We both start and end the sixties with films about the struggles of living in contemporary New York - The Apartment and Midnight Cowboy are two very different films, but are basically just different ways of tackling a very similar problem: how to cope, how to survive, how to put bad experiences behind you, make your own mark and find friendship and companionship in the world. They also both have a much more open attitude to sex and relationships than we've seen in our winners since the thirties. Both the Hays Code and blacklisting are pretty much done with by now and the American movie industry is becoming more and more influenced by those of other countries. Five of the ten winners are incredibly British in their themes and production (interestingly, those five are the bottom five in my list below....) and of the other five, one had a British director and another had two British lead actors.
The "blockbuster" isn't really in evidence in this decade, as it was in the fifties. With the obvious exception of Lawrence of Arabia (and, to some extent, at least some of the musicals), these aren't long epic films with pots of money thrown at them. Most of the winners fall in one of two categories - "serious" musicals or character-driven drama. We double our tally of musicals in one fell swoop (and there is, to date, still only one more musical winner to come!) - but all four of these musicals have a darker edge to them than the ones that came before.
We finally get a black character that has a name and isn't a servant. We get a couple of characters that are actually gay (not just probables or caricatures) - although it will be a while before they aren't stereotypes! And we finally see our first bums since the soldiers had their medicals in the 20s and our first (female) nipples since a brief glimpse of Clara Bows - not that I've been specifically looking out for them, but they are a definite sign of a change social attitudes, public tastes and the direction that "serious" film-making was going in. And we have all that to come in the seventies.....
My Top Ten (as they stand today!) is as follows:
1. The Apartment
2= West Side Story
2= The Sound of Music
4 Midnight Cowboy
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| Shirley and Jack - best film couple of the 60s winners. |
6. My Fair Lady
7. A Man For All Seasons
8. Oliver!
9. Lawrence of Arabia
10. Tom Jones
Best Picture
Nominees:
The Apartment
West Side Story
The Sound of Music
In The Heat of the Night
Midnight Cowboy
And the winner is.....
The Apartment
I couldn't separate out my two favourite musicals on the list - and that allowed this one to sneak through and steal the prize. One of the best things about this challenge so far has been realising how many Billy Wilder films I already knew and loved - and how many more were out there! In terms of Oscar success, this one was his peak. It's brilliant, and it still holds up today, nearly sixty years later.
Best Director
Nominees:
Billy Wilder (The Apartment)
Robert Wise (West Side Story, The Sound of Music)
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| Two of the best film musicals of all time! |
Norman Jewison (In The Heat of the Night)
David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia)
And the winner is.....
Robert Wise
I had to give it to Wise over Wilder - because he was the main man behind the next two films on my list, which are two of the greatest film musicals of all time. He also had to deal with a grumpy Natalie Wood on the first of those and a grumpy Christopher Plummer *and* a load of children who were growing too fast on the second one!
Best Actor
Nominees:
Jack Lemmon (The Apartment)
Paul Schofield (A Man For All Seasons)
Peter O'Toole (Lawrence of Arabia)
Rod Steiger (In The Heat of the Night)
Dustin Hoffman (Midnight Cowboy)
And the winner is.....
Rod Steiger
I really thought it would be Jack Lemmon for this one - but in the end I went for Rod Steiger because I was stunned by how good he was. In his first couple of scenes there were so many layers and nuances to his performance and he made that character incredibly sympathetic. Great performance!
Best Actress
Nominees:
Julie Andrews (The Sound of Music)
Shirley MacLaine (The Apartment)
Rita Moreno (West Side Story)
Audrey Hepburn (My Fair Lady)
Wendy Hiller (A Man For All Seasons)
And the winner is.....
Rita Moreno
An unashamedly sentimental award here. Again, I thought I would be going with The Apartment and giving it to Shirley MacLaine - but since we watched West Side Story again Rita has refused to go away! She wipes the floor with everyone in the film and she is still going strong and making us laugh and cry and cheer as Lydia in One Day At A Time. She was a presenter at the Oscars this year, wearing the same dress as she wore when she won - fabulous woman!
Best Non-Winning Picture
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| See you in a few years' time! |
Nominees:
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
To Kill A Mockingbird
Psycho
Mary Poppins
Doctor Zhivago
The Graduate
And the winner is.....
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
A tough one this, because there are so many great films that didn't get the prize. I could have gone with Psycho, which didn't even get nominated. Or any one of the others up there for that matter. In previous decades I've chosen one that was far worthier than the film that beat it, but I don't think that applies (objectively, at least) to any of those. So I've gone with a personal favourite. I think I'm ok with the fact that a very different kind of cowboy took the award that year, but I love Butch and Sundance - and not just because they are so lovely to look at! It's the better of the two Newman/Redford films - but at least we get to see the other one pretty soon...
Worst Picture
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| Even Sexy-Finney can't save this dross.... |
Nominees:
Lawrence of Arabia
Tom Jones
And the winner is.....
Tom Jones!!!
I was even reluctant to put Lawrence of Arabia in there - as I think my dislike of that film was just personal taste, and I do appreciate what a great piece of film-making it is. Tom Jones, however, was just rubbish. I genuinely don't understand how or why anyone now or then can see it as anything more than mediocre. Baffling!
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