1960 took me a long time to sit back and consider. I started with this year because it was the last of Alfred Hitchcock's Best Director nominations; I wrap it up with an abundance of outstanding films of every genre, the beginning of a new decade heralding the coming of a new sensibility. The variety is evident in the number of nominees I wound up with: 38 different films are named within the 18 categories,
The 1960 Retro Hollmann Awards:
Best Ensemble
The Little Shop of Horrors
2. A Bucket of Blood; 3. Carry On Nurse (casting by Betty White); 4. North West Frontier; 5. Where the Boys Are
A Bucket of Blood and The Little Shop of Horrors both feel like real communities, with everyone committed to their part; Little Shop just gets the edge because it's more focused on who it features and how to use them. Carry On, Nurse boasts much the same cast members as its immediate predecessor carry On, Sergeant, but gets the edge for adding and effectively utilizing the talents of two actors I like, Joan Hickson and Wilfrid Hyde-White. Hyde-White is also among the ensemble of North West Frontier, where it's difficult to choose a best-in-show because everyone - Indian prince, Dutch journalist, English aristocrat, American tutor - plays their part so vividly. Where the Boys Are is cast astutely, exquisitely to allow for maximum musical and comedic talent, as well as convincing projections of the virginal and the profane.
Best Director
Billy Wilder
The Apartment
2. Alfred Hitchcock for Psycho; 3. Ingmar Bergman for The Virgin Spring; 4. Elia Kazan for Wild River; 5. Otto Preminger for Exodus
Billy Wilder has always mixed his pathos with humor, talented at delivering both genuine comedy and straight-up melodrama; The Apartment is the perfect balance, sardonic without abandoning hope or romance. An easy enough pick for the best of the year, though there's a reason Psycho is Alfred Hitchcock's most famous film: it's provocative, his choices feel fresh even 66 years later, it's just...great! The Virgin Spring's Ingmar Bergman takes on challenging material and deals with it directly while still preserving a flavor of folk mythology, while Wild River's Elia Kazan is aware of how good ideas can still rub people - individuals, communities, etc. - the wrong way. And dammit, I just love Exodus, and that doesn't happen without a director like Otto Preminger guiding it to success.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
The Virgin Spring
Börje Lundh
2. The Time Machine (William Tuttle / Sydney Guilaroff); 3. Circus of Horrors (Trevor Crole-Rees / Maude Onslow); 4. Sunrise at Campobello (Gordon Bau / Jean Burt Reilly); 5. The Entertainer (Tony Sforzini / Bill Griffiths)
The Virgin Spring feels real, feels detailed, from Max Von Sydow's chinstrap to the teeth of the rapists to the blind eye of the miller who may be Odin. We can look back with cocked brow now, but I quite like how The Time Machine uses body paint and wigs to depict the difference between Eloi and Morlock, and the aging makeup on Alan Young is effective. Circus of Horrors is all about scars and surgery and gore and general destruction of the body, why wouldn't it be here? Sunrise at Campobello subtly turns its cast of actors into historical personages. The Entertainer is more narrow in its focus, but there's no denying that the subtlety of greasepaint makes a difference in both the titular performer and the audience's reaction to him.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Elmer Gantry
Richard Brooks
from the novel by Sinclair Lewis
2. Wild River (Paul Osborn); 3. Exodus (Dalton Trumbo); 4. Where the Boys Are (George Wells); 5. The Unforgiven (Ben Maddow)
Biased, yes: my familiarity with the source material allows me to proclaim Elmer Gantry the Best Adapted Screenplay, as I know the source from which it worked and, therefore, the adaptation necessary to make it into the film it is without losing Sinclair Lewis's passion, intelligence, or coherence. Wild River seamlessly adapts two unrelated novels into a single cohesive narrative ahout specific people, places, and events. Exodus tells a complex and hotly contested epic story with understanding of its characters and without claimed allegiance. Where the Boys Are deals with maure matters frankly, wittily, seriously, realistically. The Unforgiven is just such a wonderful tale brilliantly executed, the kind of political storytelling that keeps you nervous.
Best Supporting Actress
Paula Prentiss as Tuggle Carpenter
Where the Boys Are
2. Jo Van Fleet in Wild River; 3. Lillian Gish in The Unforgiven; 4. Jean Stapleton in Bells Are Ringing; 5. Peggy Wood in The Story of Ruth
Paula Prentiss in Where the Boys Are gives THE performance of the year for me, and while you can argue the category placement, it is undeniable that she deserves a place among this year’s 20 acting nominees. She’s deadpan, sincere, unafraid to call people out, the protector - Prentiss makes you believe that Tuggle wants to be a mother because, in a way, she already is, the mother of her gaggle of friends - and, most importantly for a comedy, hilarious. She’s traditional but not a square, modern without the desperation to prove herself progressive. and as practical as she may seem, she’s still human - look at how she takes to TV, despite her misgivings. “If he doesn’t say something about something tonight, I think I’ll clobber him” - I believe it! We believe the same of Wild River’s Jo Van Fleet, who looks a small old woman but whose stance and voice tell of generations of hard living, and determination to survive. She’s a neat companion character to The Unforgiven’s Lillian Gish, a nurturing, loving frontier woman who turns ferocious when her way of life is threatened. Jean Stapleton stole Bells Are Ringing for me, a performance pitched perfectly to Zany that is never Too Much. Whatever other faults The Story of Ruth may possess - and there are many - I have not been able to shake Peggy Wood’s complex rendering of the widow Naomi since first I saw it.
Best Cinematography
1. The Virgin Spring
Sven Nykvist
2. Jazz on a Summer's Day
Aram Avakian / Raymond Phelan / Bert Stern
3. Psycho
John L. Russell
4. Lola Montès
Christian Matras
5. Wild River
Ellsworth Fredericks
Best Original Screenplay
The Apartment
Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond
2. North West Frontier (Robin Estridge / Frank S. Nugent / Patrick Ford / Will Price); 3. The Facts of Life (Norman Panama / Melvin Frank); 4. The Little Shop of Horrors (Charles B. Griffith); 5. Hiroshima, mon amour (Marguerite Duras)
Wilder’s aforementioned balance that creates the modern dramedy is a masterly directorial feat, but it is also there on the page, and for that we credit not just Wilder but his New York-raised collaborator Diamond, who doubtlessly brought his personal knowledge of the city to the depictions of barflies, eavesdroppable apartments, clandestine Chinese restaurants and drunken Christmases. North West Frontier credits itself as an adaptation of an earlier screenplay by Frank S. Nugent, but as it was not produced, it seems to me that this is one of those bizarre accreditations that would nowadays give him a “story by” credit, as I have done; anyway, it’s a tight piece of historical adventure writing. The excitement and disappointment of midlife adolescence is screamingly funny in The Facts of Life, while The Little Shop of Horrors is funnily screaming as it dispatches its cast of eccentrics for the sake of floral glory. And Hiroshima mon amour interweaves the personal and the political, our responsibility to The Times We Live In in conflict with our individual human passions and emotions.
Best Costume Design
Pollyanna
Walter Plunkett
2. The Virgin Spring (Marik Vos-Lundh); 3. Lola Montès (Georges Annenkov); 4. Spartacus (Valles); 5. Heller in Pink Tights (Edith Head)
Much was set aside: the Technicolor Biblical finery of Esther and the King and The Story of Ruth, the cold weather spin on frontier wear across 50 years in Ice Palace, the noir styles delineating position in Portrait in Black, the qipaos of The World of Suzie Wong, the millennia of fashion in The Time Machine, and the khakis of Exodus. In the end, I went with Pollyanna for the win, for at the very outset I was enamored of these period designs and how the lace, patterns, and colors told you enough both about the characters and how they saw themselves, with Jane Wyman's jeweled blues and Adolphe Menjou's dusty smoking jackets and Hayley Mills' big bows standing out most. But that was not without first considering the medieval monochrome of The Virgin Spring, the theatrical opulence of Lola Montès, the togas and gladiatorial armor of Spartacus, and, finally, the theatricality of Western wear both on and offstage in Heller in Pink Tights.
Best Production Design
House of Usher
Daniel Haller, production design
Harry Reif, set decoration
Burt Schoenberg, paintings
2. The Apartment (Alexandre Trauner / Edward G. Boyle); 3. North West Frontier (Alex Vetchinsky); 4. The World of Suzie Wong (John Box); 5. Sunrise at Campobello (Edward Carrere / George James Hopkins)
First of all, I understand why they separated Color and Black-and-White at the actual 1960 Oscars, it allowed them to honor more great work. In theory, anyway. Now, what exactly am I looking for here? The most believable evocation of the stated settings? The most in-tune with the film's tone? Something right down the middle? Or perhaps just a set that I can't get out of my head, so specific, so outstanding was it, in its service both to the narrative and my enjoyment of the film? Yeah, I guess it's all of that. So that's why I say (with apologies to the almost-made-its, Psycho and Lola Montès and Bells Are Ringing): Sunrise at Campobello with its opening up of the proscenium to allow us into the Roosevelts' home, The World of Suzie Wong with its vivid hotel and cafe at the center, the delapidated wooden train of North West Frontier, the vivid New York life of The Apartment, and, at Number One, House of Usher, a former testament to hubris now fallen into quick and shocking disrepair, as though its inhabitants were being reclaimed even now by the Devil to be brought down into Hell - it is why, too, I've included the artist behind the eerie portraits of the Usher line among the winners, so key is he to conveying the idea of this house, this line, as Evil, as Doomed.
Best Score
1. Psycho
Bernard Herrmann
2. Elmer Gantry
André Previn
3. House of Usher
Les Baxter
4. High Time
Henry Mancini
5. Hiroshima, mon amour
Georges Delerue / Giovanni Fusco
Best Actor
Jack Lemmon as CC Baxter
The Apartment
2. Anthony Perkins in Psycho; 3. Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry; 4. Bob Hope in The Facts of Life; 5. Alec Guinness in Our Man in Havana
Rare, if ever, has the alchemy for performer and character come together to create the perfect performance, a role tailor-made that fits the actor like a glove, and which he knocks out of the park, no trace of "acting" to be seen. And here it happened thrice: Jack Lemmon in The Apartment, Anthony Perkins in Psycho, and Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry. Perkins' performance is so iconic, so genius, it changed all perception of him from nice boy heartthrob to kook, while Lancaster himself said his Oscar-winning performance was the easiest role he played, just himself. But Lemmon? I suspect people felt the same about him: what is Felix Unger, eight years later, but a version of CC Baxter, all neuroses and adenoids? But there is something superb about Lemmons' ability to telegraph Baxter's own hatred of himself, a man doing what it takes to climb up the corporate ladder for...well, what? He's not particularly ambitious, he doesn't seem to feel a real attachment to his work, he's going along and moving on up because that is what you're supposed to do. And Lemmon somehow takes this worm of a person and makes us care, makes him human enough to care for, makes him full of possibility despite how pathetic he is; we see that he is capable of becoming a mensch. Bringing up the rear are Bob Hope and his undercurrent of annoyance in The Facts of Life and Alec Guinness going from spy spoof to genuine thriller in Our Man in Havana.
Best Sound
Exodus
John Cox / Paddy Cunningham / Red Law, sound
Winston Ryder, sound effects editor
2. North West Frontier (E.G. Daniels / Roy Fry / Gordon K. McCallum / Don Sharpe); 3. The Virgin Spring (Evald Andersson / Aaby Wedin); 4. Jazz on a Summer's Day (Elliot Gruskin); 5. The Alamo (Don Hall Jr. / Fred Hynes / Gordon Sawyer / Jack Solomon / Harry Alphin / Roger Heman Sr.)
A tough decision between Exodus and North West Frontier, but I do think the former deals with the scale and complexity of its soundscape brilliantly: radio broadcasts of varying quality depending on who's listening and where; various loudspeakers to address constituents, tired emigres, and/or a kibbutz; soldiers marching, guns firing, bombs going off; the sound of shoes against cement new and old. And North West Frontier also has explosions and fires and battles and screaming crowds, plus a train! The Virgin Spring uses the calming pastoral audio to disarm us for the horror unfolding within it, and the blunt sounds of vengeance to make us ill instead of us give us catharsis. From the very beginning, overlaying the sound of morning in Newport with the Jimmy Giuffre 3 performing, Jazz on a Summer's Day tells us simultaneously the story of a concert and of a community. Call me a sucker for war films in this category, but The Alamo does deliver cannons, gunfire, marching across sand and plains, and whoop-dee-doo drunken antics.
Best Supporting Actor
David Opatoshu as Akiva Ben Canaan
Exodus
2. Mel Welles in The Little Shop of Horrors; 3. Lee J. Cobb in Exodus; 4. Alan Young in The Time Machine; 5. Wilfrid Hyde-White in North West Frontier
David Opatoshu is so still, he watches calmly, assesses, then makes a final call without breaking a sweat - people are killed, children are orphaned, innocents terminated, and he does it coldly, but not dispassionately. He fights for his cause, and he's quite effective. Unshakable performance. As is that given by Mel Welles as the constantly kvetching florist, and Lee J. Cobb as Opatoshu's more diplomatic but no less fanatic brother, and Alan Young as the time traveler's best friend and his descendants, and Wilfrid Hyde-White as a right Britisher with an unexpected heroic streak.
Best Actress
Shirley MacLaine as Fran Kubelik
The Apartment
2. Jean Simmons in Elmer Gantry; 3. Janet Leigh in Psycho; 4. Lucille Ball in The Facts of Life; 5. Eva Marie Saint in Exodus
It does break my heart that I can't give the win to Jean Simmons, giving the performance of her career while making it look easy, but Shirley MacLaine is undeniable to me. Why? Because! Watch her in this movie! She's phenomenal! Without her giving this performance, the entire thing would crumble, we wouldn't believe either man's attraction nor her fragility nor her surprising steel were it not for MacLaine and how she plays it. And it turns out, I do think Janet Leigh is the Lead in Psycho, even after she exits the movie! Lucille Ball brought some gravitas to her romance and subsequent battles with Bob Hope, and Eva Marie Saint...well, I found her enchanting as the do-gooder who keeps trying, bless her, and whose political ideas seem based around the people around her.
Best Editing
Psycho
George Tomasini
2. The Apartment (Daniel Mandell); 3. The Virgin Spring (Oscar Rosander); 4. The Time Machine (George Tomasini); 5. North West Frontier (Frederick Wilson)
I can name each sequence that brought us here: Marion waking up in the car to a highway patrolman, Marion in a rainstorm blinded by lights coming upon the Bates Motel, Norman watching her through a peephole, THE SHOWER, the disposal of the car, Arbogast visits Mother, Lila’s investigation…for those reasons and many more, Psycho clears. Followed by the perfection of The Apartment, the patient dialing-up of tension of The Virgin Spring, the time travel of The Time Machine (from the same editor as Psycho), and the action of North West Frontier.
Best Original Song
1. “Eee-O-Eleven” from Ocean’s Eleven
music by Jimmy Van Heusen
lyrics by Sammy Cahn
2. “Turn on the Sunshine” from Where the Boys Are
music by Neil Sedaka
lyrics by Howard Greenfield
3. “Tai paidia tou Peiraia” from Never On Sunday
music and lyrics by Manos Hatzidakis
4. “The Awakening” from Murder, Inc.
music and lyrics by George David Weiss
5. “Faraway Part of Town” from Pepe
music by André Previn
lyrics by Dory Previn
Best Visual Effects
The Time Machine
Paul Wurtzel, special effects
Wah Chang / Gene Warren / Tim Baar, special photographic effects
Tom Holland / David Pal / Dan Sahlin, stop motion animators
2. The Last Voyage (Augie Lohman / Robert Bonnig); 3. Sink the Bismarck! (Howard Lydecker / Bill Warrington); 4. The Legend of the White Serpent (Eiji Tsuburaya / Akira Watanabe / Sadao Iizuka / Hiroshi Mukoyama); 5. The Lost World (L.B. Abbott / James B. Gordon / Emil Kosa, Jr.)
The Time Machine is obvious, and for good reason, as it recreates a bombed-out England across multiple wars, dirigibles in the sky, plants and fashion rapidly changing through stop-motion, mattes expanding a street or a set of steps to become a city or a Great Hall, explosions all around...it takes us through time, and much of it holds up! Followed, of course, by the disaster of The Last Voyage, the sea battles of Sink the Bismarck!, the sorcery of The Legend of the White Serpent, and the dinosaurs of The Lost World.
Best Motion Picture of the Year
The Apartment
produced by Billy Wilder
2. Psycho (produced by Alfred Hitchcock); 3. Exodus (produced by Otto Preminger); 4, The Virgin Spring (produced by Ingmar Bergman / Allan Ekelund); 5. Where the Boys Are (produced by Joe Pasternak)
6. North West Frontier; 7. Elmer Gantry; 8. House of Usher; 9. Wild River; 10. A Bucket of Blood and The Little Shop of Horrors
38 films nominated, 16 winners, and the rare case of one film sweeping Picture, Director, Lead Acting, and Screenplay - only The Devils has done so before.
No comments:
Post a Comment