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....

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.