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Like It Hot and Anatomy of a Murder pretty much put paid to it by the end of the decade, although it wasn't officially repealed until as late as 1968) and McCarthyism and blacklisting makes its presence felt, with various people suddenly losing acting careers, being replaced behind the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
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| 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
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| Bored people, being boring and carrying on being bored! |
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.
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