Around The World In 80 Days 1956

The Film:

This year's winner is about as far away from last year's winner as you can get. We go from a low-budget, black and white, 90 minute sleeper with minimal cast and sets and a story that takes place over less than two days to this great monstrosity of film. It's long, loud, colourful, expensive and boasts a cast of thousands. Whether "monstrosity" is a negative term or just a description of the size of the thing remains to be seen.

I've definitely seen this film before. And I've seen chunks of it several times. It's one of those Boxing Day / Easter Sunday / Bank Holiday Monday afternoon films from my childhood.

However, it's a long time since I've seen it. I'm sort of looking forward to seeing it again - and I'm also dreading the thought that it will have dated badly in many different ways. I'll cope fine with the 50s special effects, but there just seem to be far too many potential cultural pitfalls in a 50s Hollywood version of circumnavigating the globe. I know that Shirley McLaine is the Indian Princess and just the thought of that is making me nervous....

The Ceremony:

As the poster says, proceedings took place on March 27th 1957 on both coasts as in previous years. Jerry Lewis was in Hollywood and Celeste Holm did the honours in New York.

It's the first year that all the Best Picture nominees were in colour and they were all big-budget epic films that earned a lot at the box office. This was clearly a taste of things to come in the industry.

It was the first year that Best Foreign Language Film was a competitive category rather than an honorary award and it was won by Fellini's La Strada. This award is credited with helping to start the rise in interest in foreign films (particularly European films) that reached a high point in the 1960s.


Other Notable Winners That Night:

Cary Grant doing his best Ingrid Bergman impression!

Best Director didn't go the same way as Best Picture this year - George Stevens (deservedly, imho) took that one for Giant.

Yul Brynner won Best Actor for The King and I (which baffles me when you see who he beat to it - Rock and Jimmy, Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier!) and Ingrid Bergman won the second of her three Oscars, for Anastasia. Anthony Quinn and Dorothy Malone are the other two winners on the picture.

Dalton Trumbo won his second Oscar (but the first to be officially credited to him) for Best Story. And unusually - but still deservedly - Best Screenplay went to a film with practically no dialogue whatsoever, the 35 minute short The Red Balloon. (I have a strong memory of watching this when I was very young and I was mesmerised by it!)

Best Song:

A bit of Doris Day again this year, with one of the songs she became most famous for - Que Sera Sera from The Man Who Knew Too Much. I think this is one of the best deserved winners in this category ever, because it is a perfect example of a song becoming an unexpected and crucial plot point. And Hitchcock needs to take a fair bit of the credit for that! I'd better not say any more, in case you haven't seen it.....

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Rock and Liz - it'll never work.....

There are a fair few blockbusters on the list this year - including The Ten Commandments, The King and I and Friendly Persuasion (which I haven't seen, but it's Wyler directing Gary Cooper, so I'm interested...).

However, there is also a personal favourite of mine that I really wish we'd watched so that I could share it with Andy - I'll have to find three and a half hours another time to do that.

I love Giant. It's not dissimilar in tone and scope to Gone With The Wind but I think I like it more. Rock, Liz and Jimmy are all fab and there are some great iconic scenes. I get the appeal of ATW80D but I definitely prefer this one. It earned George Stevens the Best Director award - but it's a shame that James Dean wasn't nominated for Supporting Actor instead of sharing the nomination for Best Actor with Rock. I think he might have won in that category (and he's fab in this!)

He'd better get on his horse and get out of town!

We also probably should have been watching The Searchers - or at least acknowledging its existence. It's now generally considered to be one of (if not the) greatest Westerns of all time. And it didn't get a single nomination in any category.



Our Verdict:

Whatever the venue, the rules of etiquette must be followed!

We watched this appropriately - on a Sunday afternoon. It was variously raining and snowing outside and, on an early December weekend, it did help us to start feeling a little but Christmassy. 

I wasn't expecting a great deal from this one - and thought I would spend most of the three hours duration mumbling and grumbling about Rock Hudson and John Wayne. However, I actually really enjoyed it. It was far more fun than I'd remembered from my childhood and, on the whole, I bought into the story and the characters and the time just flew by.

Buster Keaton - probably my favourite cameo

The cameos were great - I spotted the big ones (although there were many more who were either big in 50s only, or who were much older than in their heyday and not so recognisable. Noel C and Johnny G are great fun in one of the early scenes, Frankie S is very much "blink and you'll miss it", Marlene hams it up brilliantly (in a costume we saw in the museum in Berlin this summer!), as does Cesar Romero as a bit of light relief from all the bullfighting. But I think my favourite is a 60something Buster Keaton in full sound and colour as the train guard.

Cameos aside, David Niven and Cantinflas are great at holding the whole thing together, and the story flows well and keeps a good pace. Except for in Spain, where the flamenco sequence is a bit longer than it really needed to be - and the bullfighting just goes on and on and on. I don't know whether my 21st Century sensibilities have dulled my interest or if it really was as overlong as it felt, but about 10 minutes in I kind of wanted the bull to just run him through and be done with it.

An over-excess of bullfighting

The 1870s world seen through 1950s eyes could have been a culturally-misappropriated disaster for a 21st Century viewer but, actually, it was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. Especially as we journeyed through Spain, India, Hong Kong, Japan and the Wild West. You certainly couldn't make the film in a similar way today, but it was far more watchable than I feared it would be.

Not a Japanese person

Not an Indian princess

There are some very "interesting" casting choices however. I don't think anyone was expected to think that Cantinflas was really supposed to be French, so we can ignore that one. But I shudder to think of the conversation that the casting team had when deciding that the slightly sinister-looking Slovakian Peter Lorre would make a perfect Japanese cabin steward! The young Shirley McLaine actually does a better job than she gives herself credit for as the Princess (she has said herself many times that she was miscast and pretty awful in the role), but she just looks like a white American who's been on a beach holiday. There is nothing remotely Indian about her.

However, I can overlook all of this - because I reckon the film does everything it set out to do, if not more. It was an ambitious project in many different ways and yet it works, not just as a star-spotting exercise or even as something pretty to go "wow" at on a big screen. It's interesting, exciting, funny, impressive in parts - and a much better way to spend a cold wintery Sunday afternoon than I thought it would be.

And right at the end, when it's nearing the three hour mark and Fogg has returned and claimed his reward, we get another little five minute treat in the form of the closing credits. It's one of the earliest examples of long ending credits, particularly ones that are worth watching in themselves. These are brilliantly animated by the master of credits Saul Bass and they tell the story of the whole film whilst pointing out many of the cameos we've just seen. 

You get a bit of them about two minutes into this sequence (and the whole hour of Saul Bass credits shown here is worth watching some time!):

Marty 1955

The Film:

The main thing I know about this film is that it's the answer to the question that Herbie Stempel has to pretend not to know in the film (and real life events of) Quiz Show. Which places me and my moviegoing experiences clearly in a very different decade to the one in which Marty itself was released.

Other than that I have no knowledge, or any pre-conceived ideas about Marty at all. A little bit of research tells me that this is still the shortest film ever to win Best Picture (at just short of 90 minutes long) and is the only winner to have been adapted from a TV programme (unlike several TV programmes that were adapted from Best Picture winning films....)

It's one of the last winners to be shot in Black and White (we've got one more coming up in a few films' time, and then nothing until Schindler's List and The Artist) and is one of the earliest examples of what we now call a "sleeper hit". Sleepers often tend to bag a nomination (Juno and Little Miss Sunshine spring to mind first) but it's unusual for them to win - so what is so special about Marty?

The Ceremony:

The Awards were given out on March 21st 1956 - again in both Los Angeles (presented by Jerry Lewis) and New York (with Claudette Colbert and Joseph L Mankiewicz). I'm not much of a Jerry Lewis fan. I think I'd have rather been in New York!



Other Notable Winners That Night:

Jack, Jo and Ernest

Marty took four of the big five awards - Best Actress went to Anna Magnani (who I've never heard of) for The Rose Tattoo (which I know practically nothing about!). The Supporting awards went to Jack Lemmon and Jo Van Fleet - the latter being the only award for either of the two James Dean-starring films that received nominations that year.

Several years before Patty Duke won an Oscar for playing her, Helen Keller won (or at least accepted) her own Oscar this year, as the Best Documentary award went to the documentary about her life. Something I do remember watching many years ago after having a bit of a mild obsession with Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan when I was about ten (it's a teacher thing.....).


Best Song:

This year it's Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing. It's a classic, but I'm personally not a fan. Not my type of song really. (Tender Trap and Unchained Melody were among the nominees - I'd go for either of those over this one!)

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Do students still put pictures of him on their walls???

It's another one of those rare years where I haven't seen any of the Best Picture nominees (Mister Roberts, Picnic, The Rose Tattoo and Love Is A Many-Splendored thing). And I'm a bit shocked that neither of the James Dean films from this year are in that list. East of Eden got a Director nomination for Elia Kazan along with three other nominations (including one win, and a nom for Dean). Rebel Without A Cause got three nominations - including Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood. It might just be the tragic Dean legend that has kept both of these films in public consciousness, but they are both really good films!

This aside, I'm happy to go with the Academy here. I'm just as likely to watch Marty again as either of Jimmy's first two big films (his third one I'll come on to next time....)

Our Verdict:

Lonely, depressed, unlucky? But definitely lovely!

We sat down to watch this on a weekday evening, with work the next day - probably the first time we've done that during this challenge. Partly this was because of the short length of the film, but also the subject matter seemed right for a cold winter evening when there's nothing else on the telly. I was pretty certain I'd like the film - and I was more interested in trying to work out what the fuss was about. How did this very low budget film win Best Picture?

Firstly, the plot. Marty (Ernest Borgnine, very much shaking off the "He killed Sinatra!" image of From Here to Eternity) is the last remaining unmarried child of a fairly typical New York Italian widow. Everybody tells him he needs to find a girl and settle down - some even say he should be "ashamed" that he hasn't done so far. He wants to find the right girl but so far hasn't and he is very aware that he is getting older and is physically less attractive than most of his contemporaries. His friends don't seem to be a great deal of help and he seems destined to stay living with his mother and doing the same things week in week out.

What do you want to do? I don't know, what do you want to do?

One night, at the suggestion of his cousin, he heads out to the Stardust Ballroom and (in a lovely scene that really makes you fall for his character) he meets Clara (Betsy Blair - Gene Kelly's wife!) when he helps her after she is unceremoniously dumped by her absolute git of a blind date. The two spend the evening together and start to get to know each other - and clearly begin to fall for each other.

Meanwhile Marty's bitter widowed aunt moves in with him and his mother and starts to lay a bit of a guilt trip on him when she complains that all their children have left them and forgotten them and they are now just getting in the way.

Marty and Clara

Marty has arranged to meet Clara the next day - but starts to have doubts that it's the right thing to do. Will he go through with it?

And that's it. That's pretty much the whole film. There are some great comic moments, mainly exchanges between either two comic Irish women, two comic Italian women, two or more stereotypical 50s "lads". And it all seems to work really well.

She's not even Italian.....

The script is very good, particularly the way Marty's character is so quickly and sympathetically established. Ernest Borgnine is brilliant and deserved his Oscar - he plays Marty with such subtlety and sensitivity that you get completely sucked into his situation. And the supporting actors all do exactly that - support his central performance and help his story and his character to shine out.

The only slight let down in the cast, for me, was Clara. Betsy Blair was clearly not an unattractive woman in real life (although the strong implication is that Clara is) and a lot of her unattractiveness seems to be shown through bad lighting and unflattering facial expressions - which reminded me a bit too much of Jerry's Two-Face girlfriend in Seinfeld!

There are several things about the film that are very much of its time - particularly the (seemingly perfectly acceptable) derogatory attitude that even the "nice" single men in the story have towards women. The social conventions implied throughout are a fascinating part of the story in themselves and it is difficult to really put ourselves in the shoes of 50s Americans watching this film (over and over) at the cinema. That being said, Marty definitely struck a chord with audiences back then - and I'm grateful for that, because it means we got to watch it 60 years later. It's short and sweet and I really liked it.

The original TV play is intact and up on Youtube - only 50 minutes long and with Rod Steiger playing the lead. I've not watched it yet but it's on my to-do list. Here it is:

On The Waterfront 1954

The Film:

Another one that I've never seen, but know a fair few things about - and I'm looking forward to seeing what all the fuss is about. There are so many films nominated throughout the Oscars this year that I really love - Seven Brides, Sabrina, Rear Window, A Star Is Born, The Glenn Miller Story, Carmen Jones. But the voters went for gritty drama with a message behind it. And so I won't be able to indulge in one of the above films - all of which I've seen several times before! - which is actually a good thing.

On The Waterfront was the third film to that date that won eight Oscars - matching last year's winner, along with Gone With The Wind. It was by far the biggest winner on the night, including causing an upset in the Best Actor category, where Bing was favourite but Brando finally won his first Oscar, after a record four consecutive nominations in the category. It is also notable for having three nominations for Best Supporting Actor (which tells us a lot about the story in itself!) - although none of those nominations brought home the prize.

What I know before watching the film - it's a gritty crime drama set on the docks with gangsters and stuff. Marlon Brando's character "could've been a contender". Eva Marie Saint is pretty much the only woman in the film, so it comprehensively fails the Bechdel Test. And Elia Kazan had been naming names and tried to justify it (successfully? - depends who you ask!) with the narrative of this film. 

The Ceremony:

 The ceremony took place on March 30th 1955, with the same coast-to-coast format as recent years, across the same two venues. It was another Bob Hope year in Hollywood, with Thelma Ritter doing the honours in New York. According to this ticket, the whole thing kicked off at 7pm in LA - which (unless I'm confused here) would mean 10pm in New York. It was broadcast on NBC again, as it would be for several years now.

There was quite a diverse range of nominations this year, with lots of different films being nominated in the big categories. And diversity of a different sort, with Dorothy Dandridge picking up the first Best Actress nomination for an African American. Despite all this, On The Waterfront took eight awards and both Actress awards went to very white, blonde and wholesome women!


Other Notable Winners That Night:

Brando showing Bob just how much of a
contender he is!

On The Waterfront won most of the major awards. Marlon Brando finally got his Oscar - after an unprecedented four consecutive nominations (not even Leonardo diCaprio can beat that - four for Best Actor, five in total, but not consecutive!). Bing was favourite but no one could really begrudge Brando. 

Out of his castmates, only Eva Marie Saint picked up an Oscar, after a canny bit of promotion placed her in the Supporting category and, therefore, not competing with Judy or Grace. The heavyweight trio in Supporting Actor split the vote (as has happened before) and the award went to Edmond O'Brien for The Barefoot Contessa.

The shock of the night was in Best Actress, with Grace Kelly picking up the award that everyone thought would go to Judy Garland. Kelly was in two big films that year - she was great in Rear Window but won for The Country Girl (which I struggled to stay awake through). Some people reckon that this snub is one of the key factors in Judy's subsequent decline. Which is very sad.


Best Song:

How the hell is this not "The Man That Got Away"???? That at least might have helped to save poor Judy.... The winner this year is Three Coins In The Fountain, which is ok I guess, but not even anywhere near the best thing Frankie ever sang. Where as The Man That Got Away is a great song and one of Judy Garland's finest performances of anything ever. Here's both - you decide!

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

I know there's only six - if you know the film, you'll know why!

On The Waterfront was definitely a worthy winner - but after that it's all about the Musicals for me this year!

The other nominees were The Caine Mutiny, Three Coins in the Fountain and the aforementioned snoozefest The Country Girl (which maybe I should watch again and rethink?). And also one of my childhood favourite films of all time - Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. As an adult I get how questionable it is for men to kidnap the girls they fancy after just one (sort of) date and keep them captive for several months until they fall in love with them. But that doesn't detract from the singing, the dancing, the amazing technicolor - and all those hunky woodsmen! It's a shame the Dance Direction category went so many years earlier - the barn-raising section is quite wonderful!

Hello, I'm Mrs Norman Maine,
and you're *still* not giving me an Oscar!

A Star Is Born was not even nominated for Best Picture, even though Judy and James both got nominations. I think that's a real shame, as it's a great film. Not really a Musical, more of a drama with some musical numbers. For the second time, Norman Maine and Vicki Lester get Oscars but their real life counterparts miss out.

Our Verdict:

"I coulda beena contender....."

My sort of priest!

I was unsure for about five minutes. It was bleak, there was a fair bit of mumbling, there were several different men leaning on walls, smoking and saying some cliched gangster-type things. Brando looked up and shouted "Joey" in a rather similar way to the way he shouted "Stella" a few years earlier.

And from that point I got drawn in to the whole thing. This is a great film. Great story, brilliant dialogue, subtly clever directing and some absolutely top class acting. All five of the nominated players (which is basically everyone with more than a couple of lines to say) absolutely deserved their nomination. And no wonder that the three Supporting Actors split the vote. I think mine would have gone to Karl Malden, but Rod Steiger was brilliant in a smaller, subtler role.

The story is sort of about the murder of the aforementioned Joey, but is really more about the redemption of his friend Terry (Brando). And even more so it's about corruption vs honesty and bosses vs workers and family loyalty and workers rights and actually quite a lot more.

Pigeons

Terry works on the New Jersey docks (that sounds like the start of a Bon Jovi song!) - like most men in Hoboken. But he has it reasonably cushy because his brother Charlie (Steiger) is right hand man to the corrupt Union boss (Cobb). When Joey dies everyone suspects murder, because he had spoken out against the mob-run Union. Joey's sister Edie pleads with Terry to co-operate with the authorities and tell them what he knows about what has been going on. The local priest (Malden) joins in this plea and shows himself to have no qualms about speaking out against the corruption he witnesses. Charlie is sent to try and ensure that Terry doesn't squeal.

A different sort of contender?

And from there the main focus of the film is not on lots of fights and gang-posturing and further violence (although there is a bit of that - it's very close to home, pretty shocking and entirely relevant to the plot!). Most of the film is actually quite low key and takes a close look at Terry's character, his relationship with his brother (and with others on the docks) and his general worldview.

I won't spoil the film too much by saying what his final decisions are - it isn't all plain sailing but the final outcomes are really satisfying for the viewer.

Along the way we get some great scenes with clever, deep and still authentic dialogue. The cab scene with Brando and Steiger is the most famous. It's even better in context. Both performances are very nuanced and very real. And when you know what the outcome of the conversation is, it's even more meaningful.

It's slightly uncomfortable to think that Kazan was possibly using this film as an allegory for his own actions in the McCarthy witchhunts - partly because he does such a good job of convincing the audience as to what is the right course of action. However, if you take that away then everything else about the film really impressed me - including Marlon Brando. It was worth waiting four years to get his first Oscar for this one!

From Here To Eternity 1953

The Film:

I've (shockingly) not seen this film before. But this is what I (think I) know about it in advance:

Firstly, it's the one where Burt and Deb get sand in their knickers doing very some very Code-risky things on a beach. Much talked about, much imitated (including by Danny and Sandy in Grease, Ted and Elaine in Airplane! and Marge and Homer Simpson - and probably several more!) and probably the only bit of the film that I've seen.

Secondly, I know it's an army-thing based in Hawaii. Sort of like South Pacific without the songs. I'm possibly going to be proved very wrong on the second count there.

Thirdly, it's where Frankie won his Oscar. Doing something uncharacteristically dramatic and revitalising his career in the process. But I don't know anything more than that.

I also know it won loads of Oscars - but do I think it deserves them?

The Ceremony:

For the second year running the awards were given out in both Hollywood and New York, this time on March 25th 1954.

Frederic March did the duties again in New York while Donald O'Connor hosted at the Pantages Theater. Which gives me chance to say how great I think Donald O'Connor is. Amazing dancer, subtly great comedian and just a nice guy. Thank God he was in Singin In The Rain so that people remember him, because most of his other work appears to have been forgotten. Here he is opening the show - he comes on about 7 minutes in, and hands over to March at about 9 mins 30:

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Frankie took the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and the wholesome Donna Reed took the equivalent award for also playing against type as the not-quite prostitute Alma/Lorene. And that's all FHTE got for acting. 

Burt and Monty missed out, possibly due to All-About-Eve-like vote-splitting allowing William Holden to come through and get his Oscar. And this was the year that Audrey Hepburn made her debut and took the Oscar from Deborah Kerr.

And the Oscar actually goes to.....

Pretty much everything else seemed to go to From Here To Eternity. However, quite possibly the most significant winner of the night wasn't even mentioned at the ceremony. Dalton Trumbo wrote the Oscar-winning script to Roman Holiday but was blacklisted at the time so no one "officially" knew he had written it and the award was given to another screenwriter acting as his front. He was finally recognised as the winner in 1993 when the award was presented posthumously. Bryan Cranston was nominated for Best Actor in 2015 for playing him (and, imho, should have won!) giving him further recognition with the Academy. Cheers Dalton!


Best Song:

One of my favourite songs of all time, from one of my favourite movies. I'm going to restrain my self and resist the urge to heap loads and loads of praise on the fabulous Doris Day and the wonderful Secret Love! Just watch and enjoy...

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Greg and Aud in the Eternal City

I am more than happy to give this one to From Here To Eternity - and particularly to Fred Zinneman who waited one year longer than he should for one of his films to win the big one!

The other nominees included two Roman epics, Julius Caesar and The Robe (the Roman epic will triumph in a few year's time) and, like High Noon, another "cerebral" western, Shane. I saw Shane a long time ago and remember quite liking it - although my lasting memory is of the little boy in it whining "Don't go Shane, come back Shane" over and over at the end. It's number three in the AFI Top Ten Westerns (one above Unforgiven) so it could possibly have been seen as a worthy contender here. 

However, my vote for runner up would have to be Roman Holiday, which won three Oscars (the other one, naturally, went to Edith Head) and introduced us all to Audrey Hepburn, which is a good enough reason to love it in my book. It's a great early example of the sort of romantic comedy that is still (just about) being made today and is still watched and loved by many.

Our Verdict:

Frankie rolls snake eyes with olives

I liked it. We both liked it. But generally we were a little bit underwhelmed by the whole thing. I think that's possibly because we knew it was a classic and were expecting to be bowled over by it, like we had been in the mid-forties with other black and white dramas. So maybe we were holding it to unfairly high standards. That said, there are a good many great things about it.

The Last Post....*sniff*

The plot is a good one and is well-adapted from what was apparently considered to be an unfilmable novel that ran to 800 pages. There are several key characters and themes and they generally work really well.

The film is set at an Army Base in Hawaii and the date is clearly set as June 1941 - which, at least for audiences in 1953, clearly signalled an imminent Pearl Harbor attack. However, the film isn't about Pearl Harbor - it is merely a plot point in the last reel. The film is about the experiences and relationships between the people that live in and around the base.

Monty gets the girl - and the girl gets the Oscar

Montgomery Clift (who, imho, should have won the Oscar!) plays Pte Prewitt, a bugler and former boxing champ who is reassigned at his request after injuring another man in the ring. He refuses to box for his new company and, as a result, is bullied mercilessly at the orders of his Captain. He forms two strong relationships while there - Pte Maggio (Sinatra) who is a wise-cracking, drinking but ultimately decent friend to Prew, until things go wrong for him; and Lorene/Alma who is one of the "girls" at the local bar (never referred to as a prostitute, for Code reasons). Lorene is played by Donna Reed who had already established herself as a wholesome American girl, but plays against type convincingly enough to grab an Oscar. These three are the heart of the film - the most interesting and likeable characters, and the best acted. Particularly Clift who shows what a great (and sadly wasted, for several reasons) talent he was with a subtle performance that sucks you right in.

They'll be finding sand everywhere for days.

However, it's Burt and Deborah on the beach that everyone remembers - mainly because of the risque nature of that particular scene at that time in Hollywood history. The fact that they are both wearing rather more than half the circus performers were in last years' winner says a lot about social attitudes at the time! Neither of these two characters really did much for me. Burt (office assistant to the Captain) and Deborah (promiscuous wife of the equally promiscuous Captain) are both perfectly fine but, ultimately, I didn't really feel for their characters the same way as I did for the others. Having said that it is interesting to see Deborah Kerr playing against type so much (as with Donna Reed) and I think the decision to go against type in much of the casting here is a great one that adds a lot to the overall effect of the film.

The closing scenes with the attack on Pearl Harbor and the impact it has on our characters is well paced and well filmed - but we have been spoilt slightly by watching the end of All Quiet On The Western Front as part of this challenge. War films are going to have to go some to beat that!

In it's favour FHTE isn't really a war film - it's a character study and it's a pretty damning look at army life. In many ways it's an anti-bullying film as much as it is anything else. Some people get their comeuppance, but not everyone has a happy ending. That (along with Monty and Frankie) is ultimately why I liked it. 

The Greatest Show On Earth 1952

The Film:

Apparently the clue is in the title - if you believe everything you read! I have vague memories of half-watching this one way back, getting bored half-way through, but thinking it was just about ok because Jimmy Stewart is in it. I also misremembered it as being about three and a half hours long. It's actually only two and half hours, so maybe that tells you something else about my previous experience with the film!

This one is generally remembered as one of the worst Best Picture winners - mainly because of what didn't win in it's place. High Noon was a nominee, but the suggestion that it was an allegory for the McCarthy witch-hunts may have been what put off the voters. Singin In The Rain was also released this year and got a few nominations, but not one for Best Picture. Maybe the Academy felt they had lavished all the technicolor praise that they needed to on Gene Kelly the previous year. Either way, both of these films are right near the top of the AFI all-time list. The Greatest Show On Earth is not.

The Ceremony:

Look closely - they were already doing score sheets way back then!
(That's a fab enough fact for me to ignore the stray apostrophe!)

The Hollywood end of the ceremony was held at the Pantages Theater again (as it would be for the rest of the decade) on March 19th 1953.

Although not the first to be filmed, it was the first to be televised and also the first to be held simultaneously in Hollywood and New York, something which happened for the next five years. Part of the reason for the coast-to-coast ceremonies was due to an increasing number of nominees having commitments on Broadway at this time of the year (a ridiculous number of awards were accepted by proxies the year before). This also accounted for the late start of 10.30pm - so people could get there after their curtain came down.

Bob Hope presented from Hollywood and Frederic March from New York, with Conrad Nagel emceeing for the TV audience.


Other Notable Winners That Night:

Gloria Grahame - now the subject of her very
own movie (and potentially several more!)

They didn't completely overlook High Noon - it actually won more awards than TGSOE, one of which went to Gary Cooper as Best Actor.

John Ford won his fourth Directing Award for The Quiet Man - he overtook Frank Capra and still holds the most awards in this category.

Shirley Booth won Best Actress, becoming the first woman over 50 to win the award, as well as the last one born in the 19th Century.

Best Supporting awards went to Anthony Quinn and Gloria Grahame - and I've put a photo of Gloria up there because she's currently back in the film spotlight, not quite managing to die in Liverpool. She was an interesting character in more ways than one (some more dubious than others) - but she beat Jean Hagen to the Oscar, so she probably deserves more recognition for that than she gets. (Having just watched Born Yesterday I now wonder whether that was the reason that Jean Hagen didn't win - Judy H was doing that voice to great effect two years earlier.....)

Best Song:

Another of High Noon's awards was for Best Song. Much imitated, much parodied and probably well deserving of the award (even if it did beat Thumbelina!). Take it away Tex....

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

"Come on with the rain...."

I've already mentioned them both and I can't objectively separate the two. With the benefit of hindsight, both of these films wipe the floor with TGSOE.

Singin In The Rain is now seen as (arguably) the greatest screen musical. It's a personal favourite and one that I have seen over and over again. Although the ballet from An American In Paris is pretty unbeatable, everything else in Singin In The Rain wipes the floor with its predecessor. Particularly the story and the expert way in which all four of the leads (Kelly, Reynolds, O'Connor and Hagen) play their parts for comedy and drama in all the right proportions.

"Come on with the showdown....."

It was totally robbed - and couldn't even get a nomination for Best Song because all the songs (including the title song) had been used in previous shows and films - which was sort of the point of the story. It is a wonderful film!

Out of the actual Best Picture nominees we also had Ivanhoe, Moulin Rouge (not that one!) and Best Director winner The Quiet Man. But it was all about High Noon. Gary Cooper won his second Oscar as the sheriff with a stronger sense of duty than Kant, biding his time (despite Grace Kelly's protestations) waiting for the gang that are coming to kill him. It's a masterpiece of tension and an early example of a very different type of western - no "yee-haws" and not a great deal of action. But a compelling and intelligent story. Unfortunately the production got caught up a bit too much with McCarthyism and too many people talked of the film (admiringly, rather than disparagingly) as a clever allegory against blacklisting. And that is probably why it lost the big prize (although Zinneman would go on to direct two other Oscar-winning films - including next year's winner - with very different settings, but very similar heroes!)

Our Verdict:

Dorothy Lamour - one of a trio of strong women in this film -
they all get great lines, she delivers hers best!

If anyone out there is a Charlton Heston fan I'd better apologise in advance because I'm probably going to make mention of his total lack of charisma and talent in this film far more than he really deserves. (In fact, we watched the really-not-very-good-but-still-fun Wayne's World 2 the other night and he impressed me more in his 30 second cameo there than he did in two and a half hours here).

Heston (and those two other films above) aside there is actually a lot more going for this film than I had remembered and that history generally gives it credit for.

One of these two is one of my favourite screen actors.
The other one is Charlton Heston.

Firstly, the thing that most people remember about it. James Stewart is never seen out of clown make-up (except in a photograph) and is brilliant throughout, playing comedy and drama with ease. A shocking omission that he wasn't nominated for Supporting Actor.

Secondly, apart from Jimmy, the best written and best acted characters in the film are the women. There are three strong, kick-ass women played by strong and fiesty actresses who also manage to mix up the comedy and drama (and circus skills) really well - Dorothy Lamour and Gloria Grahame do a better job than Betty Hutton in my opinion, but they are all really good. (The other lead actor is Cornel Wilde as Hutton's rival trapeze artist. Who I almost forgot to mention, as he made very little impression on me!)

Betty and Gloria mooning over Heston whilst wiping
the floor with him in the acting stakes.

The third great thing about the film is how it showcases the circus. Parts of the film act almost as a behind-the-scenes documentary (which is fascinating in itself), other parts are basically film footage of the actual performances - some spectacular, some weirdly compelling, others horribly dated. And this means that many of those performers got their only chance to be preserved on film to be watched again in 2017! There are many good reasons why the circus is not what it used to be, but it's good to have a record of what it was. And who better than Cecil B de Mille to film it all.

Bob and Bing - three seconds on screen and
they still manage to out-act Heston!

I've got to this point and realised that I haven't really mentioned the plot at all. That's probably because you could probably guess most of it without watching it. There's the "circus under threat, got to bring the crowds in or they'll shut us down" strand, that weaves in with the "love triangle" strand (which has a few extra angles in it for good measure), along with the "who is the real star" storyline that you find in all backstage musicals and a few different versions of the "dodgy dealings, wrong side of the law" trope (one version done much better than the other!). All tied up with a disaster sequence in the final reel. CBdM threw the lot at this thing - maybe that's why  I remembered it being much longer than it is!

Having said all this, we both actually rather enjoyed The Greatest Show On Earth. I've seen High Noon a couple of times, I've seen Singin In The Rain more times than is probably healthy - but I wouldn't have seen this one if it hadn't won the Oscar. Which almost lets it off the hook!

An American In Paris 1951

The Film:

I've known this film for as long as I've known that films can have real people in them, rather than just being cartoons! My Dad introduced me to musicals at a very early age - if they were on telly over a weekend, we would watch them together. And when we got our first video recorder (pretty early on in the great scheme of things - I was only about 8 or 9) these were the sorts of films he would record to build up some semblance of a video library.

Most of my early musical memories included Gene Kelly. (Rogers and Hammerstein - apart from Sound of Music - were a bit too grown-up for an eight year old!). Bing, Frankie, Judy, Doris, Fred, Howard and Gordon also got a good look in. But Gene Kelly was the one that hooked me in early on. Having said that, I'd always much rather be watching On The Town or Singin In The Rain than this one - and those two are the two of Kelly's big three films that I can practically recite all the way through, not this one!

My varied reactions towards Leslie Caron are weird and totally illogical (and will be explored here in greater depth in 1958!) and that may go some way to this one not really being a favourite. But I really love Gershwin and the ballet here is my favourite of the "big three". And there's Oscar Lavant (lots of Oscar Lavants!) to look forward to again. So I am looking forward to this one, far more than Andy is!

It was a shock winner - and here (in colour!) is the moment it was announced:

The Ceremony:

The awards were given out at the Pantages Theater again this year on March 20th 1952. They were hosted by Danny Kaye - and from the clips I've seen he was a great choice!

I've found a great picture of ticket, pass and programme from the year - but I've not got a great deal more information about the night itself!








Other Notable Winners That Night:

Bogie - enjoying the ceremony, despite spoiling the fun for the
Streetcar party

The awards were pretty much split three ways. Freed and Kelly got the big prize. George Stevens took Best Director for A Place In The Sun. And A Streetcar Named Desire looked set to do something that has still never been done - take all the Acting Awards!

However, the previous year Bogie had missed out on a nomination and everyone was up in arms. Possibly because of this, he beat Brando to Best Actor and spoilt the potential clean sweep. (Vivien Leigh, Karl Malden and Kim Hunter all won in their categories!)


Edith Head was right in the middle of her big run of eight Oscars for Costume Design, the most ever won by a single person. (She was nominated 35 times!) This year she won for A Place In The Sun. To most people older than me she is best remembered for dressing Audrey Hepburn - to most people younger than me she is best remembered for being immortalised as Edna Mode in The Incredibles!


Best Song:

"In The Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" from "Here Comes The Groom". Because everything in American in Paris was an old Gershwin song, none of it was eligible. And so we get Bing singing with Jane Wyman - from a late-era Capra film which I've never seen but now really want to......

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Stella!!!! Gene Kelly stole our Oscar!!!!

Out of the five nominations, there were three films that shared honours on the night. Quo Vadis and Decision Before Dawn were never really contenders. But consensus among people who hold opinions on such things still holds that both A Place In The Sun and A Streetcar Named Desire should have won Best Picture.

I'm really not sure on this one. I've seen them both and they are both fine dramas - well filmed, well acted etc. But I do think there was something new and different going on with An American In Paris that needed to be recognised, to see in the 50s properly and show that film-making was changing. It's actually quite bizarre that it is only the second winner in colour - twelve years after Gone With The Wind. And, whilst a well-acted and well-directed piece of character-based drama or comedy makes for the sort of film I love (Grand Hotel, Casablanca, All About Eve etc) film was starting to show that it was much more than that.

Maybe Streetcar was a better film in many of the traditional measures of such things - it's certainly dated less than AAIP - I'm going to stick with Gene and Leslie here. And not just for my own nostalgic and sentimental reasons. It is a great example of something different and new that was happening with film - and it's something that the public loved! (And Marlon Brando just needs to wait a few years, and he'll be fine!)

Our Verdict:

Adam knows something they don't.....

So it beat classic Tennessee Williams - what is all the fuss about?

The story (such as it is) - Gene Kelly is Jerry, an American artist scratching a meagre living in Paris. He lives in a typical Parisian apartment opposite Adam (Oscar Levant) who is a struggling would-be concert pianist. A bored and wealthy American woman takes a shine to Jerry and/or his art and becomes his benefactor, at around the same time as he meets and falls for Lise (Leslie Caron) who just happens to be the reluctant fiancee of Henri (Georges Guetary), a musician friend of Adam's.

I got!!!

All of which is not quite as incidental a plot as it should be, or far more incidental than it could be, depending on your point of view. It's convoluted and intriguing enough to be the plot of a good romantic comedy, or even a potentially fairly dark melodrama. But this film is all about the music, so it never really does either. It sometimes drives the film, but more often than not gets in the way of it.

Old school glamour (with a hint of irony)

Looked at another way, this film is showcasing three great things - the fabulous music of Gershwin, the wonderful choreography of Kelly and the musical/dance talents of its lead players. All in glorious technicolor with no expense spared. 

And it does all those things really well. There are some wonderful songs, most of them delivered along with some of Gene Kelly's best dancing (I've Got Rhythm is fab - and dancing on the piano to Tra La La is great!). There is a brilliant sequence with Oscar Levant conducting an orchestra of Oscar Levants (think Being John Malkovich with music!). And a great version of Stairway to Paradise which wonderfully parodies all that old Ziegfeld nonsense.

A fine bromance - although I bet Padorewski wouldn't
let anyone dance on his piano!

I will also concede that Leslie Caron is great in this as well. This was her first film and she had only just learnt to speak English. Apparently she was hired purely for her dance skills and her Frenchness. Watching the film again after some time, I think she acts really well and plays some good comedy moments - and she doesn't annoy me anywhere near as much as she did when I was younger (whether the same is true in a few films' time remains to be seen!)

It's still not one of my favourite musicals. I'd have much rather seen Singin In The Rain win the following year. But I'm glad that one of the big MGM Freed-Kelly films won Best Picture. And I really enjoyed watching it again.

The main attraction with this film, particularly in terms of its status as an American Classic, is the last 20 minutes of the film. No dialogue (sung or spoken) just Gershwin and dancing. Whatever anyone else thinks of the film as a whole, it is a great thing indeed that this visual interpretation of one of Gershwin's best pieces has been captured on film in colour, at this time, with these dancers. Here's one of the best bits. As Gershwin once said - S'Wonderful!