1970, Day Twelve: Best Picture of the Year

This has been one of the more interesting retrospectives for me. It's the first time in a while that I've disagreed with all but one of Oscar's choices (though it was close for some of them!). I've liked more movies than I've disliked, many of them equally, so that making a Top Ten and deciding a winner here have been equally frustrating tasks. I'm sure it was the same for the Academy 50 years ago; only the National Board of Review agreed with their pick:

Unless...I agree, too? Oh, ho-ho, read on, my friends...

1970, Day Eight: Adapted Screenplay

A film whose creators insisted was mostly improvised took the award for writing, something even credited scribe Ring Lardner, Jr., was surprised by:

The winner is the only one based on a work I've never been exposed to. The original MASH is a novel credited to Richard Hooker, the joint pen name of former military surgeon Dr. H. Richard Hormberger and journalist w.C. Heinz. The 1968 best-seller was followed by a series of sequels and inspired a stage play, a television series, and, of course, the movie. But I've never read it! I've read the play andf watched the show, but those are my only other MASH frames of reference.

The other nominees? I know them. I own copies of both Airport and Women in Love and read the original stage versions of I Never Sang for My Father and Lovers and Other Strangers in high school. Did the movies honor the source material? Who cares, it's cinema, they need to do their oWn thing. Did they accomplish that? Let's see!

1970, Day Four: Original Score

This year's field was dominated by Best Picture nominees: Airport, Patton, and the winner, Love Story:

Two exceptions, though, one from a newbie, the other from a veteran of the game...

Cromwell is a historical drama in the vein of Anne of the Thousand Days or A Man for All Seasons, depicting the clash between statesman Oliver Cromwell and King Charles I - a clash that included Civil war, the execution of the King, and Cromwell's becoming head of state and government. It feels like a film made for those who already know the history, with the many people and their titles and their loyalties increasingly difficult to track - I know there's betrayal and double-crosses and whatnot, but I could not for the life of me figure out who was betraying or why. Hoarse Richard Harris disappoints; Alec Guinness is great. This was one of the film's two nominations; it won for Costume Design.

Sunflower is a drama about a woman who refuses to believe her husband, declared MIA, died in war; she searches for him in the Soviet Union and uncovers the shocking truth. Sophia Loren (who this year, returns to cinema in Netflix's The Life Ahead) is quite gutting in the film. Otherwise, I wasn't too crazy about it. I don't mind its score, though, which you can hear, alongside the other nominees, right here:

1970, Day Three: Supporting Actress

Of the five nominees for Best Supporting Actress, four came from Best Picture nominees. The one exception is Lee Grant, nominated for The Landlord, the film's only representative at the Academy Awards. 

The directorial debut from In the Heat of the Night's Oscar-winning editor Hal Ashby, The Landlord is a comedy about a wealthy white boy who buys an apartment building in the predominately black NYC neighborhood of Park Slope with the intention to gut and renovate it, but finds his efforts thwarted by the tenants. Perhaps a wee long, it's still a funny, thoughtful, impactful film. 

Grant was lucky, as any of the film's female ensemble could've been nominated: Pearl Bailey as the shotgun-toting ambassador of the building's residents, Diana Sands as the beautiful downstairs neighbor, Marki Bey as the mixed race dancer who starts to date the landlord, Susan Anspach as the landlord's vaguely liberal sister. Not entirely surprising that the film only garnered one nomination - due to the Academy's relative conservatism, not due to the quality of the film; after all, it took them another 13 years to honor the cinematographer Gordon willis, whose work on The Landlord is...so...good.

The rest, as I say, came from Best Picture-nominated films. Let's talk about all of them:

In the Months Ahead...

Powering down in September to focus on back-to-back retrospectives.

In November, we'll look at the films of 1970, featuring these Best Picture nominees:

But first, in October, it's the cinema of August 1, 1931-July 31, 1932 - the Fifth Academy Awards - featuring these Best Picture nominees:

See y'all in October!

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Casting Coup Month: Airport

NOMINATIONS

Best Picture

Best Supporting Actress - Helen Hayes (WON)

Best Supporting Actress - Maureen Stapleton

Best Adapted Screenplay - George Seaton

Best Cinematography - Ernest Laszlo

Best Film Editing - Stuart Gilmore

Best Scoring: Original Music - Alfred Newman

Best Costume Design - Edith Head

Best Art Direction-Set Decoration - Alexander Golitzen, E. Preston Ames, Jack D. Moore, Mickey S. Michaels

Best Sound - Ronald Pierce, David Moriarty

You've seen my thoughts and feelings on Airport. Let's get right to the Casting Coup madness!

ON THE GROUND

CINDY BAKERSFELD

Who is She: Mel's wife, a woman climbing the ranks of Chicago society without her husband. Realizing their marriage was dead long ago -- and citing the airport as one of the problems -- Cindy has started seeing other people. Because he chooses the airport over another society to-do tonight, Cindy goes to Lincoln personally to have it out with him one last time.

Originally played by:

Dana Wynter (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Something of Value)

My Choice: Indie Spirit Nominee for Best Actress (Woman Thou Art Loosed)

Kimberly Elise (Diary of a Mad Black Woman, For Colored Girls)
See, Cindy's not a bad person, she just has different needs that her husband is unwilling to serve. Elise can be classy like Cindy, but she can also play that complicated storyline without making her into a bitch.

INEZ GUERRERO

Who is She: The naive, struggling wife of D.O. Knowing that they're behind on the rent, the kids are living with her sister, and her husband got laid off, she's utterly confused by the appearance of a receipt for a ticket to Rome. It's not until later that she also realizes that some dynamite is missing...and becomes lost and horrified when she puts the two together.

Originally played by: Academy Award/BAFTA Award Winner for Best Supporting Actress (Reds), Golden Globe Winner for Best Supporting Actress (Airport)

Maureen Stapleton (Lonelyhearts, Interiors)

My Choice: Academy Award/Hollmann Award Nominee for Best Actress (Frozen River) and Best Supporting Actress (The Fighter), Golden Globe/SAG Award Winner for Best Supporting Actress (The Fighter), Indie Spirit Winner for Best Actress (Frozen River)

Melissa Leo (The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Everybody's Fine)
Strangely enough, the Guerrero's are neither Spanish nor Italian. What the what? So yeah, I went to Leo when it came time for a working-class role, but for a different reason. See, we rarely get to see Leo in a weakened state, though we see her vulnerable. This would be a change-up for her, allowing her to play a woman who nothing but vulnerability. And she'd be great.

TANYA LIVINGSTON

Who is She: Public relations agent for Trans America (Trans Global in the film). Tanya is an efficient woman who takes her career very seriously. Divorced with a daughter, Tanya is strong and capable enough, but there is one man whose company she enjoys -- Mel Bakersfeld.

Originally played by: BAFTA Award Nominee for Best Foreign Actress (Breathless), Golden Globe Nominee for Best Actress in a Drama (Lilith)

Jean Seberg (The Mouse That Roared, Paint Your Wagon)

My Choice: Academy Award/BAFTA Award Winner for Best Supporting Actress (Michael Clayton), Golden Globe Nominee for Best Actress in a Drama (The Deep End) and Best Supporting Actress (Michael Clayton), Indie Spirit Nominee for Best Actress (The Deep End), SAG Award Nominee for Best Supporting Actress (Michael Clayton) and Best Ensemble (Adaptation, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Hollmann Award Nominee for Best Actress (I Am Love) and Best Supporting Actress (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

Tilda Swinton (The Limits of Control, We Need to Talk About Kevin)
She can be professional and buttoned-down, but she can also feel passion. It's that combination that she's been so adept at conveying in many of her roles, actually. Swinton likes to have fun, too -- doesn't Airport seem like the type of thing she'd do just 'cause?

JOE PATRONI
Who is He: The frank TWA menchanic who is charged with getting the Aereo-Mexican 707 off the main runway. Bad enough the plane got stuck in the mud, but that runway is the only thing standing between life and death for the passengers of The Golden Argosy. Patroni loves chewing on cigars and making love to his wife, reportedly at the same time. He's a guy who knows his job, and a few others', too.

Originally played by: Academy Award Winner for Best Supporting Actor (Cool Hand Luke), Golden Globe Nominee for Best Supporting Actor (Cool Hand Luke, Airport)

George Kennedy (Death on the Nile, Charade)

My Choice: Academy Award Nominee/SAG Award Winner for Best Supporting Actor (Cinderella Man), Golden Globe Winner for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy (Barney's Version), Indie Spirit Winner for Best Actor (Sideways), SAG Award Winner for Best Ensemble (Sideways)

Paul Giamatti (Duplicity, The Last Station)
Can he play blue-collar roughness? What do you think? I think yes, obviously, and I also think he's comfortable with a cigar.

HARRY STANDISH
Who is He: Customs official. He's trained to notice the odd behavior people exhibit when they're hiding something, and the way Guerrero holds his briefcase makes Standish suspicious. Unable to check himself -- Guerrero isn't coming into the country, but leaving for Rome aboard The Golden Argosy -- Standish reports his suspicions to Tanya. Good thing, too: his niece is aboard that same flight.

Originally played by:

Lloyd Nolan (Peyton Place, Hannah and Her Sisters)

My Choice:

John Cho (Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, Star Trek)
I didn't think of him as being as old as Nolan. Cho is old enough to have been with customs a while -- he's thirty-eight, you know. An underused actor, really; he's more than Harold (though he's great in those films).

IN THE AIR

D.O. GUERRERO
Who is He: A demolitions man in construction, nothing ever goes right for Guerrero. Blessed with a short temper and poor judgment, Guerrero has single-handedly left his family broke. So what is his final solution? Take out a life insurance policy on himself, then detonate a deadly bomb aboard The Golden Argosy, heading across the Atlantic for Rome. A nervous, twitchy kind of guy, Guerrero is bound to screw something up. A defensive, dangerous individual.

Originally played by: Academy Award Winner for Best Supporting Actor (Johnny Eager), BAFTA Award Nominee for Best Foreign Actor (Shane)

Van Heflin (Black Widow, 3:10 to Yuma)

My Choice: Academy Award/SAG Award Nominee for Best Supporting Actor (Fargo), Golden Globe Nominee for Best Supporting Actor (Seabiscuit), Indie Spirit Winner for Best Actor (Fargo), SAG Award Nominee for Best Ensemble (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Seabiscuit, Bobby)

William H. Macy (Marmaduke, The Lincoln Lawyer)
Macy himself once joked about the amount of losers he has to play in films. The book described the character as tired-looking, with a sandy mustache. Refer to that picture above, please. Consider his desperation in films like Fargo and Magnolia and you'll understand where this is coming from.

CAPTAIN ANSON HARRIS
Who is He: Line captain aboard The Golden Argosy. He's flying tonight, but is in the middle of his six-month checkup, run by Captain Demerest. Harris is a nice guy, a flawless pilot, a man who refuses to put his personal moral standards on anyone else.

Originally played by:

Barry Nelson (Johnny Eager, The Shining)

My Choice:

Matthew Fox (My Boyfriend's Back, Speed Racer)
I just wanted someone who could believably be on the same level as Hamm, not be too old or too young, who I could see as a pilot. Some actors just pop into my head when I'm reading a book; this is one of them.

GWEN MEIGHEN
Who is She: An English stewardess having an affair with Captain Demerest, she now carries his child. Gwen, a level-headed young woman and first-rate stewardess, is deciding whether to adopt or abort the baby when the whole rigmarole with the bomber begins. She is genuinely in love with Vernon, but doesn't expect anything in return...due to his married state.

Originally played by: Golden Globe Nominee for Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy (Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe) and Best Supporting Actress (Under the Volcano)

Jacqueline Bisset (Murder on the Orient Express, Domino)

My Choice: SAG Award Nominee for Best Ensemble (An Education)

Rosamund Pike (Made in Dagenham, Barney's Version)
A beautiful English actress who's displayed a remarkable range of class and pluck in her film roles. She's just on the brink of filmmakers and audiences in the US discovering and appreciating her talents, and putting them to good use.

MRS. ADA QUONSETT

Who is She: An elderly widow from San Diego who frequently stows away on passenger planes to visit her daughter in new York. Caught by Tanya Livingston, she commits the ultimate rebellion by slipping out from TransAm's clutches and stowing away on The Golden Argosy. Anyplace is better than a return to California! What she doesn't realize is that the empty seat she chooses to occupy is right besides Guerrero and his bomb!

Originally played by: Academy Award Winner for Best Actress (The Sin of Madelon Claudet) and Best Supporting Actress (Airport), Golden Globe Nominee for Best Actress in a Drama (Anastasia) and in a Musical/Comedy (Herbie Rides Again)

Helen Hayes (A Farewell to Arms, TV's Murder with Mirrors)

My Choice:

Betty White ("The Golden Girls", Lake Placid)
Yeah, we all saw this coming. Again, the most obvious is sometimes the best, and who would be better at playing this part than Betty White? If the First Lady of the American Theatre can handle it, I think it's good enough for the First Lady of Television.

YOUR PROTAGONISTS

MEL BAKERSFELD
Who is He: General manager of Lincoln International Airport. Bakersfeld has his hands full tonight: a snowstorm tying up air traffic and burying runways; a plane stuck in the middle of the main runway; protestors from a neighboring town demonstrating outside; a looming divorce with his wife of fifteen years; and a bomber on The Golden Argosy, piloted by his brother-in-law, Vernon Demerest. Mel is a serious man, formerly a sort of enfant terrible before a promised FAA appointment went sour. He's a logical person, but he doesn't always make the right decisions. Nevertheless, if there's someone you want in charge on a night like this, it's Mel Bakersfeld.

Originally played by: Academy Award/Golden Globe Winner for Best Actor [in a Drama] (Elmer Gantry), BAFTA Award Winner for Best Actor (Birdman of Alcatraz, Atlantic City)

Burt Lancaster (From Here to Eternity, The Rainmaker)

My Choice: Academy Award/Golden Globe Nominee for Best Actor [in a Drama] (Hotel Rwanda), BAFTA Award Nominee for Best Supporting Actor (Crash), Indie Spirit Winner for Best First Feature (Crash) and Best Supporting Actor (Things Behind the Sun), SAG Award Winner for Best Ensemble (Traffic, Crash)

Don Cheadle (TV's The Rat Pack, Iron Man 2)
The novel described a lean man, and when I thought to myself, "Hm, who's a lean actor that could believably portray a leader strong enough to handle an airport?" Automatically, my brain latched on to Don Cheadle.

CAPTAIN VERNON DEMEREST
Who is He: The womanizing captain of The Golden Argosy, though he's not flying tonight. Instead, he's checking on the performance of Captain Harris, a routine checkup for all pilots every six months.  Demerest hates his brother-in-law, Mel, especially after Mel allows insurance vendors inside the airport. Demerest is convinced such a thing encourages bombers and wouldn't you know it? Despite his blunt, sometimes hostile, manner with Mel and subordinates, Demerest is tender with Gwen...he even thinks that he may love her back. Oh, and he may be a pompous pilot, but he puts that money where his mouth is. Even people who hate him know he's the best damned pilot out there. It's Demerest who keeps a cool head and devises a plan for taking out Guerrero. Will it work?

Originally played by: Golden Globe Nominee for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy (Who Was That Lady?)

Dean Martin (The Sons of Katie Elder, The Cannonball Run)

My Choice:

Jon Hamm (The Town, Sucker Punch)
Hamm playing a womanizer? Shocking! Mais serieuse, what I like about Hamm is his combination of the cad and the carer, as Demerest definitely is. Hell, get Jon Hamm and Matthew Fox in pilot's uniforms and you've got the female audience and half the male one (Pike in the stewardess uniform is the other half). Besides, Hamm's a pretty great actor, so the more we get of him, the better.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Best Actor: Don Cheadle, Jon Hamm

Best Supporting Actor: Paul Giamatti, William H. Macy

Best Supporting Actress: Kimberly Elise, Melissa Leo, Rosamund Pike, Tilda Swinton, Betty White

Gird Your Loins

This week, on the blog:

Casting Coup Month concludes with Airport (1970), a Coup very near and dear to my heart.

With the Oscars coming Sunday, it's obviously time for predictions and opinions.

And, of course, Thursday and Friday will be spent with The Hollmann Awards. Finally, I make my opinion known, according to my new ranking system. (Check out the nominees!)

"Hold the whipped cream; I just had dessert"

Did y'all read Tom's fascinating retrospective on the 1970 Oscars? Go there now, and you will find welcome reminders of great films honored (MASH) or given short shrift (The Landlord), thoughtful reflections on the significance of the nominees,  performance analyses that provide context, and much more. For some of you, it may provide a view/opinion on a film different from your own. If you're like me, though, you'll find a list of films that you've been meaning to see and never have, and since you don't want to be left out of the conversation...

The one movie I knew I had to get a hold of was Airport. I'd heard so much about the movie, the franchise, the Disaster Movie Craze it influenced. Something -- maybe Tom's write-up of the supporting actress nominees? -- something told me that now was the time.

Yet I knew I couldn't just watch Airport. This was an ensemble film based upon a novel -- a novel which I happened to have a copy of, a first edition paperback purchased on a whim from a used bookstore, still unread. What's more, the only actors that I knew were in it were Helen Hayes, Maureen Stapleton, Van Heflin and Dean Martin. I rarely get to a read a book without having actors already in mind. This was going to be a treat, coming up with my own point of view of how they should be cast; that cast will be coming next week for Casting Coup Month.

The book was a hell of a read, reminding me in its style and execution of a John D. MacDonald novel. He, too, wrote ensemble pieces built around a specific location or disaster, impending or otherwise. MacDonald is one of my favorite authors, too, so this comparison is high praise. Arthur Hailey is not concerned with good guys and bad guys -- well, except maybe for his depiction of a crooked lawyer left out of the film -- but with regular people, warts and all. Mel Bakersfeld is a hell of an airport general manager, but can't manage his own life (of course). Vernon Demerest may be a pompous, adulterous egoist, but he's a damn good pilot, can keep calm in an emergency, and has genuine feeling for his friends and loved ones. D.O. Guerrero may have a bomber, but he's a pitiful, desperate man in need of a hug. Or therapy. It's the kind of book that I would jump at the chance to adapt.

Being thus satisfied, I got the movie and took a look. And it's interesting, because many people poo-poo the trend of 1970s disaster flicks, and they look down on the Best Picture nominations for The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure and Airport. Burt Lancaster thought it his worst film, and Ebert wrote, "Once the bomber becomes ridiculous, the movie does, too. That's good, because it never had a chance at being anything else."

Frankly, fellas, I loved it. I loved the ensemble (well, ok, Jean Seberg wasn't very good), I loved the pacing, I loved the editing, I loved the adaptation -- in the book, it's explained in a paragraph that the name just called over the P.A. system is a code for when the airport needs to assemble its police officers for an emergency ("All members of so-and-so's party..."). In the movie? "Get security." "What's the code name again?" Cut to police officers reacting. Bam, bam, next case. Loved it.

THE TEMPLE IS INDESTRUCTIBLE

I loved the costumes -- Edith Head actually tried to put out an Airport Clothing Line that I absolutely would have owned. It failed, but I guess the 70s were a confusing time for everyone. I loved the Art Direction, so fascinatingly of its time, a look I've always been in love with. I loved the score by Alfred Newman, his final composition before his death, one that lost to Frances Lai's for Love Story. I guess I'll have to watch that one next because hot damn I loved Newman's score.

Helen Hayes won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress; Maureen Stapleton won the Golden Globe. I disagree with both of these (LEE GRANT IN THE LANDLORD) but I get it. Stapleton's final scene gripped me, leaving me horrified as I realized the full implications of what just transpired. Thank God writer-director George Seaton put it in, because the novel completely forgets her character after page 300. Hayes, meanwhile, is a hoot, clearly having a grand ol' time as an old-lady stowaway. I think a win is excessive, but she commits herself to it, and she's probably the best part of the movie. Besides Dean Martin, I mean.

It's a lot of fun, and clearly people in 1970 knew how to have a good time. The film was a box office triumph and went on to receive ten Academy Award Nominations, including Best Picture -- and that when the field was only five-wide! (Yeah, they didn't need extra slots to make sure awesome movies got in alongside "Oscar-appropriate" films; it was all Oscar-appropriate) There's nothing lofty about it. I mean, Burt Lancaster blathers on about how airports need to adapt to changing times, greater need for more runways, etc., etc. That stuff was kind of boring in the book, too. But we all know that the movie isn't really interested in that stuff. It want sot entertain you, to give you an all-star cast and watch him have a good time. And it does this well. Isn't that award-worthy? Well, ok no, it isn't. But I do insist that it's nomination-worthy.