonda, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Gig Young, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
My Pick: Elliott Gould, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Goldie Hawn, Cactus Flower
My Pick: Susannah York, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: Z (Algeria)
My Pick: Z

I wasn't completely enthusiastic about any of the best picture nominees this year. Z received a number of critics' awards, but I found it so low-key as to be rather dull. This is not the first, and certainly not the last, picture to make me wonder if members of critics' groups respond more to the ideology of a film than to the actual experience of watching it. The Oscar winner for best picture, Midnight Cowboy, is not without its flaws, but it is well directed and compelling, particularly after Joe Buck hits New York. This part of the film actually doesn't amount to much more than half the movie, and the first part of the film seems to me padded with an unnecessarily detailed account of Joe Buck's past. Still, of the nominees, I found it the most acceptable as a best picture winner. Even if the script was off in its overemphasis on the main character's backstory, the flamboyant direction by John Schlesinger was most accomplished and I had no qualms about seconding the Academy's choice of him as best director.

The Academy's choice of John Wayne as best actor for True Grit was panned by observers at the time, but when I saw the movie years after it was released I was impressed by both the movie and Wayne. (It strikes me as a better film than the year's most popular Western, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.) Still, I went for Jon Voight's remarkable star-making performance in Midnight Cowboy. The Academy gave its award for best actress to Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Smith is a wonderful actress. But either she or the director decided to exploit her strength at character roles to make her Jean Brodie an eccentric, naively misguided Ms. Chips rather than the manipulative fascist sympathizer she has always seemed to me. (I would love to see what Vanessa Redgrave, who played the part on stage, would have done with the character.) I went instead for another star-making performance by a young actress, Jane Fonda's as the doomed marathon dancer in They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

The Oscar for best supporting actor went to Gig Young for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? But I preferred Elliott Gould in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. He came off as the most sympathetic person in the film, his character somewhere midway between the shallow trendies played by Natalie Wood and Robert Culp and his sour, uptight wife played by Dyan Cannon. The Oscar for best supporting actress went to Goldie Hawn for her charming film debut in Cactus Flower, but I opted for Susannah York as another marathon-dance contestant in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Even if I couldn't bring myself to support Z for best picture, I did select it for best foreign language film. It was just the best in a weak field. Some might have gone for the talky soul-searching of Eric Rohmer's My Night at Maude's, but I find this film even duller than Z. Biggest omission: The Wild Bunch for best picture, director (Sam Peckinpah), actor (William Holden), and supporting actor (Robert Ryan).

1970

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: Patton
My Pick: M*A*S*H

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Franklin J. Shaffner, Patton
My Pick: Robert Altman, M*A*S*H

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: George C. Scott, Patton
My Pick: Jack Nicholson, Five Easy Pieces

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Glenda Jackson, Women in Love
My Pick: Glenda Jackson, Women in Love

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: John Mills, Ryan's Daughter
My Pick: Chief Dan George, Little Big Man

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Helen Hayes, Airport
My Pick: Karen Black, Five Easy Pieces

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Italy)
My Pick: Tristana (Spain)

This was the year the 1967 revolution in American film finally came to fruition, and the beginning of what just might be the most fecund five-year period in American movies. But you wouldn't know anything much had changed in the industry—or in the country, for that matter—from the Academy Awards for 1970. The Academy's choice for best picture was the flag-waving epic Patton. My choice was another picture about war, M*A*S*H, a film whose attitude toward the subject was as provocative as Patton's was traditional. In style and tone it was like no movie before it. The Academy gave the directing Oscar to Franklin J. Schaffner for his proficient work on Patton. I went instead for Robert Altman, whose innovative direction of M*A*S*H made it one of the most important and influential American films of the 1970s.

George C. Scott got the Oscar for best actor for his florid impersonation of Gen. George S. Patton. In 1961 he declined his nomination for best supporting actor for The Hustler. (He almost certainly would have won; instead George Chakiris won for West Side Story.) This time around, though, he didn't decline the nomination, just the award after he won it. My choice for best actor: Jack Nicholson, Five Easy Pieces, the first of a series of brilliant performances that made him the American actor of the 1970s. Best actress is the one major award where I did agree with the Academy: Glenda Jackson, Women in Love. None of the other nominated performances came anywhere near hers.

This year the Oscars for best supporting actor and actress went to two veteran performers who were likely recognized more for their entire film careers than for the performances that got them nominated. Best supporting actor was John Mills, Ryan's Daughter. That Oscar was a nice sentimental gesture, but for me the best performance of the year in this category was by Chief Dan George, who managed to scoop up most of the critics' awards, in Arthur Penn's comic Western Little Big Man. In another sentimental gesture, Helen Hayes was named best supporting actress for Airport, nearly forty years after being named best actress of 1931/32. My choice was Karen Black as Jack Nicholson's good-hearted but dim girl friend in Five Easy Pieces, with Sally Kellerman's memorable Hot Lips Houlihan in M*A*S*H a very close second. The nominees for best foreign film were another weak lot this year, with the best of them easily Luis Buñuel's Tristana, not quite the equal of his greatest films but nonetheless an excellent film with an eye-opening performance by Catherine Deneuve. Biggest omission: Little Big Man received only a single nomination, for Chief Dan George, with no nominations for best film, director (Arthur Penn), best actor (Dustin Hoffman in a tour de force turn), or best supporting actress (Faye Dunaway, showing an unexpected talent for comedy).

What are your picks for these years? You can search the Academy Awards Database for a complete list of nominees.

15 My Oscar Picks: 1967-68

1967

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: In the Heat of the Night
My Pick: Bonnie and Clyde

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Mike Nichols, The Graduate
My Pick: Arthur Penn, Bonnie and Clyde

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Rod Steiger, In the Heat of the Night
My Pick: Dustin Hoffman, The Graduate

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Katharine Hepburn, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
My Pick: Anne Bancroft, The Graduate

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: George Kennedy, Cool Hand Luke
My Pick: Gene Hackman, Bonnie and Clyde

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Estelle Parsons, Bonnie and Clyde
My Pick: Estelle Parsons, Bonnie and Clyde

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: Closely Watched Trains (Czechoslovakia)
My Pick: Closely Watched Trains

This was the year of the revolution in American film, but for best picture the Academy made a predictably conservative choice, In the Heat of the Night. A rewatching of the film awhile back for the first time in many years showed just how shockingly it has dated. With every redneck stereotype and Southern cliché in the book, and its black superman played by Sydney Poitier—not only is he the most brilliant deductive investigator since Sherlock Holmes, but an expert in forensic evidence and a shrewd psychological manipulator of witnesses and suspects—it seems a condescending fantasy cooked up to make white Northerners feel superior. Its message of racial tolerance, an important one even in this questionable context, made it a safer choice for best picture than either of the year's two most important American films—The Graduate, the generation-gap update of the screwball comedy, and the almost New Wavish Bonnie and Clyde with its unprecedented level of graphic violence.

I've never been as big a fan of The Graduate as some. It runs out of steam before the end, about the time the feral Mrs. Robinson fades into the background. So I went with Bonnie and Clyde, for me the key American film of the 1960s, the one that paved the way for what may be the most fecund period ever in American filmmaking. The Oscar for best director went to Mike Nichols for The Graduate, a reasonable choice but not my own. He should have won the year before for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and maybe Academy voters were thinking of that when they chose him. I think of Bonnie and Clyde as much more of a director's movie than The Graduate and therefore more deserving of recognition for its direction by Arthur Penn.

For best actor the Academy went with Rod Steiger as the Southern sheriff in In the Heat of the Night. He's an actor I find hard to like; his ego shows through too much. But I suppose the Academy enjoyed seeing his gum-chewing racist get his comeuppance and felt that giving Steiger the Oscar would make up for his unexpected loss to Lee Marvin in 1965. For best actress the Academy unaccountably chose Katharine Hepburn in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, a wonderful actress in an insipid role in an abysmal film. For best actor and actress I picked the costars of The Graduate, Dustin Hoffmann and Anne Bancroft. These are two of the most memorable characters in American film played by two actors who inhabit their roles to a tee. For supporting actor and actress I chose Gene Hackman and Estelle Parsons (the latter also the Academy's choice) in Bonnie and Clyde. I concurred with the Academy in its choice of foreign language film. This wasn't because of any great enthusiasm for the film—I find these Eastern European New Wave films of the late sixties charming but lightweight—but because it was the best of a weak field. Biggest omission: Point Blank for best film, director (John Boorman), actor (Lee Marvin), supporting actress (Angie Dickinson), supporting actor (Carroll O'Connor).

1968

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: Oliver!
My Pick: Romeo and Juliet

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Carol Reed, Oliver!
My Pick: Franco Zeffirelli, Romeo and Juliet

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Cliff Robertson, Charly
My Pick: Peter O'Toole, The Lion in Winter

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter and Barbra Streisand, Funny Girl (tie)
My Pick: Vanessa Redgrave, Isadora

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Jack Albertson, The Subject Was Roses
My Pick: Jack Albertson, The Subject Was Roses

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Ruth Gordon, Rosemary's Baby
My Pick: Ruth Gordon, Rosemary's Baby

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: War and Peace (Russia)
My Pick: Stolen Kisses (France)

Maybe the shock of 1967 took a bit of time for the industry to recover from, because in comparison to 1967, the next two years in American film seem pretty dull. In 1968, Oscars for best picture and director went to Oliver! and its director, Carol Reed, an overdue honor for a great filmmaker whose best work was long behind him. This was the fourth time since 1961 the Academy had honored the film adaptation of a popular Broadway musical and its director. The only one of the best picture nominees I have unreserved enthusiasm for is Franco Zeffirelli's spirited film version of Romeo and Juliet. Zeffirelli brings his considerable experience staging operas to the film, keeping the youthful fervor, the intense emotions, and the physicality of the story going full tilt the entire time. He wraps the whole in a gorgeous evocation of Renaissance Italy that can only be described as operatic in its richness. The film seems such a product of Zeffirelli's vision that I went ahead and chose him as best director.

Cliff Robertson's win for Charly must surely be one of the biggest Oscar upsets of all time, ranking right up there with Grace Kelly's over Judy Garland in 1954, Lee Marvin's over Rod Steiger in 1965, or Adrien Brody's over Daniel Day-Lewis in 2002. Some have attributed Robertson's surprise win to his extensive ad campaign in industry trade papers. Whatever the reason, the award clearly belonged to Peter O'Toole, his only real competition being Alan Arkin's sensitive performance in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. The real quality acting in the lead category was, for once, by the nominees for best actress. This is the year that race ended in a tie, with the Oscar shared by Katharine Hepburn giving her last great movie performance in The Lion in Winter and Barbra Streisand giving her very first movie performance in Funny Girl as Fanny Brice, a role she seemed born to play. Under the direction of husband Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, who took the NY Film Critics award, was equally noteworthy in Rachel, Rachel. But my choice is Vanessa Redgrave for her inspired and intense performance in Isadora, one of the great film performances by an actress, a performance that was seen by few at the time and isn't remembered today the way it deserves to be.

Jack Albertson's nomination as best supporting actor in The Subject Was Roses was another example of a lead performance being labeled supporting to improve the nominee's chances, but once you accept that, Albertson had no real competition in this category. Nor did Ruth Gordon, both the winner and my own choice for best supporting actress in Rosemary's Baby, one of only two nominations the film received and its only win. For best foreign language film I went with François Truffaut's Stolen Kisses, very good though not great Truffaut, but still the best of the nominees. (Disclosure: I have never seen the highly praised seven-hour long Russian film of War and Peace. I rarely watch movies that are too long for me to watch in one sitting.) Biggest omission: Rosemary's Baby for best picture and director (Roman Polanski), and for best actress Mia Farrow, giving the performance of her career, one of the most incredible Oscar nomination oversights ever.

What are your picks for these years? You can search the Academy Awards Database for a complete list of nominees.

12 My Oscar Picks: 1966

With the Academy Award nominations for 2012 announced last week, it seems a good time to resume my look back at Oscar races of the past. This is something I've been doing this time of year for a few years now, comparing the winners with my own picks from among the nominees. The last time I wrote on this subject a couple of years ago, I made it up to the year 1965. (To see my previous posts on this subject, click here.) Over the next few weeks I'll be discussing the Oscars for 1966-70, beginning today with 1966. I'll also reveal what I thought was the most notable oversight in the nominations for each year.

These were years of change for the Academy, just as they were for the U.S. in general. In 1966 the Motion Picture Association of America began work on a standardized ratings system, which would go into effect in late 1968 and which with some modifications remains in effect today. Like the MPAA, the Academy also grappled with the increasing presence in film of subjects that under the Hays Code would not have been permitted—foul language, nudity, graphic violence, discussions and depictions of sex and other subjects that would previously have been taboo. The controversy over just how much recognition films that dealt with such subjects should receive from the Academy, reflected in the Oscar nominations and awards, was as much a symptom of the schism between between the old America and the new America as it was between the old Hollywood and the new Hollywood.

During those years daring pictures like Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that appealed to younger audiences gradually began to receive nearly as much recognition from the Academy—at least in nominations, if not in wins—as more traditional pictures like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? and Oliver! By 1969 the controversy was pretty much over, with Midnight Cowboy becoming the first—and so far only—X-rated movie to be named best picture of the year by the Academy. (In 1971 its rating was revised to R.) Still, on the whole the awards as always continued to be conservative, tending towards uncontroversial choices that presented to the world the image Hollywood felt reflected well on it, and favoring well-established actors over newcomers.

1966

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: A Man for All Seasons
My Pick: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Fred Zinnemann, A Man for All Seasons
My Pick: Mike Nichols, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Paul Scofield, A Man for All Seasons
My Pick: Paul Scofield, A Man for All Seasons

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Elizabeth Taylor, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
My Pick: Elizabeth Taylor, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Walter Matthau, The Fortune Cookie
My Pick: Walter Matthau, The Fortune Cookie

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Sandy Dennis, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
My Pick: Vivien Merchant, Alfie

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: A Man and a Woman (France)
My Pick: The Battle of Algiers (Italy)

This was not a particularly strong year for American film, with the field of nominees in many categories containing a higher-than-usual proportion of British and even foreign language films. Two of the films nominated for best picture stood out from the rest—A Man for All Seasons and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? both adapted from stage plays and both anchored by superb direction and performances. The Academy went with the safer choice, A Man for All Seasons, an excellent film, but in the end I chose Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It could so easily have been a disaster, with its superstar leads and unproven director. But somehow all the elements came together to produce a spectacular film that was alternately side-splittingly funny and emotionally shattering. It's one of the most memorable translations of a great play into a great movie I've seen, right alongside Elia Kazan's film of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Sidney Lumet's 1962 version of Eugene O'Neil's Long Day's Journey into Night.

I also went with Mike Nichols as best director. A veteran of improv best known for his comedy records and Broadway show with his writing and performing partner Elaine May, Nichols had actually been a successful stage director of comedy for several years and had even won a Tony for his direction of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple. This background in comedy might make him seem a strange person to direct the film version of Virgina Woolf, but in the end he was an inspired choice, with his ability to bring out the underlying black humor of the play.

Best actor was the most difficult choice. Paul Scofield in A Man for All Seasons and Richard Burton in Virginia Woolf were both brilliant. A third Brit, Michael Caine, found a star-making part in the title role in Alfie, a character he inhabited so thoroughly that he seemed to be playing himself (a notion his subsequent career put to rest). In the end I went with Scofield by a whisker. Two more Brits were also nominated for best actress—the Redgrave sisters, Lynn for Georgy Girl and Vanessa for Morgan! I would have been satisfied with either of these as the winner, but Elizabeth Taylor's transformation in Virginia Woolf into a domineering, foul-mouthed frump was more than just a stunt. It was an utterly convincing revelation that when motivated, she could act up a storm. Her Martha was alternately scary and funny, shrewish and pathetic, just the kind of big performance Oscar loves to honor.

Walter Matthau, to me clearly the star of The Fortune Cookie, was nominated as best supporting actor, not best actor, to increase his chances of a win and maybe to leave open the possibility of his costar Jack Lemmon being nominated for best actor. (He wasn't.) This is a trend that has since become a regular occurrence (think of Jake Gyllenhall's nomination as best supporting actor for Brokeback Mountain or Cate Blanchett's as best supporting actress for Notes on a Scandal), so I don't see any point in resisting the fiction that this was a supporting performance. As such, the size of the role gave Matthau an edge over his closest competition, Robert Shaw as Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons. As for best supporting actress, I find Sandy Dennis to be the weak link in Virginia Woolf, and her histrionic performance soon grows tiresome for me. I much prefer Vivien Merchant's sensitive turn as a woman seduced and ill-treated by Michael Caine in Alfie. For best foreign language film, the Academy went with the picturesque fluff of A Man and a Woman. Instead I chose the persuasive polemics of The Battle of Algiers, which seemed in some ways to hark back to the heyday of Italian neorealism. Biggest omission: It's hard to find one in this weak film year, but the best is probably Rock Hudson, best actor, so restrained and sincere in Seconds.

TO BE CONTINUED

24 Seven Songs That Should Have Won the Oscar . . . But Didn't

Note: This is a revision of the post I originally published, "Five Songs That Should Have Won the Oscar . . . But Didn't." I've expanded it and added two more songs to the original five, based on feedback I've gotten on the first version.

From the 1930s through the 1960s, movies were one of the main sources of songs that made the Hit Parade and eventually became standards. These songs were written by some of the greatest popular composers of the time, people like Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, and the Gershwins. In the awards year 1934 the Academy began giving an Oscar for Best Song. For the first few years there were three nominees. Later the number of nominees varied from year to year, going as high as fourteen in 1945. The nominee had to be first heard in the movie, which meant that many well-known songs that had been previously recorded or used in stage musicals weren't eligible, although this rule was sometimes gotten around by having a new song written for the film version of a stage musical, for example, the 1935 nominee "Lovely to Look At," written for the movie version of Roberta.

As with other categories, when I look back at the winners and losers, it's sometimes difficult to understand the reasons behind the Academy's choices. How did songs which have become standards and been recorded again and again lose to cute songs which, while admittedly popular in their day, were works whose greatest appeal lay in their novel lyrics or catchy but essentially shallow melodies? Songs whose appeal was destined to fade with time, that today are seldom heard except in their original versions on nostalgia radio stations or cable music channels, or in kitschy Mantovaniesque arrangements on Muzak. In this post I'd like to present seven instances of songs that to me are great popular works of lasting appeal, but which lost to songs that strike me as clearly less Oscar-worthy.

• 1935
"Cheek to Cheek" from Top Hat—Music and Lyrics by Irving Berlin lost to:
"Lullaby of Broadway" from Gold Diggers of 1935—Music by Harry Warren; Lyrics by Al Dubin

Irving Berlin's love songs could tend towards the schmaltzy, but this one certainly doesn't. It's a gauzy, light-as-air confection whose well-known opening words signal its dreamy mood: "Heaven . . . I'm in Heaven."

• 1937
"They Can't Take That Away from Me" from Shall We Dance—Music by George Gershwin; Lyrics by Ira Gershwin lost to:
"Sweet Leilani" from Waikiki Wedding—Music and Lyrics by Harry Owens

Shall We Dance has my favorite set of songs of all the movies Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made together. It has such great songs as "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," "They All Laughed," and this Oscar nominee, a wistful look back at a romance that's over, all built around the lingering memories of the beloved's mannerisms.

• 1941
"Blues in the Night" from Blues in the Night—Music by Harold Arlen; Lyrics by Johnny Mercer lost to:
"The Last Time I Saw Paris" from Lady Be Good—Music by Jerome Kern; Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

It's been said that of all the Tin Pan Alley composers, Harold Arlen had the greatest sympathy with African American music, and I would say the same applies to many of the song lyrics of Johnny Mercer. You can certainly hear that in this song, with its archetypically bluesy melody and almost jaunty take on the "you can't trust the opposite sex" idea. It might just be the anthem of The War of the Sexes. I've heard it sung just as persuasively by women about men as by men about women.

• 1943
"That Old Black Magic" from Star Spangled Rhythm—Music by Harold Arlen; Lyrics by Johnny Mercer lost to:
"You'll Never Know" from Hello, Frisco, Hello—Music by Harry Warren; Lyrics by Mack Gordon

The analogy of being in love to being under a magic spell was hardly original, but few songs have captured the helpless exhilaration of that feeling, the "elevator ride" up and down the scale of emotions, as vividly or as bouncily as this one.

• 1944
"Long Ago and Far Away" from Cover Girl—Music by Jerome Kern; Lyrics by Ira Gershwin lost to:
"Swinging on a Star" from Going My Way—Music by James Van Heusen; Lyrics by Johnny Burke

Nobody surpassed Jerome Kern at writing simple, gorgeous melodies. This is one of his best, a song that movingly conveys in words and music both the sadness of the memory of love won and lost long ago and the quiet joy of rediscovering it.

• 1954
"The Man That Got Away" from A Star Is Born—Music by Harold Arlen; Lyrics by Ira Gershwin lost to:
"Three Coins in the Fountain" from Three Coins in the Fountain—Music by Jule Styne; Lyrics by Sammy Cahn

Judy Garland said that Harold Arlen was her favorite composer, and for her comeback in A Star Is Born he came up with a smashing song that became one of her signature tunes, along with the 1939 Oscar winner "Over the Rainbow," also by Arlen, and the 1944 nominee "The Trolley Song." Here Arlen and lyricist Ira Gershwin created a dramatic, bluesy torch song about a woman whose love affair seems destined to end in sorrow, but who just can't let go of the memory of the man who deserted her.

• 1967
"The Look of Love" from Casino Royale—Music by Burt Bacharach; Lyrics by Hal David lost to:
"Talk to the Animals" from Dr. Dolittle—Music and Lyrics by Leslie Bricusse

Has there ever been a love song that expressed romantic longing with such gentle passion as "The Look of Love"? Burt Bacharach could write some truly bland melodies, but this one just wafts into your head and floats there. It's intense and delicate at the same time and completely hypnotic, no more so than when sung so exquisitely by the great Dusty Springfield.


I thought you might enjoy this outtake of Judy Garland performing "The Man That Got Away," one that was unknown to me until recently. I believe the vocal track is the same as the one in the take used in the final version of the film. This take doesn't have the smoky, after-hours atmosphere or the more stylized staging of that one, but it has its own charm. The brighter lighting shows Judy looking slim and well rested, and the soft rose pink color of her blouse gives her a healthy glow.

10 My Oscar Picks, Part 6 Continued: 1965

This completes this year's series of posts on past Academy Awards, comparing the winners with my own choices, that I began last week. Today I'll be covering the year 1965.



1965

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: The Sound of Music
My Pick: Darling

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Robert Wise, The Sound of Music
My Pick: John Schlesinger, Darling

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Lee Marvin, The Ballad of Cat Ballou
My Pick: Rod Steiger, The Pawnbroker

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Julie Christie, Darling
My Pick: Julie Christie, Darling

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Martin Balsam, A Thousand Clowns
My Pick: Michael Dunn, Ship of Fools

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Shelley Winters, A Patch of Blue
My Pick: Maggie Smith, Othello

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: The Shop on Main Street
My Pick: Kwaidan

I found little to agree with in the Academy's winners this year, duplicating its choices in only one of the major categories. Some people find Darling dated. But I've seen it more than once, most recently about a year ago, and I find it holds up quite well, a vivid rendering of its time and place, mid-1960s Britain. It's brilliantly written, stylishly directed, and features some great performances, not least of which is Julie Christie's as the mercurial lead character, Diana Scott. This is one of the first portraits of a person who wants to be famous for being famous, and still one of the most devastatingly acerbic of a person whose highest aspiration is to become a celebrity. I've heard it said that Academy voters probably also had Christie's performance as Lara in Dr. Zhivago in mind when they voted for her (her win was a bit of a surprise—I would have expected the popularity of The Sound of Music to carry Julie Andrews through to a second Oscar in a row), but her work in Darling alone is Oscar-worthy, as is director John Schlesinger's and the film itself. Dirk Bogarde is also excellent, and both he and Christie won BAFTA awards for their performances.

The best actor race was a curious one. Rod Steiger received near-universal praise for his intense performance in The Pawnbroker and seemed certain to win. Yet the winner was probably the least likely nominee, Lee Marvin for an atypically comic performance in The Ballad of Cat Ballou, and that surely must have been a huge upset. I'm not a particular fan of Steiger. He's not a subtle actor, and his inability to disguise his large ego makes him a hard actor to like. Despite this, I still picked his performance as the best of the year for the simple reason that it was. I also disagreed with the Academy's choices for best supporting actor and actress. Shelley Winters's harpy in A Patch of Blue seemed awfully familiar, basically a reprise of the character that had won her an Oscar in this category a few years earlier, Mrs. Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank. I much preferred Maggie Smith's gentle Desdemona in Othello. Martin Balsam was a fine actor, but I can't see that there was enough to his tiny and rather bland role in A Thousand Clowns to merit an Oscar. So I went with Michael Dunn as the narrator in Ship of Fools, Stanley Kramer's ponderous adaptation of Katharine Anne Porter's only novel. My choice as best foreign language film was the spooky multi-part Japanese film Kwaidan, based on four stories of the supernatural by Lafcadio Hearn. Biggest omission: Repulsion for best picture, director (Roman Polanski), and actress (Catherine Deneuve).

5 My Oscar Picks, Part 6 Contiued: 1964

This is a continuation of the post on past Academy Awards, comparing the winners with my own choices, that I began last week. I'll be covering the years 1961-1965, presenting my thoughts on one year each day this week. Today: 1964.



1964

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: My Fair Lady
My Pick: Dr. Strangelove

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: George Cukor, My Fair Lady
My Pick: Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Rex Harrison, My Fair Lady
My Pick: Rex Harrison, My Fair Lady

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins
My Pick: Anne Bancroft, The Pumpkin Eater

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Peter Ustinov, Topkapi
My Pick: Stanley Holloway, My Fair Lady

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Lila Kedrova, Zorba the Greek
My Pick: Lila Kedrova, Zorba the Greek

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
My Pick: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

I've always felt that in general Hollywood has been more successful with musicals based on original material than with those adapted from Broadway plays. Such films are obligated to follow their stage antecedents closely; that's why they get made in the first place. So the emphasis becomes not on re-imagining the play for the screen, but in going all out for production values while preserving as much of the original stage version as possible. That is exactly what keeps My Fair Lady from being a great musical film rather than just a very good one. George Cukor has said he deliberately chose to reproduce the stylization of the stage production, and the result is a film that is in all its details superb—lovely sets, costumes, and photography, and few musicals have songs this good or this well integrated with the plot—but as a whole a bit sterile. Dr. Strangelove, though, is as bold as My Fair Lady is cautious, a political black comedy that is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying, Duck Soup for the nuclear age. So Dr. Strangelove and its director, Stanley Kubrick, get my votes for best picture and director.

For best actor I still went with Rex Harrison's Prof. Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, the signature role of his long film and stage career. It not only preserves for posterity one of the great stage performances, but it's also a great film performance. For me Anne Bancroft is the great American screen actress of the 1960s, and I chose her intense performance in The Pumpkin Eater as the best of the year, a performance that also won her a Golden Globe and a BAFTA award. I'm a longtime fan of the veteran British character actor Stanley Holloway and chose him as best supporting actor for his exuberant Alfred Dolittle in My Fair Lady, a role he played in the Broadway production. For best supporting actress, I went with the Academy's choice of Lila Kedrova in Zorba the Greek, in a role of great pathos that Simone Signoret had originally accepted but backed out of at the last minute. The Academy gave the award for best foreign language film to Vittorio de Sica's pleasant but slight comedy Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. At least two of the other nominees were clearly better—the Japanese film Woman in the Dunes (whose director, Hiroshi Teshigahara, received a nomination as best director the following year, after it opened commercially in the US) and my choice, Jacques Demy's charming musical, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Biggest omission: The Servant for best film, director, actor (Dirk Bogarde), supporting actor (James Fox), and supporting actress (Sarah Miles).

Tomorrow I'll continue with my thoughts on the Academy Awards for 1965.

4 My Oscar Picks, Part 6 Continued: 1963

This is a continuation of the post on past Academy Awards, comparing the winners with my own choices, that I began last week. I'll be covering the years 1961-1965, presenting my thoughts on one year each day this week. Today: 1963.



1963

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: Tom Jones
My Pick: Tom Jones

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Tony Richardson, Tom Jones
My Pick: Tony Richardson, Tom Jones

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Sidney Poitier, Lilies of the Field
My Pick: Albert Finney, Tom Jones

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Patricia Neal, Hud
My Pick: Leslie Caron, The L-Shaped Room

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Melvyn Douglas, Hud
My Pick: Melvyn Douglas, Hud

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Margaret Rutherford, The VIPs
My Pick: Margaret Rutherford, The VIPs

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: 8½
My Pick: 8½

Tom Jones and its director Tony Richardson were the right choices for best picture and best director. This was only the second time a truly British film had taken the best picture award, the first being Olivier's Hamlet in 1948. (The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia were UK-US co-productions.) It's an immensely entertaining movie that packs a tremendous amount of plot into its two-hour running time without ever relaxing its brisk pace. Its irreverent treatment of a classic of British literature is a real treat, as far as imaginable from a stuffy version of a literary classic. It's hard to imagine the film would have been so successful with anyone else playing its roguish hero but Albert Finney, and I picked his performance as the best by an actor that year. In truth it was a toss-up between Finney and Paul Newman's self-centered louse in Hud (for me his second-best performance after The Hustler), but I had chosen Newman just two years before, and that was the deciding factor.

Now about Patricia Neal. The New York Film Critics, who didn't then distinguish between lead and supporting performances, named her best actress for Hud, and the Academy obediently followed with a nomination as best actress. But I just don't see this as a lead performance. She was third-billed in the credits, after second-billed Melvyn Douglas, and Douglas was nominated, and deservedly won, as best supporting actor. When Neal appeared with Robert Osborne on TCM, she agreed with Osborne that her performance in Hud was really a supporting one. (These days it seems to work in reverse, with actors in roles that by any measure should be considered leads accepting nominations in the supporting categories, either to avoid competition with a costar or to increase their chances of winning.) I would gladly have voted for Neal in the supporting category, but I couldn't bring myself to vote for her as best actress. I thought the strongest of the rest of the best actress field was Leslie Caron's sensitive performance in the British film The L-Shaped Room. Caron received both the Golden Globe and a BAFTA award for this performance. Interestingly, Neal received a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actress but lost to Margaret Rutherford. Without Neal, the best supporting actress race was a curious one, with three of the five nominees coming from Tom Jones. I chose Margaret Rutherford simply for being Margaret Rutherford. Roman Polanski's first full-length film, Knife in the Water, received a nomination for best foreign language film, and in another year I would gladly have voted for it. But Fellini's great 8½ was also nominated, and it simply knocked the Polanski film, as good as it was, out of the running. Biggest omission: Julie Harris, best actress for The Haunting, my own pick as best performance of the year by an actress.

Tomorrow I'll continue with my thoughts on the Academy Awards for 1964.

5 My Oscar Picks, Part 6 Continued: 1962

This is a continuation of the post on past Academy Awards, comparing the winners with my own choices, that I began last week. I'll be covering the years 1961-1965, presenting my thoughts on one year each day this week. Today: 1962.



1962

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: Lawrence of Arabia
My Pick: Lawrence of Arabia

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: David Lean, Lawrence of Arabia
My Pick: David Lean, Lawrence of Arabia

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Gregory Peck, To Kill a Mockingbird
My Pick: Peter O'Toole, Lawrence of Arabia

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Anne Bancroft, The Miracle Worker
My Pick: Katharine Hepburn, Long Day's Journey Into Night

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Ed Begley, Sweet Bird of Youth
My Pick: Terence Stamp, Billy Budd

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Patty Duke, The Miracle Worker
My Pick: Angela Lansbury, The Manchurian Candidate

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: Sundays and Cybèle
My Pick: Sundays and Cybèle

There wasn't much question that Lawrence of Arabia would take the prize for picture and director this year. Some find the move lacking in personality, but to me it's a great achievement that really deserves all the praise it has gotten. In the years since its release, it has come to be regarded as the epitome of the movie epic and in 2008 was named the #1 epic film of all time by the American Film Institute. I do regret, though, that Peter O'Toole's star-making performance in the movie wasn't recognized as the best by an actor this year. I understand all the reasons Gregory Peck won—he was a well-loved personality in Hollywood, a modest, really nice guy who had been nominated several times but never won, and he played the most noble character imaginable, a civil rights icon—but I still think O'Toole should have won. In 2006 his T. E. Lawrence was picked by Premiere magazine as the greatest movie performance of all time.

In the best actress category, this is one year that a tie really would have been justified. Both Anne Bancroft and Katharine Hepburn gave award-worthy performances, but being able to vote for only one, in the end I went with Hepburn for the best straight dramatic performance of her career. Omar Sharif, like Peter O'Toole a little-known actor made a major star by Lawrence of Arabia, was the favorite to win for best supporting actor but lost to veteran Ed Begley. I chose Terence Stamp as the innocent young title character in Billy Budd, only his second film and his first released in the U.S. Angela Lansbury was the favorite to win for best supporting actress for her chilling performance in The Manchurian Candidate, and I think she should have won. The French film Sundays and Cybèle probably isn't well-remembered today, but it's a moving film and a deserving winner for best foreign language film. Many great movies and performances were overlooked this year (I wrote about them in detail in the last part of my post on the year 1962 in American films), but I would say the biggest omission was Ride the High Country for picture, director, actor (the never-nominated Joel McCrea would have been my choice), and best supporting actor (Edgar Buchanan).

Tomorrow I'll continue with my thoughts on the Academy Awards for 1963.

2 My Oscar Picks, Part 6: 1961

This is a continuation of the post on past Academy Awards, comparing the winners with my own choices, that I began last week. I'll be covering the years 1961-1965, presenting my thoughts on one year each day this week. Today: 1961.

From 1961 on, the Academy Awards become more and more problematic for me. In this decade the Academy began seriously grappling with the question of what the awards were about. They had traditionally been for English-language movies (although British films were routinely slighted in the nominating process and, when they were nominated, rarely won). Before the 1960s, only one foreign language movie had ever received a nomination for best picture, La Grande Illusion in 1938. Even though the screenwriters branch regularly nominated foreign language films during the 1940s and 1950s, beginning with Children of Paradise and Open City in 1946, these nominations never resulted in a win. But in 1961 Sophia Loren received the first nomination for a performance in a foreign language film (Two Women), and she won. That same year Federico Fellini received the first ever directing nomination for a foreign language film, for La Dolce Vita. From this time on, such nominations became more frequent.

Were Academy voters trying to redefine the Oscar as an international award like those of the major European film festivals? If that was the intention, it was done in a confusingly inconsistent and selective way, with only the superstars of international cinema getting nominations, and after Loren (who was, after all, a major Hollywood star) never again winning until Roberto Benigni in 1998. If nominations for foreign language films were routinely done and done fairly, then the nominations would often be dominated by such films, and the Oscars would lose what I feel is their main purpose—awards for achievement in English-language filmmaking. Giving film awards on a truly international basis seems to me to be more the province of critics' groups and the international film festivals, which are prepared to be genuinely inclusive, than of the Academy. When Federico Fellini was nominated for best director in 1961 for La Dolce Vita and again in 1963 for 8½, he should by any objective standard have won. Yet because of my strong belief that under normal circumstances the Oscars should be awards for English-language movies, I ignored Fellini's nominations and most subsequent ones like them.



1961

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: West Side Story
My Pick: West Side Story

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Robert Wise/Jerome Robbins, West Side Story
My Pick: Robert Rossen, The Hustler

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Maximillian Schell, Judgment at Nuremberg
My Pick: Paul Newman, The Hustler

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Sophia Loren, Two Women
My Pick: Sophia Loren, Two Women

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: George Chakiris, West Side Story
My Pick: George C. Scott, The Hustler

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Rita Moreno, West Side Story
My Pick: Rita Moreno, West Side Story

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: Through a Glass Darkly
My Pick: Through a Glass Darkly

West Side Story's Romeo and Juliet story of a doomed love affair between young lovers from cultures at odds, the street scenes and other authentic locations that at the time were so novel for the film musical and yet so appropriate to the story, the energetically staged dances, above all the great songs—all these things work so well together that they make the movie irresistible. So I had no problem going along with the Academy's choice for best picture. I also have no problem with occasionally dividing the best picture and best director awards between a spectacular entertainment and a smaller but more artistic film, so for best director I went with Robert Rossen for The Hustler, for me the year's other great American movie.

I've always been surprised by Maximillian Schell's award for best actor for Judgment at Nuremberg. That he wasn't well known in Hollywood and that Spencer Tracy was also nominated for the same movie, which until later years almost invariably resulted in a divided vote that assured neither nominee would win, seemed to argue against his getting the award. Moreover, his wasn't a performance that particularly stood out in a movie filled with well-known actors. But Schell did have the imprimatur of the New York Film Critics Circle, which seemed to have a lot of influence on the Oscars in those days, and it's probable that Academy voters felt Judgment, which received eleven nominations, was an important film that deserved recognition of some sort. To my mind there was only one choice for best actor this year—Paul Newman giving his best performance ever in The Hustler. Does anybody ever think about Schell's performance today? Yet when Newman received his "career achievement" Oscar more than twenty-five years later, it was for reprising his role of Fast Eddie Felson in The Color of Money, a clear indication that the Academy had never forgotten The Hustler, and maybe even that they regretted not giving Newman the Oscar the first time around.

The Academy also followed the lead of the New York critics in giving the best actress Oscar to Sophia Loren, an award I'm not entirely comfortable with for reasons I've already explained. Still, Loren was nominated, and it was a big, colorful performance (in a role originally intended for Anna Magnani), so I went along with the Academy this time despite my misgivings and despite the fact that all of the five nominated actresses gave excellent performances. George C. Scott was initially the favorite for best supporting actor but publicly declined his nomination, and this apparently steered a lot of voters away from him (even though his disapproval of the awards didn't have the same effect when he was nominated for Patton several years later). But I would have voted for him nevertheless. I stuck with the Academy's choice of Rita Moreno for best supporting actress and also its choice of Ingmar Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly, a masterpiece, as best foreign language film. Biggest omission: Deborah Kerr, best actress for The Innocents, my personal favorite of all her performances.

Tomorrow I'll continue with my thoughts on the Academy Awards for 1962.

9 My Oscar Picks, Part 5: 1956-1960

Last year I wrote several posts comparing Oscar winners in the major categories with my own choices in the same categories for the years 1934-1955. (If you're interested in checking them out, they cover the years 1934-1939, 1940-1944, 1945-1949, and 1950-1955.) This year I'm going to continue with two more installments. As I wrote last year, these are strictly personal choices based on what I would have voted for. I chose only from among the actual nominees, and although I have seen most of the nominated films and performances, I can't claim to have seen absolutely every single one of them. Often the choice was a difficult one to make, and in truth I would have been just as satisfied with my second or even third choice. For each year, I've also noted what I felt to be the gravest oversight in the nominees, at times another difficult choice to make, as each year it seems that several worthy pictures, directors, and actors are neglected in favor of obvious mediocrities. For lists of all the nominees, CLICK HERE for a link to the Official Academy Awards Database.


1956

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: Around the World in 80 Days
My Pick: Giant

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: George Stevens, Giant
My Pick: George Stevens, Giant

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Yul Brynner, The King and I
My Pick: Kirk Douglas, Lust for Life

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Ingrid Bergman, Anastasia
My Pick: Ingrid Bergman, Anastasia

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Anthony Quinn, Lust for Life
My Pick: Anthony Quinn, Lust for Life

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Dorothy Malone, Written on the Wind
My Pick: Dorothy Malone, Written on the Wind

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: La Strada
My Pick: La Strada

After giving the best picture award to a "little picture," Marty, the previous year, the Academy finished the decade by giving the prize exclusively to expensively produced spectacles. In some cases these awards were actually deserved, but as enjoyable as it is, I don't think Around the World in 80 Days was the best picture of 1956. Actually, I wasn't thrilled by any of the best picture nominees this year. My own choice for best picture, Vincente Minnelli's Lust for Life, wasn't nominated. I went with what was essentially the least offensive nominee, Giant, and its director, George Stevens, not for artistic inspiration but for the sheer engineering feat of putting the picture together.

Yul Brynner is an actor I have never been able to respond to, and I find his performance in The King and I just plain annoying. For me the only possibility in this field was Kirk Douglas as Vincent Van Gogh in Lust for Life, and I still find it incomprehensible that Brynner, not Douglas, took home the Oscar. I went with the Academy's endorsement of Ingrid Bergman's return to Hollywood in Anastasia as well as its choices in the supporting categories. This was the first year the award for foreign language film was a competitive one. Even though the convoluted nominating process in this category often results in a weak field with many of the best foreign films of the year getting left out, the Academy got it right this year, giving the first competitive award for best foreign language film to Federico Fellini's La Strada. Biggest omission: Lust for Life—for best picture, director, and (incredibly) cinematography.


1957

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: The Bridge on the River Kwai
My Pick: The Bridge on the River Kwai

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: David Lean, The Bridge on the River Kwai
My Pick: David Lean, The Bridge on the River Kwai

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Alec Guinness, The Bridge on the River Kwai
My Pick: Alec Guinness, The Bridge on the River Kwai

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Joanne Woodward, The Three Faces of Eve
My Pick: Joanne Woodward, The Three Faces of Eve

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Red Buttons, Sayonara
My Pick: Arthur Kennedy, Peyton Place

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Miyoshi Umeki, Sayonara
My Pick: Elsa Lanchester, Witness for the Prosecution

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: The Nights of Cabiria
My Pick: The Nights of Cabiria

Except for the supporting actor and actress awards, I concurred with the Academy's choices this year. The Bridge on the River Kwai and its director, David Lean, had little competition. The Academy seems to like rewarding comic actors for getting serious and glamorous actresses for getting plain, but this year's award to Alec Guinness for his uncharacteristically serious turn in Bridge was a well-deserved one. Actors who might have given him real competition—Henry Fonda in Twelve Angry Men (the third year in a row he was overlooked, after Mister Roberts in 1955 and The Wrong Man in 1956), Burt Lancaster's caustic J. J. Hunsecker in Sweet Smell of Success, and Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory—weren't nominated, leaving Guinness the standout in a weak field.

Likewise, Joanne Woodward had no serious competition as best actress for her breakthrough performance in The Three Faces of Eve, just the kind of career-making performance by a young actress the Academy loves. I liked the award-winning supporting performances in Sayonara by Red Buttons and especially Miyoshi Umeki—for me they were the best things in the movie—but I preferred veterans Arthur Kennedy and Elsa Lanchester. For the second year in a row a Fellini movie, The Nights of Cabiria, one of his most likable, featuring a brilliant performance by his wife Giulietta Masina, got the best foreign language film award. Since this is a movie I have a particular fondness for, I certainly won't quarrel with that choice. Biggest omission: Paths of Glory for best picture, director, actor (Kirk Douglas) and supporting actor (Adolphe Menjou, George Macready).


1958

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: Gigi
My Pick: Gigi

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Vincente Minnelli, Gigi
My Pick: Vincente Minnelli, Gigi

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: David Niven, Separate Tables
My Pick: Sidney Poitier, The Defiant Ones

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Susan Hayward, I Want to Live!
My Pick: Susan Hayward, I Want to Live!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Burl Ives, The Big Country
My Pick: Burl Ives, The Big Country

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Wendy Hiller, Separate Tables
My Pick: Wendy Hiller, Separate Tables

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: Mon Oncle
My Pick: Mon Oncle

Again I pretty much agreed with the Academy, seconding its choices in all but one category. I like musicals, and I don't think anyone made them better than MGM did in the 1940s and 1950s. Gigi is one of the best, a concise and beautifully directed film. Its large number of nominations (nine) and wins (nine, a record at the time) doesn't surprise me; only the failure of Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold to get nominations in the supporting acting categories does. For best actor I went with Sidney Poitier's powerful performance in Stanley Kramer's interracial version of The 39 Steps over David Niven's pathetic "silly ass" in Separate Tables, for me another example of an old-timer's "career achievement" Oscar trumping a more deserving performance by a less well-known young actor. That Tony Curtis also was nominated for the same film didn't help Poitier's chances, and although Hollywood doted on social issue movies, it's also entirely possible that the Academy felt it was still a bit too soon to acknowledge racial injustice with more than a nomination.

Elizabeth Taylor made a strong impression as Maggie the Cat in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. But Susan Hayward's performance in I Want to Live! as a character who was hard as nails but also one of life's victims, a woman whose resilience was undone by bad luck and disastrous taste in men, seemed a distillation of her entire screen persona, and hers was the performance I chose. Burl Ives gave a wonderful performance in The Big Country and an even better one in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Together, these left little doubt about the most deserving nominee for supporting actor. The great Wendy Hiller in Separate Tables, who gave the best performance in that movie, was likewise clearly the most deserving choice for supporting actress. Jacques Tati's gentle but pointed satire on modernity, Mon Oncle, had little competition for best foreign language film. Biggest omission: Vertigo for best picture, director, actor (James Stewart) and supporting actress (Barbara Bel Geddes).


1959

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: Ben Hur
My Pick: Room at the Top

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: William Wyler, Ben Hur
My Pick: Jack Clayton, Room at the Top

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Charlton Heston, Ben Hur
My Pick: James Stewart, Anatomy of a Murder

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Simone Signoret, Room at the Top
My Pick: Audrey Hepburn, The Nun's Story

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Hugh Griffith, Ben Hur
My Pick: Arthur O'Connell, Anatomy of a Murder

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Shelley Winters, The Diary of Anne Frank
My Pick: Shelley Winters, The Diary of Anne Frank

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: Black Orpheus
My Pick: Black Orpheus

I found little to agree with in the choices of the Academy this year. William Wyler apparently decided to become the new Cecil B. DeMille with his remake of the silent classic Ben Hur. The Academy must have liked the movie's combination of pageantry and piety, for it broke the record for Oscar wins set just the year before by taking home eleven of them. Any of the other nominees would have been a better choice, but I went for the British film Room at the Top, with its trenchant view of the postwar evolution of the deeply ingrained British class system, and also its director, Jack Clayton. Ben Hur even swept Charlton Heston along to a best actor win on his only nomination ever. I would have voted instead for James Stewart's folksy but shrewd defense lawyer in Anatomy of a Murder, a relaxed and charming performance by an actor still at the top of his form twenty-five years after his first credited part.

Simone Signoret, hardly a Hollywood insider, must have been a surprise winner for her touching performance in Room at the Top, the first ever best actress winner in a British film. But I'm a huge fan of Audrey Hepburn, who gave the best of her infrequent dramatic performances in The Nun's Story. The total investment of herself in this role is obvious every moment she is on screen. George C. Scott was nominated as supporting actor for his typically showy performance in Anatomy of a Murder, but I preferred Arthur O'Connell's quieter performance in the same picture. I did agree with the choice of Shelley Winters as best supporting actress for her shrill Mrs. Van Daan and the gorgeous Brazilian film Black Orpheus as best foreign language film. Biggest omission: North by Northwest for just about anything it was eligible for, including best picture, director, actor (Cary Grant), actress (Eva Marie Saint), supporting actor (James Mason).


1960

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: The Apartment
My Pick: The Apartment

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Billy Wilder, The Apartment
My Pick: Billy Wilder, The Apartment

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Burt Lancaster, Elmer Gantry
My Pick: Trevor Howard, Sons and Lovers

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Elizabeth Taylor, BUtterfield 8
My Pick: Deborah Kerr, The Sundowners

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Peter Ustinov, Spartacus
My Pick: Peter Ustinov, Spartacus

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Shirley Jones, Elmer Gantry
My Pick: Janet Leigh, Psycho

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Winner: The Virgin Spring
My Pick: The Virgin Spring

How could I argue with the choice of The Apartment and Billy Wilder for best picture and director? Actually, I wouldn't have been surprised if the movie had done an It Happened One Night and taken all the major awards. Burt Lancaster's best performances manage to strike the right balance between flamboyance and restraint. Elmer Gantry was one of his most garish efforts—Acting with a capital A, just the kind of show-off performance the Academy loves. I would have been satisfied with a win by Laurence Olivier in The Entertainer or Jack Lemmon in The Apartment. But I've always had great admiration for Trevor Howard as the brutish father in Sons and Lovers, to my mind the most memorable thing (along with the Oscar-winning b&w cinematography by Freddie Francis) in a fine movie that tied with The Apartment for best picture in the New York Film Critics Circle awards.

In BUtterfield 8 Elizabeth Taylor gave an earnest performance that looked all the better for being in a picture that was, in a word, terrible. But even Liz considered her Oscar a sympathy award, an overreaction to her near-death experience from pneumonia and an atonement for Hollywood's rejection of her over the affair with Eddie Fisher. Shirley MacLaine was great in The Apartment, but I can't see giving her an award without also giving one to Jack Lemmon; that's how closely these performances seem linked to me. For best actress I would have voted to give Deborah Kerr her long overdue Oscar for doing what she did best on screen—enduring nobly without losing her cool—in The Sundowners. Peter Unstinov was hardly subtle in Spartacus (was he ever?), but the unimpressive field of nominees left him the default choice. For best supporting actress—Janet Leigh. Nothing more need be said. An Ingmar Bergman film won as best foreign language film for the first time. The Virgin Spring isn't one of his absolute greatest, but it's still an excellent, meticulously directed movie. Biggest omission: Alfred Hitchcock made his third masterpiece in three years and did receive a nomination for best director, but Psycho was glaringly overlooked for best picture, best actor (Anthony Perkins), and best supporting actor (Martin Balsam).

0 My Oscar Picks, Part 4: 1950-1955

In this post I'm continuing the process of comparing my own Oscar picks from among the nominees with the real winners. As before, the opinions expressed in this post are strictly those of the author and are not intended to be taken as objective judgments.

1950

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: All About Eve
My Pick: All About Eve

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, All About Eve
My Pick: Carol Reed, The Third Man

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Jose Ferrer, Cyrano de Bergerac
My Pick: William Holden, Sunset Blvd.

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Judy Holliday, Born Yesterday
My Pick: Bette Davis, All About Eve

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: George Sanders, All About Eve
My Pick: George Sanders, All About Eve

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Josephine Hull, Harvey
My Pick: Thelma Ritter, All About Eve

Another historical year for the number of high-quality pictures released. Best picture was a close call between All About Eve and Sunset Blvd. A tie would have been justified, but I went with Eve by a nose. For best director I chose Carol Reed for The Third Man (not nominated for best picture), the movie that the British Film Institute named the best British film of the 20th century. I divided the acting awards between Eve and Sunset Blvd. Davis's incredible failure to win best actress for her Margo Channing is probably down to the fact that costar Anne Baxter was also nominated, thus splitting the vote. Draining more votes away from Davis was Gloria Swanson in her comeback performance as the demented has-been Norma Desmond. Another factor at play was that at the time nobody had won three times for best lead performance, and perhaps the Academy voters were reluctant to break that precedent for Davis, who had recently left Warner Bros. after a string of flops. As for Holden, nothing in his ten-year-long career had suggested he was capable of this level of acting, and perhaps Academy voters were simply caught off-guard. Maybe they were too mesmerized by Swanson's flamboyance in the same picture to recognize the subtlety of Holden's introspective performance. Or maybe his opportunistic Joe Gillis simply hit too close to home for comfort. In the supporting categories, I went with George Sanders as the acidulous Addison de Witt and Thelma Ritter as the wise and loyal Birdie in All About Eve. (Maybe Mankiewizc should have gotten a special award for creating the most amusing character names.) Biggest omission: Humphrey Bogart's Dixon Steele in In a Lonely Place.

1951

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: An American in Paris
My Pick: A Streetcar Named Desire

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: George Stevens, A Place in the Sun
My Pick: Elia Kazan, A Streetcar Named Desire

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Humphrey Bogart, The African Queen
My Pick: Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire
My Pick: Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Karl Malden, A Streetcar Named Desire
My Pick: Karl Malden, A Streetcar Named Desire

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Kim Hunter, A Streetcar Named Desire
My Pick: Thelma Ritter, The Mating Season

The most astounding year for misguided awards since 1941. I can only infer that even though its preoccupation with sex had been toned down from the stage version, A Streetcar Named Desire was just too shocking and unconventional for the Academy. Instead, they went for the charming but innocuous An American in Paris (far from the best Hollywood musical) for best picture and gave a Career Achievement Award to George Stevens for his tasteful direction of A Place in the Sun. It is incomprehensible that Marlon Brando was denied an Oscar for the most innovative and influential performance by an actor of the decade. That Humphrey Bogart got a Career Achievement Oscar for his emasculated character performance in The African Queen is simply a travesty, a repudiation of the forceful screen persona he had worked so hard to establish during the previous ten years. At least the Academy realized that Vivien Leigh, playing a delusional middle-aged version of Scarlett O'Hara, was as in 1939 the only reasonable choice for best actress. For best supporting actress I chose Thelma Ritter for the second year in a row for this, her best comedy performance, over Kim Hunter, who I thought was overshadowed by her costars. Biggest omission: Robert Walker, best actor for Strangers on a Train.

1952

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: The Greatest Show on Earth
My Pick: High Noon

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: John Ford, The Quiet Man
My Pick: Fred Zinneman, High Noon

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Gary Cooper, High Noon
My Pick: Gary Cooper, High Noon

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Shirley Booth, Come Back, Little Sheba
My Pick: Julie Harris, The Member of the Wedding

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Anthony Quinn, Viva Zapata!
My Pick: Jack Palance, Sudden Fear

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Gloria Grahame, The Bad and the Beautiful
My Pick: Jean Hagen, Singin' in the Rain

In this year's best picture race a bloated, lavish entertainment once again prevailed over a smaller, more intimate picture. Maybe Westerns weren't taken seriously; a Western hadn't won since Cimarron in 1931 and wouldn't again for several more decades. Or maybe the possibility that High Noon could be interpreted as a condemnation of McCarthyism (this during the height of the Cold War and the Hollywood blacklists) scared off the Academy. (I've never particularly seen the movie in this light myself, always focusing more on the universality of its depiction of collective cowardice.) High Noon's director was snubbed too, in favor of veteran John Ford for the ultimate expression of his Irish fetish in the cornball (but in its way amusing) blarney of The Quiet Man. At least Gary Cooper, perfectly cast as the laconic sheriff under pressure, was justly rewarded for his performance in High Noon. Shirley Booth took best actress for her turn as a pathetic frump in Come Back, Little Sheba, but I have to admit that this is a performance I find wearing and that after a while begins to irritate. I can understand how living with her would drive Burt Lancaster to drink! Instead I went for Julie Harris as Carson McCullers's Frankie in another Zinneman film, the underappreciated The Member of the Wedding. She's not wholly convincing as a 12-year old but might pass for a mature 14-year old. Still, it's a mighty impressive performance, a unique character played with amazing concentration and conviction. I have a weakness for psycho characters, even if the Academy doesn't, and for supporting actor went with Jack Palance's psycho in the Joan Crawford damsel-in-distress melodrama Sudden Fear. I like Gloria Grahame a lot, but apparently the Academy didn't like the bad girls she played to a tee (including the one in Sudden Fear) and rewarded her instead for this rather bland, minuscule part. For supporting actress I picked Jean Hagen's broadly comical Lina Lamont in Singin' in the Rain. Biggest omission: Singin' in the Rain for best picture.

1953

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: From Here to Eternity
My Pick: From Here to Eternity

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Fred Zinneman, From Here to Eternity
My Pick: Fred Zinneman, From Here to Eternity

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: William Holden, Stalag 17
My Pick: Montgomery Clift, From Here to Eternity

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday
My Pick: Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Frank Sinatra, From Here to Eternity
My Pick: Frank Sinatra, From Here to Eternity

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Donna Reed, From Here to Eternity
My Pick: Thelma Ritter, Pickup on South Street

The Academy made up for its mistakes of the year before by giving Oscars to Zinneman and his follow-up picture. This is a movie that still impresses me today. Its narrative strategy of relating two connected but parallel stories that barely intersect seems years ahead of its time. William Holden got his Oscar for playing a softened version of essentially the same character as in Sunset Blvd. but in a different environment and with a more acceptable outcome, thus removing any implicit criticism of the Hollywood establishment. He was probably helped by the dual nominations for best actor for From Here to Eternity. Burt Lancaster's performance in the movie seemed to attract more attention than Montgomery Clift's, but I went with Clift as the tortured Private Prewitt. Audrey Hepburn hit the big time with an irresistible performance, and there was no way anyone else was going to get the Oscar for best actress this year, a sentiment with which I completely concur. Donna Reed was impressive in the Zinneman picture, but the great Thelma Ritter, who for me can do no wrong, gave her best performance ever in a rare dramatic role in Samuel Fuller's Cold War film noir Pickup on South Street, and I went with her for best supporting actress for the third time in four years. Biggest omission: The Naked Spur—for picture, director, actor, supporting actor (Robert Ryan), or supporting actress (Janet Leigh).


1954

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: On the Waterfront
My Pick: On the Waterfront

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Elia Kazan, On the Waterfront
My Pick: Alfred Hitchcock, Rear Window

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront
My Pick: Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Grace Kelly, The Country Girl
My Pick: Judy Garland, A Star Is Born

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Edmond O'Brien, The Barefoot Contessa
My Pick: Edmond O'Brien, The Barefoot Contessa

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Eva Marie Saint, On the Waterfront
My Pick: Eva Marie Saint, On the Waterfront

For once the Academy's concept of best largely conformed to mine. I departed from their choice in only two categories, but those departures were significant ones. Alfred Hitchcock, like Cary Grant and Greta Garbo, is one of those classic film artists whose lack of an Oscar is frequently cited as proof of the Academy's disconnect with quality and consequent irrelevance. Rear Window (not nominated for best picture) is without a doubt Hitchcock's most loved film, by cinephiles and ordinary moviegoers alike. It satisfies and entertains in an exhilarating way that no other American movie of the year does, and those qualities are clearly down to Hitchcock's expertise in the manipulation of material, actors, visual realization, and above all audience reaction to achieve precisely calculated effects. Grace Kelly, who appeared in no less than five films released this year, was a lovely and enchanting actress, especially when directed by Alfred Hitchcock. But her Oscar for her dowdy performance in The Country Girl has always mystified me. Perhaps it was a reward for deglamorizing herself and playing against type, hardly the last time this would happen. Judy Garland, on the other hand, gave a big, flavorful, and variegated performance in A Star Is Born. (She is said to have lost to Kelly by just six votes, one of the closest races in Oscar history.) Garland, who hadn't appeared on the screen in four years, was probably hurt by the feeling that she was past her prime (while Kelly's star was on the rise) and by her reputation for neurotic, unprofessional behavior. Also unhelpful was the fact that the movie was butchered after previews. The film's director, George Cukor, certainly attributed her loss to pre-release tampering with the picture by Warner Bros. and has stated that neither he nor Garland could bear to watch the release version of the movie, knowing what had been removed. Garland's brilliance shines through even in the truncated version that remained after re-editing, but it wasn't until the restored version of 1983 that the full genius of her performance (or of costar and fellow nominee James Mason's) could be appreciated. Biggest omission: James Stewart, best actor for Rear Window.

1955

BEST PICTURE
The Winner: Marty
My Pick: Marty

BEST DIRECTOR
The Winner: Delbert Mann, Marty
My Pick: Elia Kazan, East of Eden

BEST ACTOR
The Winner: Ernest Borgnine, Marty
My Pick: James Dean, East of Eden

BEST ACTRESS
The Winner: Anna Magnani, The Rose Tatoo
My Pick: Katharine Hepburn, Summertime

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Winner: Jack Lemmon, Mr. Roberts
My Pick: Jack Lemmon, Mr. Roberts

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Winner: Jo Van Fleet, East of Eden
My Pick: Betsy Blair, Marty

Many people find Marty overly sentimental, but I've liked this movie since I first saw it many years ago. I find its sentiment honest and, by Hollywood standards, pretty restrained, and for once Paddy Chayevsky's writing isn't saddled with a heavy-handed Message. If East of Eden, The Night of the Hunter, or Rebel Without a Cause had been nominated for best picture, making a choice would have been much more difficult. I diverged from the Academy's choice of best director because Elia Kazan was nominated (Nicholas Ray, who would have been my first choice, wasn't). Ernest Borgnine got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the lead in Marty. However, I went with James Dean. Admittedly, his equally fine performance in Rebel Without a Cause the same year influenced me in this choice. Dean was probably too young and too radical in his acting style to prevail over Borgnine. Dean had died several months before the awards, and his status as an acting legend wasn't as firmly established as it is today. Also, the Academy had never given a posthumous acting award, and we all know how reticent they are to defy precedent. I like Magnani very much, but subtlety was not part of her acting style, and nowhere is this more apparent than in her English language movies. I adore Hepburn's finely calibrated acting in Summertime and for best actress went with her graceful performance instead. I didn't find Jo Van Fleet in East of Eden as impressive as her costars—including Julie Harris and Raymond Massey, neither one nominated. For best supporting actress I preferred Betsy Blair's touching performance as the repressed, parent-dominated teacher in Marty. Perhaps all those other wins for the picture hurt her chances, and the Academy felt compelled to recognize East of Eden with some award. Biggest omission: The Night of the Hunter—best picture, director, actor, or supporting actress (Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish).

THE SUMMING UP 1934-1955

BEST PICTURE
Agreed: 9
Disagreed: 13

BEST DIRECTOR
Agreed: 11
Disagreed: 11

BEST ACTOR
Agreed: 6
Disagreed: 16

BEST ACTRESS
Agreed: 7
Disagreed: 15

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Agreed: 12
Disagreed: 8

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Agreed: 11
Disagreed: 9

During these years, I disagreed with the Academy most often in the lead acting awards. The reason is likely that these are the awards most influenced by personal popularity with peers, by box office success, and by sentimental appeal. But I must say that even though the Academy didn't duplicate my pick all that often, the choices they did make were generally acceptable ones—good performances that I can live with. The majority might not have been my own preference, and it's shocking how many memorable performances weren't even nominated, but looking back over the list of winners, I can't think of any winning performances that were downright mediocre. Although I disagreed with the best picture awards less often, I would say that those were, in comparison, far more serious disagreements. The Great Ziegfeld over Dodsworth, The Life of Emile Zola over The Awful Truth, How Green Was My Valley over Citizen Kane, Gentlemen's Agreement over Great Expectations, An American in Paris over A Streetcar Named Desire, The Greatest Show on Earth over High Noon—to my mind these are all horribly misguided awards. I think that this pattern of making forgivable mistakes over the acting awards and horrendously glaring mistakes over the best picture award is one that has continued to plague the Academy even beyond the years under consideration in these last two posts, and I expect this pattern to persist for as long as the Oscars continue.