West Side Story 1961

The Film:
     
The poster calls it "The Most Acclaimed Musical of all Time". There have been a lot of acclaimed musicals since, on stage and screen, so maybe it isn't that any more. However, it is still the one that has won the most Oscars (take that Gigi!) and it is still one of my personal favourites - both on stage and screen, but just as much (maybe even more so) as one of the greatest pieces of American music ever written.

Leonard Bernstein did a re-recording of the whole score in the mid 80s with Kiri Te Kanawa and Jose Carreras and there was a documentary shown on BBC2. My Dad recorded it (Deo Gratias!) and twelve-year-old me watched it over and over and became quite obsessed with the whole thing. (It's on Youtube, and worth checking out!) I don't think I'd seen the film before then - but I've certainly watched it several times since. It's one of my favourites and I've been looking forward to us getting here so I can watch it again, after several years.

Andy, on the other hand, is quite ambivalent about the whole thing. He's seen a few dodgy live versions (all scaffolding and screeching) and is not that keen on the slower numbers in the soundtrack (I blame The Pet Shop Boys for that!). I am hoping that the film will win him round......

The Ceremony:

Santa Monica, April 9th 1962, Bob Hope again.

Nothing else particularly memorable to report, except for a stage invasion from a New York cabbie called Stan Berman who slipped through security and went on stage to present Bob Hope with his own homemade Oscar!

The ceremonies are noticeably starting to get longer at this point, with this year's broadcast reaching the 2 hour mark - clocking in at 2 hours 10 minutes. (By comparison, 2017 was 3 hours 49 minutes - and the record is 4 hours 16 minutes in 2000)


Other Notable Winners That Night:

George and Rita with their Directors

Most of the awards went to West Side Story. The two notable exceptions were Best Actor (Maximilian Schell for Judgement at Nuremberg) and Best Actress (Sophia Loren for a non-English speaking part in Two Women). Making the acting winners as multi-cultural as they ever have been - Swiss/Austrian, Italian, Greek/American and Puerto Rican!

George and Rita were not favourites to win, and their awards were seen as big upsets at the time - particularly Rita beating Judy Garland. Poor Judy - lost her first Oscar to someone playing a serious role, then got nominated for a serious role and lost out to a musical performance.

As with Ben Hur two years earlier, the only thing West Side Story was nominated for that it didn't win was the Screenplay award - which went to the other film that had 11 nominations, Judgement At Nuremberg.

Best Song:

Nothing from West Side Story - because none of it was originally written for the film. So that's one Oscar they missed out on (that otherwise would have put them level with Ben Hur and co). The good news is that this left the way open for one of the loveliest songs in a film ever - Moon River from Breakfast At Tiffany's. This is another example (like Que Sera a few years back) of a song having a really important and well constructed part to play in an otherwise non-musical film. It's also actually Audrey singing here (more on that in a few years' time) and her voice suits the song and acts the part perfectly.

The Unsung Singers:

Jimmy Bryant

As with all our musical winners from the "golden age" of musicals, not everything is quite as it seems. As a film West Side Story is stunning and superb in so many ways - but it is written for talented and highly skilled singers, who can also act (both comedy and drama) and can dance (with the possible exception of Tony, who can get away with just moping about a bit instead). Basically, you need at least three (and preferably five) triple-threats in there.

(Indulge me here, dubbing of musicals is a bit of pet subject of mine!)

However, a big movie also needs big stars - and they have to look good too. And that's where Richard Beymer (who never did become the mega star that some people were expecting) and Natalie Wood come in. Beymer couldn't manage those songs (not many people can - watch Jose Carreras making a meal out of Something's Coming on the Bernstein recording documentary to see how tough it is!) and they held extensive auditions before casting Jimmy Bryant to do the singing. He has the most beautiful, understated voice and it is very difficult to see the join - he sounds exactly as you'd imagine Beymer to sound.

The great Marni Nixon!

With Natalie Wood it was trickier, as she believed she was up to the singing, so they let her record everything. They suggested that maybe someone would come in to touch up a few of the high notes but, in the end, the legendary Marni Nixon did the lot. Nixon is the undisputed queen of dubbing - she had an amazing ability to act like the person she was dubbing for when she sang, meaning she could blend so well (spot the join in "Getting To Know You" in The King and I, or in "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" where she does Marilyn's high notes). She's superb in West Side Story - particularly in I Feel Pretty where her voice matches perfectly with everything that Wood is doing in the scene. Brilliant!

There's even a bit of Betty Wand in West Side Story - ultimate triple-threat Rita Moreno didn't have the lower range needed for Anita (a contralto part) in A Boy Like That. Betty Wand came in to sing it with Marni. It doesn't show that it's not the same voice as sang America!


What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Iconic Audrey

Obviously I am of the opinion that the right film won! The other nominees were Fanny (Leslie and Maurice again, being French, naturellement!), The Hustler, The Guns of Navarone and Judgement at Nuremberg. The last of these was the other biggie in terms of nominations. I rather like The Hustler (for shallow reasons as well as slightly deeper ones....).

I think, besides West Side Story, my favourite film that year would have to be Breakfast At Tiffany's. It wasn't nominated for Best Picture (how did it lose that place to Fanny???) but did win two Oscars for Henry Mancini and a nomination for Audrey Hepburn. It's become a classic and is still watched today - despite the awful yellow-face disaster of Mickey Rooney and the straightening of Fredbaby. It's a lovely film.

Our Verdict:

"Hi-de-hi Jets!" "Hi-de-hi Riff!"

 This film isn't perfect and the story has dated slightly over the years (sometimes in unintentional ways - I entirely blame Croft and Perry for the nagging thought throughout that the Jets worked for Joe Maplin....) but the music and the dancing is as fresh as ever and it's still a great piece of film making.

I find it difficult to be objective when watching West Side Story because I have seen it so many times (including live theatre) and I know the music very well and love it. However, it was good to watch it with Andy who hadn't seen the film and wasn't too sure about some of the music. He gave it a positive review!

Dancing Sharks!

The story itself is simple - it's basically Romeo and Juliet on the streets of New York with Jets and Sharks as Montagues and Capulets. The Sharks are Puerto Rican immigrants, which lends itself to some interesting and socially relevant (certainly in the 50s, unfortunately still today) themes of discrimination, identity, racial violence etc. The film doesn't shy away from any of this. Some of the language used in the songs is softened up a bit for a film audience, but there is still a lot of grit and power in the way the characters are played. And there is no getting away from the fact that this is a musical where two of the five main characters are stabbed to death and another one is shot. (Maria escapes the fate of Juliet....just about!)

The music itself is superb - written by one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century, Leonard Bernstein. It's one of those musicals that could be argued to be closer to opera than most of what we class as a musical. I have a sort of sliding scale in my head that starts with Carmen (musical or opera?) and then Porgy and Bess - with Les Mis and West Side Story not far behind. The lyrics are early Sondheim (please don't ask me to place him on the musicals/opera scale - his stuff is often something else entirely). The whole thing just sounds so full and rich and exciting. And that comes across in the film.

Convincingly channelling Jimmy and Marni

This is also a musical where the tough guys dance. A lot. Sometimes whilst fighting at the same time. This is great! One of the many things that Gigi had wrong with it was that nobody danced. West Side Story puts that right! The Jets get the chance to show off several times, there's a scene where they are at an actual dance (doing mambos, among other things), there's a comedy performance dance (Gee Officer Krupke - a welcome bit of light relief, with satire still relevant to modern day social work!) and my favourite of all - the Sharks and their girls with the call and answer of America. It is a truly wonderful thing!

To modern tastes, the downside is that Tony and Maria aren't singing for themselves (see above). These days, the general rule is that if you're in it, you sing it (even Pierce Brosnan, unfortunately!). Richard and Natalie weren't hired for their singing ability!

Senorita Moreno - finally getting to play a Puerto Rican!

For me, the biggest upside of the film is Rita Moreno. She is superb throughout and I'm glad she won the Oscar (with apologies to all Judy lovers out there - although most of the Judy fans I know love Rita as well!). She plays a role that needs to be dark and dramatic, strong and brash but also wise and vulnerable (the scene in the cafe where the Jets sexually harass her is superbly played) - and she needs to bring a sassy comedic tone to some of her earlier scenes. Often whilst singing and dancing. There's a reason why she's an EGOT - and why she's still out there on Netflix aged 86 playing a bold Latina abuela and making us laugh out loud!

It's a great film. It's still one of the best Film Musicals (and still the one that won the most Oscars) and I'm going to have a hard time in a couple of weeks deciding whether I prefer this to The Sound of Music....both musicals, both fab, both very different. For now though, it's all about the Mambo!

The Apartment 1960

The Film:

This was the year that Billy Wilder doubled his Oscar haul in one fell swoop. He won three for The Apartment - Picture, Director and Screenplay. It's a film that I've seen and really enjoyed, but it's been a while and I don't know it as well as other Wilder classics such as Some Like It Hot, Sunset Boulevard and Sabrina.

Compared to recent winners it's quite a "small" film (though not quite as small as Marty). It's the last winner of the 20th Century to be shot entirely in Black and White (Schindler's List has colour sequences, so we've got until The Artist until the next truly B&W film). It's also a far cry from last year's epic in terms of story, theme, budget, length, cinematography etc etc.

It's a comedy - but it's dark. It's all about the characters, and the screenplay. And that's the sort of film I tend to like best. I'm really looking forward to seeing it again.

The Ceremony:

Monday 17th April 1961 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium - hosted by Bob Hope!

This was one of the first years where lobbying for nominations really got out of hand (and ultimately backfired). John Wayne put a lot of time and money into getting nominations for The Alamo - it got seven, even though it got pretty negative reviews. Many felt that this is what stopped Psycho getting a Best Picture nomination. Things got out of hand (after the nominations) when Chill Wills placed an ad that suggested that the cast were praying harder for him to win an Oscar than the actual defenders of the Alamo prayed for their lives. This was clearly a step too far for voters - and the film went away empty-handed.

There were also two significant farewells this year. Firstly, it was the last year that juvenile awards were given out. One went to Hayley Mills (on the day before her 15th birthday - I only know this because we share a birthday, but she's 26 years older than me!) and from this point on actors of all ages just compete in the main categories with the adults (and one or two under 16s have won - Tatum O'Neal being the youngest, aged 10)

Farewell Gary Cooper!

The other farewell was to Gary Cooper. Having appeared (briefly) in the first winning picture and then gone on to win two Oscars he was given an Honorary Award. Although few people knew why at the time, he was too ill to attend the awards and sent James Stewart in his place. Jimmy got very emotional, which set the media speculating. Gary Cooper died a few weeks later. Off to do some figure eights before chow......



Other Notable Winners That Night:

Burt and Liz

Jack and Shirley didn't take the acting awards - they went to established stars playing much meatier, dramatic (and controversial) roles. Burt Lancaster for Elmer Gantry and Elizabeth Taylor for Butterfield 8.

The Apartment took the most awards, but they were shared more evenly than in previous years - with Spartacus and Elmer Gantry also getting multiple awards.

The Documentary Short winner this year is an interesting oddity. It's called Giuseppina and documents people coming and going from an Italian petrol station. It was financed by BP and went on to be used in test transmissions for colour television on British TV - meaning that it has now become oddly familiar to a generation of people about 20 years older than me, who probably had no idea that they were watching an Oscar winner! It's all on Youtube (as so many things are...)


Best Song:

If you've ever watched anything filmed after 1960 that's even vaguely Greek, then the chances are that you have heard this song. Probably just the tune, rather than the words. It's become one of the go-to tunes for creating Greek atmosphere. Here it is in it's original setting (and original Greek) in the film Never On A Sunday:

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Yes, you can get shower curtains with this image on!

John Wayne and Chill Wills think we should have been watching The Alamo - but no one else seems to. The other nominees were The Sundowners, Sons and Lovers and Elmer Gantry.

With those choices, I'm more than happy to stick with The Apartment - but there is a strong argument to be made for the one that was robbed of its nomination - Psycho. Hitch got a Director nomination (quite rightly!) but Psycho was well and truly snubbed. It was almost certainly too much in the early 60s to have actually won the award, but it really should have been nominated! With the exception of The Apartment, it has stood the test of time far more than any of the other nominees.

Our Verdict:

Waiting for Grand Hotel to come on.

If the Rom-Com was born with It Happened One Night, then it came of age with The Apartment. Billy Wilder has taken everything that was great about Capra in the 30s and added 25 years of experience - in the way movies are made, the way Hollywood has changed (we've just got out the other end of both the Hays code and blacklisting), the way Hollywood actors are perceived and (most significantly) the way American society itself has changed. What he gives us is something that is definitely for adults, morally dubious in several ways, dark in several others - but ultimately romantic, life-affirming, funny and very satisfying to watch.

Shirley and Jack - a perfect pairing

I wasn't around in 1960, and certainly not in New York, so I can't relate directly to the specific social setting of the story. However, there is very little that seems dated nearly 60 years on. Lemmon and MacLaine's characters are young, single, independent 20somethings trying to make their way in the big city - and those characters never seem to date. Almost any good quality rom com that has come since (especially those with a bit of an edge) clearly owe a lot to The Apartment. Our personal favourite is When Harry Met Sally (which is probably a lot of people's favourite....) and there are lots of parallels to be made.

You could write a whole article just on this picture!

For two years in a row, Wilder and Diamond absolutely
nail the last line in a film.....

The story is actually a deceptively simple one. CC (Bud) Baxter is trying to get ahead in the Insurance firm where he works and happens to have an apartment in a convenient part of town. He lets more senior members of the firm use his apartment during the day (and sometimes into the evening) to take various women that their wives don't know about, in return for some quick steps up the career ladder. Meanwhile, Fran Kubelik is one of the lift attendants who Bud is rather taken with. She's a lot more guarded than the other women in the building, and no one seems able to get anywhere with her. Bud's boss (played by Fred MacMurray - another Wilder favourite) finds out about the apartment deal and wants in on the action, in return for a very nice promotion for Bud. But guess who he's taking to the apartment....... When Bud works this out, things take a dark yet comic turn.

The script is wonderful and Jack Lemmon is outstanding throughout a film where he is barely off screen. There are lots of subtle little touches throughout, both physical and verbal, and some really nicely played supporting characters who are given free reign to overact, because that's what they are there for. The sociologist in me wants to get stuck in to some critique on the social attitudes of the time, especially of men towards women (and comparing them to Marty!) but I would end up rambling incessantly.

So I will just sum things up by saying - Billy Wilder is a genius, this film is fabulous and Jack Lemmon is superb. I'm writing this the day that the nominations for this year's Oscars were announced and I've read several social media comments that say that some of the nominees aren't "Oscar films". What nonsense - we've gone from Ben Hur to The Apartment and we're getting a full on operatic musical next time. There is no such thing as an "Oscar film". There are lots of good films, and some of them win Oscars. Thankfully, this is one of them.

Review of the 50s

The 50s - From Black and White to Blockbuster

I was very reluctant to leave the 40s. I really enjoyed it, and have been indulging in several other 1940s nominees as we've been going through the 50s (Double Indemnity, Kitty Foyle, The Magnificent Ambersons, Mildred Pierce, A Letter To Three Wives, The Red Shoes, The Bishop's Wife, Heaven Can Wait - with several more piled up waiting to go).

The 50s is an entirely different kettle of fish. Until now we've only had one winner in colour (Gone With The Wind) with every winner in the 40s in Black and White. There's more of a mixture going on here - with four winners in black and white and six in glorious technicolor. The black and white winners are very much in the style of the dramas that won in the 40s (although the content is far less under the thumb of the Hays Code). It's no coincidence that four of my top five are the black and white films!

The colour films are something else all together. Apart from Gone With The Wind (which really was ahead of its time, even if its social attitudes weren't) there aren't any great big sweeping blockbusters until the 50s. Here we have two gaudily coloured musicals (one far better than the other!), two serious epic dramas (one longer than the other!) and two family-friendly spectaculars (both far longer than they should be!). Although not necessarily all to my personal taste, they give a good snapshot of how things were changing in Hollywood in terms of both technical film making and audience tastes.

The political and social context of 50s Hollywood is really significant in the nominations this decade. The Hays Code starts to disappear (films like Some Like It Hot and Anatomy of a Murder pretty much put paid to it by the end of the decade, although it wasn't officially repealed until as late as 1968) and McCarthyism and blacklisting makes its presence felt, with various people suddenly losing acting careers, being replaced behind the camera at short notice, or being awarded Oscars for work that someone else did.

Through all of this there were, in my opinion, a shocking number of films that weren't recognised the way they should have been (hence the very long non-winners list below). Hitchcock is particularly hard done by! Anyway, here's my verdict on what we DID see:

My Top Ten (as they stand today!) is as follows:

1. All About Eve
2. On The Waterfront
3. Bridge On The River Kwai
4. Marty
5. From Here To Eternity
6. An American In Paris
7. Ben Hur
8. Around The World In 80 Days
9. The Greatest Show On Earth
10. Gigi

Best Picture

One of the best ensemble casts ever!

Nominees:   

All About Eve
On The Waterfront
Marty
Bridge On The River Kwai
From Here To Enternity

And the winner is.....

An easy one for me in this decade (as all my other contenders are in the non-winners category below!) - All About Eve


Best Director

 
Nominees:   

Joseph L Mankiewicz (All About Eve)
Fred Zinnemann (From Here To Eternity)
Elia Kazan (On The Waterfront)
David Lean (Bridge On The River Kwai)
William Wyler (Ben Hur)

And the winner is.....

I know what sort of film I like, and what sort of directing goes with it. And, in the absence of Wilder or Hitchcock being among the winners (although they did both get nominated in the 50s) I think Kazan just about loses out to Joseph L Mankiewicz.



Best Actor



Nominees:   

 
Montgomery Clift (From Here To Eternity)
Marlon Brando (On The Waterfront)
Rod Steiger (On The Waterfront)
Ernest Borgnine (Marty, From Here To Eternity)
Alec Guinness (Bridge On The River Kwai)

And the winner is.....

This is quite a difficult category as I really liked the performances of all those I nominated (and several more). It's very very nearly Alec Guinness, but I think I'm going to give it to Ernest Borgnine, partly for portraying two very different characters, but mainly just for Marty.

(For anyone wondering why I appear to have forgotten Charlton Heston, who had the starring role in two of the winners this decade - no, I've not forgotten him. He's just not very good....)


Best Actress

Nominees:   
Bette Davis (All About Eve)
Anne Baxter (All About Eve)
Celeste Holm (All About Eve)
Deborah Kerr (From Here To Eternity)
Leslie Caron (An American in Paris, Gigi)

And the winner is.....

Women seemed to disappear from the Best Picture winners after the first few years of the 50s - from 1954 onwards they were practically non-existent (except for in Gigi). The best performances by women in the 50s were in films that didn't win the big prizes - which means I have the great pleasure to finally give Bette Davis her third Oscar!


Best Non-Winning Picture

Nominees: 

Sunset Boulevard
High Noon
Singin In The Rain
Giant
A Streetcar Named Desire
The Searchers
Vertigo
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
Some Like It Hot

And the winner is.....

Almost impossible to decide. And there was no way I was going to limit the nominations to five. In some ways maybe it should be Sunset Boulevard because it would have been a shoo in if it had been released a year earlier or later. Or maybe it should be High Noon or Singing in the Rain - because of what won in their place. But I think I'm going to give it to Vertigo because the almost complete snubbing (one nomination for sound) of a film that is regularly voted one of the best ever just goes to show how weird the Academy can be. And they really didn't get Hitch, did they?


Worst Picture
Nominees:    
Gigi

Bored people, being boring and carrying on being bored!

The Greatest Show On Earth


And the winner is.....

Gigi - by quite some way. Apart from a slight bit of begrudging respect for Leslie Caron's acting this film has absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever.

Ben Hur 1959

The Film:

It's Ben Hur. I'm not sure what else I need to say by way of introduction here. If Gone With The Wind counts as the first big technicolor epic to sweep the boards at the Oscars, then this one (twenty years later) probably counts as the second.

It took home eleven awards (and we'd have to wait nearly forty years for another film to match it) so it didn't leave much room for anyone else to get a look in - except in the female acting categories. (There weren't many women in Ben Hur, and most of them had leprosy....)

My own view of this film before watching it again is probably the same as most people of my age. I remember this one being on telly quite a few times when I was younger. I remember watching some of it on a couple of occasions (and I may have watched the whole thing once before, but probably not) and I remember deliberately turning the TV over or off to avoid it on several occasions. Partly because it was a bit too serious for a child, and partly because I've never really being willing to commit three and a half hours to it. However, that is precisely what we are going to do this weekend. (And I keep telling myself, as a reward for my endurance I then get the next two films on the list, which are both wonderful!)

The Ceremony:

As the poster says, the awards were given out on Monday April 4th 1960. The format was pretty much unchanged, except that they went back to just one single host - yes, you've guessed it, Bob Hope! By all accounts timings etc ran a lot smoother than in the previous year.

There doesn't appear to be much else to say about things - except it was the usual parade of stars, only this time all they will have had to do was come on, say "Ben Hur", applaud a bit and then leave.

The two Honorary Awards given out that night were a nice pairing. One was for Buster Keaton, one of the greats of silent cinema. The other was for Lee de Forest, one of the great pioneers of sound in film.


Other Notable Winners That Night:

Looks like Mr B Blank has spotted someone slightly more
appealing to him than the charming Melle Signoret!

There weren't many other winners that night. Ben Hur took pretty much everything it was eligible for. 

The female acting awards did go elsewhere though - to Simone Signoret (Room at the Top) and Shelly Winters (Diary of Anne Frank). They looked remarkably similar to each other on the night in the way they were dressed and had their hair etc - possibly why I can't find any photos of the two of them together.

Seeing as Rock has sneaked into this particular photo, I will mention that Pillow Talk got the Best Screenplay Award that year (and Doris and Thelma both got nominations as well) - and Room At The Top was the only film to steal an award from Ben Hur, by winning Best Adapted Screenplay.


Best Song:

I think I've always known this song ("High Hopes"), but I have absolutely no recollection of the film it comes from ("A Hole In The Head"). It's a nice little song though, and this bit of film is cute. Ooops there goes another rubber tree plant....

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

The general hype surrounding Ben Hur, along with the sheer scale of the thing, makes it difficult to

There are several things in this picture that may have
put the Academy off giving it their vote

argue that a different film should have won Best Picture. However, there are some very good contenders to mention (most of whom I would have much preferred to be watching now!). The other nominees were quite a varied bunch - A Nun's Story, The Diary of Anne Frank, Room At The Top and Anatomy of a Murder. I've seen all of them except Room At The Top, and I'd pick Anatomy of a Murder. It's a great courtroom drama with great acting and direction, and it was ground-breaking in its day for it's gritty realism (which got it temporarily banned). In many ways, it is a long way from Ben Hur!

Two of my favourite films were released in 1959, neither of which were nominated for Best Picture. Some Like It Hot got a Best Director nomination (and six others) - but Billy Wilder had to wait another year to cash any of these in. North By Northwest only received three (fairly minor) nominations - so nothing for Hitchcock again!


Our Verdict:

Extras - lots of them!

I was expecting this to be an endurance test - and in some ways it was. Despite what I do for a living (or possibly because of it) Biblical Epics are really not my thing. I was very good at not pointing out too many historical/ theological problems as we watched - although I did rip into the crucifixion scene more than was absolutely justified.

Having said that I have to admit that, taken in the context of the late 50s, this is a very good film. Charlton Heston is as wooden as the chariot he's racing but that doesn't seem to matter - he does fit the part well. There is so much money thrown at the whole thing, but you can see where it's been spent and it all adds to the overall story and spectacle (rather than distracting from it, as Cleopatra did a few years later). People generally remember the spectacle, but the plot is a good one. Judah Ben Hur is Jewish and grows up with a Roman best friend, Messala. As adults, politics inevitably tear them apart and this leads to Messala condemning Judah to be a slave on a galley ship. During an attack at sea, Judah saves the Roman commander, Arrius, and is basically made an honorary Roman as a reward. But he still wants to go back to Jerusalem to find his family (and his girlfriend) and make things right for them. And he has a big chariot race against Messala along the way....

Horses - lots of them!

The story itself is fictional, but it is set alongside the events of the Gospels. Jesus is there (although we never see his face - a clever move!) and Judah bumps into him on a couple of significant occasions. However, I would dispute the idea that it is, as the subheading says, "a story of the Christ". I'm not sure how much of the storytelling can be attributed to the original author and how much to the writer of the screenplay, but it does a very good balancing job of presenting a fictional story with a fictional character whilst still being bound up with one of possibly the most controversial stories and figures that has been put on screen. Whenever you portray Jesus, chances are you're going to offend someone, whether deliberately or accidentally. (This whole idea is explored to great comic effect in a scene in The Coen Brothers' Hail Caesar! where the film makers are trying to please Catholics, Protestants, Jews etc in their portrayal of Jesus. Actually, our viewing of Ben Hur was greatly enhanced by our knowledge of Hail Caesar!). Apparently Ben Hur is still the only film that is specifically classed as religious that is on the Vatican approved list of films - whatever that actually means, it does mean that it got a good few things really right in the eyes of those that could have been its fiercest critics.

Fanfares - lots of them!

There are two key set pieces in the film - the battle at sea and the (very famous) chariot race. Both are really impressive, especially when you consider the technical constraints at the time. Absolutely no CGI of any description - not even to touch up or blur out or slightly modify the overall look of any of it. Just a few good prosthetics, some deftly edited dummies here and there, a lot of very clever camera angles and a LOT of extras. The chariot race in particular was enthralling and hasn't lost any of its excitement or tension over the years. The treatment of the horses is slightly questionable for modern audiences, but otherwise it is beautifully shot and cleverly paced and I couldn't take my eyes off the thing for the 30 minutes or so that it lasted. (Which says a lot, as this sort of action film is really not my thing at all.)

Shots of the back of Jesus' head - lots of them!

Overall, the film was definitely too long and some of the quieter scenes, particularly where there is just dialogue between two or three people, were let down by them being too stagey, or by unconvincing acting (sorry Mr Heston!). The last half hour or so, where the story does start to become "of the Christ" was far better than I was expecting. They just about get away with the change of tone and pace from horses and chariots to leprosy and crucifixion. In the end, I must admit, the whole thing was quite satisfying.

I'm not sure whether I'll ever watch Ben Hur again - whereas I'll definitely watch Some Like It Hot several more times over (I think I average once a year for that one!) Having said that, Ben Hur is a very worthy Best Oscar winner and deserves to be remembered and revered as much as it is - particularly for the chariot race, but the rest of it is worth watching as well.

Gigi 1958

The Film:

Some weird twisted part of me has sort of been looking forward to this one. Not the two hours I'm going to be spending watching the thing, but the chance I've got to channel my best Hedda and Louella in ripping the thing to bits on this blog.

In case it isn't already obvious - I really, really hate this film with a passion. It's considered by many to be one of the best examples of a genre of film that I generally cite to be one of my favourites - the lavish Hollywood musical. However, this thing is just hideous.

I was probably about twelve or thirteen when I first watched it properly and it left me cold and confused - and ultimately bored. I've seen it several times since, generally by accident, but also with a morbid curiosity as to why I dislike it so much. The last time I watched it was about five or six years ago and I was suddenly and violently physically sick halfway through. It was more likely to have been a bug or something I'd eaten than an actual response to the film - but the experience has stuck with me nevertheless. I suppose at least this means it can't be quite as bad this time......

The Ceremony:

No commercials - how times have changed!

On April 6th 1959, the Awards were presented in a ceremony that followed a very similar format to the previous year - same place, same time, same idea of multiple presenters (including Bob Hope!).

David Niven was one of the presenters, and he also won Best Actor that night - the only presenter to date to win an award on the same night.

The only other point of note I can find is that the producers of the show started panicking that it was running over time (an increasing concern once the whole thing started to be broadcast live on TV) and they kept cutting things out as the show progressed. This left it running 20 minutes short and Jerry Lewis stepped in to try and fill as much time as he could (that must have been painful!) until they eventually cut to a re-run of some sport show.

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Burl, Susan and David - the splendid Ms Hiller was
appearing on the West End stage at the time!

Gigi took the most awards in one year ever (up to that point) so there wasn't a great deal else left to go around. However, it didn't even get any nominations in the Acting categories, and they were split between three different films.

David Niven and Wendy Hiller took Actor and Supporting Actress for Separate Tables, Susan Hayward won for I Want To Live! (playing a woman on death row - it looks interesting, I need to try and find it...) and Burl Ives won for The Big Country.

The Best Live Action Short Film this year is one I remember from trips to see Disney films in the 70s. Half an hour of impressive shots of the Grand Canyon with great music accompanying it. It's all there on Youtube and worth watching again!

Best Song:

One of the rare occasions where Best Song comes from Best Picture. Although there's nothing "best" about this one - it's not even the best song in the film (and none of them are really any good). But Louis Jourdan is giving it his best in this clip:

From this year onwards there is a new phenomenon that I feel I should make mention of, that will crop up from now on whenever a Musical takes Best Picture! At least one unsung singing hero makes an appearance (though not visually) in all the musical winners of the 60s. And there's one in Gigi that needs a mention. Maurice and Louis did their own songs (as above) but Minnelli wasn't convinced enough by Leslie Caron - so she is dubbed pretty much throughout by one of the dubbing greats, Betty Wand. She'll be back again in a couple of years, duetting with the ultimate dubbing superstar Marni Nixon. But, for now, to redress the balance a bit, here she is!


What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Any excuse for pouty Newman in his underwear!

Well, we could have been watching pretty much anything else that had been released in 1958 and I would have been much happier. Even if we just stick to big musicals we could have had South Pacific!

Out of the other Best Picture nominees (Separate Tables, Auntie Mame, The Defiant Ones and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof) my vote goes to Cat On A Hot Tin Roof - and not just because it features a half-undressed Paul Newman throughout. It's a really good film that went home empty-handed on the night. (To be fair, I've only seen one of the other three - Separate Tables - but it's unlikely that any of them are worse than Gigi!)

Nine Oscars?!? How!?!

Taking all the films of 1958 into consideration, we end up with another massive Oscar snub. The film that most often steals number one from Citizen Kane in critics all time lists got two technical nominations and nothing else. Despite the fact that pretty much everyone who has reviewed it since considers Vertigo to be an absolute classic. Yet another example of the Academy really not getting what Hitchcock was all about (even though the critics and the public generally did!)

Our Verdict:

Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored. Quite.

However much I loathe and abhor this monstrosity of a film, I knew the chances were very high that Andy would like it even less than I do. I have a much higher tolerance level for flashy musicals than he does. Therefore I went into this viewing with the slight hope (or dread?) that I might end up defending it in some way or that I may finally get what everyone got in 1958.

A great still from a great scene - a great rarity in this film!

That only happened in a very slight way. Although it still surprised me. Since I was about fourteen or fifteen I'd sort of presumed that I didn't like Leslie Caron and I'd based that presumption on this film. She was also (to teenaged me) a bit irritating with a plastic smile in American in Paris, far too perky in Lili and absolutely not what I had imagined when reading Daddy Long Legs. However, I take that all back. Leslie Caron is very good in Gigi. Especially in the first half of the film when she's the innocent child version of Gigi. And I really like the scenes with her Aunt. The only ridiculous thing about her performance is that she doesn't get to dance. Leslie Caron wasn't a great singer, so they dubbed her, but she was a trained dancer who had already built her career on this talent. However, there is no dancing going on in Gigi (another thing that is wrong with the film, imho). Considering that she's only really there to sound French and look pretty, she does a really good job of making her role a fair bit more than that.

And there you go. That's everything good I have to say about this film. (That and the fact that there was no projectile vomiting this time!) The rest of it is AWFUL. And I cannot even contemplate a situation where I will ever change my mind on this. It is AWFUL. I am a huge, huge fan of classic Hollywood Musicals, including several Minnelli films (Meet Me In St Louis and The Band Wagon are both brilliant!). But this one is very very bad indeed.....

Thank heavens.....that this sort of thing doesn't win Oscars any more!

Firstly, the music itself is really mediocre. There are three songs that people tend to actually remember - Thank Heavens, I Remember it Well and The Night they Invented Champagne. All of them are pretty throwaway compared to anything in Loewe and Lerner's next great triumph, My Fair Lady. And the title song that won the Oscar is a load of nothing.

Secondly, the script is really unevenly paced and even more unevenly acted. It spends ages on mundane things and then rushes the end so that you could yawn and miss the whole point (as Andy did). I'm not really complaining that the ending comes to soon (it is, after all, a mercifully short film) but it just doesn't hang together very well. People travel around a lot - up and down stairs, across ballrooms and parks, running across bridges and around fountains - but they don't really do very much when they get there.

I still reckon the ortolans got the best
deal out of this film!

And thirdly - and most concerningly - for the whole thing to be set up as a delightful love story and a lavish romance and a great family-friendly movie is at the very least weird and, when you really think about it, downright distasteful. This is a story about a 30something promiscuous playboy, being encouraged by his equally promiscuous 60something uncle in his selfish exploits with women (even as far as congratulating him for causing an attempted suicide) - all of which ultimately draws him towards a teenager who is being groomed by her family to be a courtesan (basically a 19thC version of a high- class prostitute). And we're meant to find it all romantic and charming and life-affirming. Nope, sorry. Kander and Ebb could have done something interesting with this story (with some help from Bob Fosse), but it would never have been given a U rating!

I do wonder if the reason they got away with all this was because they were French - and there was (possibly still is, to some extent) a strange fetishisation in America of all things French, particularly if they are Parisian, and fancy, and old fashioned - all things which Gigi is. If the same basic story had been set in the Bronx or Hoboken (like two of the better winners of the decade had been) it would have either been hard and gritty or totally unbelievable. But certainly not a lavish family musical.

Anyway, in conclusion, I am not now, and never have been, exaggerating this point at all. I REALLY don't like this film. It is AWFUL. Don't watch it, it's really not worth putting yourself through it. I've seen it about half a dozen times now and I have no intention of ever putting myself through that ever again!

The Bridge On The River Kwai 1957

The Film:

This one (at least in my head), along with last year's winner, really marks the start of the Good Friday / Bank Holiday Monday type of Oscar Winner. By that I mean the sort of films that I remember vaguely because they were shown on precisely those sort of holidays. You can split them into three main categories - Musicals (I tend to remember those ones including, unfortunately, next year's winner), Family Adventures (like last year's winner) and the more "Serious" dramas that were, nonetheless, seen as suitable afternoon viewing. Bridge on the River Kwai fits firmly in this category.

I know I've seen it. I know it was when I was too young to understand it. I remember that it's very hot and sweaty, there's lots of men in khaki, the whistle a lot, build a bridge and then blow it up, and Alec Guinness steals the show. I also know that I found it a bit too long and boring when I was about 10-ish. And because it's a David Lean film that means, in my experience, that there's about a 50:50 chance that I'm still going to find it a bit too long and boring even now. Although I am quite looking forward to finding out.....

The Ceremony:

Valet parking attendants all lined up and ready!

The awards were given out at the Pantages Theater in LA on March 26th 1958. For reasons I haven't yet discovered, they did away with the New York awards this year (and in subsequent years) and they also didn't have a main host this year. There are six named hosts, including Bob Hope and Donald Duck!

A couple of other interesting points.... It was the first year where the Best Picture and Best Director nominations lists were identical (ie they only covered five films between them)

Secondly, the Adapted Screenplay award was given to someone who couldn't speak a word of English, for writing a screenplay that was almost entirely in the English language. Pierre Boulle wrote the original book that Bridge on the River Kwai was based on, but the screenplay writers were both blacklisted, so he was given the credit and the award! (They now officially all share the award between them)


Other Notable Winners That Night:

Paul Newman showing why he never goes out for burgers!

It's still nearly thirty years before the beautiful Mr Newman gets his Oscar but I'm not going to pass up the chance of including a picture of him (there will be one next year as well!) so here's one to celebrate Mrs Newman's Oscar. Joanne Woodward won for The Three Faces of Eve.

Most of the other big awards went to Bridge on the River Kwai (including one to Alec Guinness) - the only other film to take home more than one award was Sayonara, another film with military themes, Japanese characters and sadistic officers. I'm sure there's something to be written about why these themes dominated this era - maybe another time....

Best Song:

It's Frankie again. Not a song I know, or a film I'm familiar with (All The Way from "The Joker Is Wild") - but this clip has me interested in finding out more:

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Whodunnit?

Having seen Bridge on the River Kwai again, I'm going to agree with the Academy on this one, but I love a good courtroom drama, and two of the best are among the nominations for Best Picture this year. I've not seen the other two nominees, Sayonara and Peyton Place (although I probably should watch Peyton Place one day), but I'd have been very happy watching Witness For The Prosecution or 12 Angry Men again.

Did he do it?

They are both very different films in both tone and setting - but they are both really well paced and acted and build up suspense really well. WitnessFTP was one of the earliest films to have a big "don't give away the ending..." marketing ploy, which apparently worked really well. It's years since I saw it and it's on my list of things to watch again very soon, as I work through my Billy Wilder box set.

I love Wilder and would happily have given him twice as many Oscars as he actually won, but I think 12 Angry Men has the edge over him here, because it's far less showy and so well done. I can't believe Henry Fonda didn't even get a nomination for his performance in this!

Our Verdict:

A job well done??

I was mostly right in my recollections - this is indeed a hot and sweaty film, with lots of men in khaki who sometimes whistle, build a bridge and then (some other men in khaki) blow it up. And Sir Alec does indeed steal the show. Where I was wrong was in it being too long and boring. It wasn't boring in the slightest. It probably could have lost about 20 minutes or so of its 160 minutes, but I actually didn't notice that it was running towards three hours by the end. And, to be fair, it wouldn't be a proper David Lean film if it was much shorter. All in all, I was far more impressed with this film than I was expecting to be.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the river......

The characters are generally well written and acted throughout - especially Guinness' Lt Colonel Nicholson and his Japanese counterpart. William Holden does a really good job as the token American (token character and token actor!). He manages to make something likeable and well-rounded out of what could have just been a posturing gung-ho maverick - and he does so without ever attempting any scene stealing from Guinness or Hawkins. It could very easily have become too macho or too much of a typical male-dominated wartime action film - with impressive set pieces, a lot of waffly nonsense about the horrors/glories (delete as appropriate) of war, or any other of many things that put me off most war films. It's true that it's very male dominated. There's only one named female character (who Holden has a fling with in Ceylon) and then a couple of local women who carry their bags for them through the jungle. However, this didn't bother me as much as I thought it was. It wasn't about "men", it was about these individual people and how their different characters coped (or didn't) under physically and mentally extreme and unusual circumstances.

Unusually (for me, anyway) I found the first half of the film to be much darker, more harrowing, challenging and difficult - and much preferred the second half, where the action was. Having said that, the earlier scenes are the ones that have stuck with me. The horrendous conditions that Nicholson is subjected to and his stubborn refusal to give any ground at all in order to stop his punishment is really well filmed and acted - and really helps you to understand and sympathise with Nicholson and the seemingly odd (and even possibly deranged) decisions that he makes later on.

I think this face completely sums up the brilliance of
Alec Guinness' performance!

It might seem slightly inappropriate, but there were several times throughout the film where Nicholson reminded me of later comic creations who are also slightly-psychotic sticklers for rules. In the early scenes when Nicholson keeps literally reaching for his rule book I couldn't help utter the phrase "Space Corps Directive Number...." and from that point I was reminded of Arnold Rimmer. In the second half the film, his walk, his stance and his physical tics whilst surveying his handiwork on the bridge looked so much like Mr Mackay from Porridge. On second thoughts, maybe that's not so inappropriate. Alec Guinness has created a character here that could just as easily exist in other contexts where people are put under some form of extreme stress and seek comfort in rules and conformity. There is far less separating good drama and good comedy than we sometimes realise.

Ey up, what's this rope doing here?

I find myself in danger of rambling on and on about this film. I've still got plenty I could say about Nicholson's counterpart Colonel Saito (arguably a very similar character, just with a Japanese sense of honour, rather than a British one), or about the journey of the explosives party to their inevitable catastrophic meeting (a bit like Titanic and Iceberg....only done well!), or about Major Clipton and his voice of reason (sadly not listened to enough).

This probably means that the film has more than done its job. It was compelling, interesting, thought provoking (we talked about it afterwards more than any other film this decade) and therefore a very worthy winner. I will almost certainly watch it again, and I recommend that others do the same - even if (especially if) its "not your sort of film". If you think that, you're probably wrong....